Updated 11th April 2024: New links to the Suyu Emulator git repository.
We all know what was to come when Nintendo sued the company, Tropic Haze LLC, who where the developers behind the popular Citra and Yuzu emulators: Death was imminent.
Interestingly, Tropic Haze LLC has quite a history leading up to the court case. A quick web search with DuckDuckGo or Ecosia would reveal more information and allegations than what I want to discuss here.
Gone but not forgotten…
With the main websites of Citra and Yuzu gone, the question is where can you find the emulators from trustworthy outlets?
Well, this post details where to get the goods so you can continue enjoying a certain Nintendo consoles’ games on your non-Nintendo branded device.
Yuzu emulator Early Access
Early Access builds of Yuzu were always locked behind a Patreon paywall.
These releases were literally the freshest builds available – sometimes updating twice daily – rather than the mainline ones that were slowly trickled out to non-backers.
PineappleEA maintains a repository of Early Access builds. For behind the scenes on how early access actually worked, see their secrets repository.
The downside to these were no support since early access releases had their own support channels that weren’t available for the average user. The Yuzu team would sometimes froth at the mouth and chuck a tantrum at users using the Early Access versions, redistributed from pineappleEA.
Fortunately, the developers could not do anything about it since the emulator is licensed under GPL-3.
Suyu, a potential yuzu emulator successor
Suyu (pronounced “Sue You”, which is bloody clever) is an attempt at a revival of the citrus fruit Switch emulator.
It’s gaining a lot of traction, and the Git repository is quite active. Check their progress out on their own dedicated Forgejo instance.
Citra, the go-to 3DS emulator
Citra also was taken down by Tropic Haze, LLC as part of the Nintendo drama.
However, a mirror copy of the Citra source code exists located on GitHub as the citra-mirror repository.
For the last version that was available before the project was shut down (in the form of a nightly development version), version 2104 is available from the respective Archive.org entry here.
It is unclear if there’s anyone willing to pick up the baton to continue development for Nintendo 3DS emulation, but time will tell.
Coburn’s Thoughts
If you have the disk space and the technical know-how, I’d recommend taking a clone of the git repositories linked here.
That way, if you want to compile the emulator from source for whatever reason, you can still do so. It also helps preservation efforts.
Allow me to say this though, fuck Nintendo and their shitty business practices.
They need to get with the times, because they are stuck in the past. All hardware dies eventually. And when that happens, how do we play games from systems that have long since perished due to the sands of time?
The only way is through backups of the original code storage mediums, be it a ROM dump or an optical disc image. Pair the backup with a FPGA clone of the original hardware logic, or emulation software that can emulate the hardware as it was intended, and you can enjoy the games of your childhood.
The sad fact is that Nintendo uses emulation software in their products, such as the Switch Online NES, SNES, N64 and GBA expansion packs. Even Nintendo’s own Research & Development team (aka NERD) GBA emulator website says it’s a hardware emulator built for the Switch.
Yet when someone points it out, they froth at the mouth, chuck tantrums and threaten to shut up entities with their ninja lawyers. Enough’s enough.
I hope this was useful to you. Thanks for reading!