Switch emulator Ryujinx taken down after alleged contact with Nintendo

Following Nintendo’s bombshell success against the Yuzu Switch emulator in court earlier this year and the subsequent Yuzu repo takedown spree, it seems that some direct contact with the lead developers of the Ryujinx Switch emulator was all it took to prompt the voluntary removal of all current and past Ryujinx downloads— no court case required.

According to a Discord message written for the Ryujinx server (and reposted to the Ryujinx Twitter with additional context, embedded below), developer gdkchan was the one directly contacted by Nintendo, who offered an unspecified “agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he’s in control of.”

Nintendo finally finding a way to kill Ryujinx shouldn’t be all that surprising. Also, within the past few days, Nintendo has been seen significantly upping the ante against emulation to the point where even random YouTubers like Retro Game Corps are being hit with copyright strikes for showcasing Nintendo console emulation, per Time Extension. While no additional court cases have yet to be brought against YouTubers or emulation developers, it’s clear that Nintendo is eager to swing its weight around now that Yuzu is out of the picture.

Some argue that Ryujinx might have had better chances in court since the Ryujinx devs didn’t make all the same mistakes as Yuzu devs. However, considering the shaky legal status of emulation, it’s probably best for the entire community that Ryujinx didn’t take this to court, lest a new legal precedent be set and weaponized against game preservation. It’s likely also best for the developers, who almost certainly did not have the budget for a legal battle with The Big N.

On a bittersweet note, the Ryujinx developers also shared several in-progress features in the Twitter thread that would have eventually come to Ryujinx had it not been unceremoniously killed. These features included working Android and iOS ports, connecting an emulated console to an actual console for networking purposes, and starting to run native Switch applets. These are the highlights shared of “over 100 unmerged PRs” before the death of Ryujinx.