Nintendo Switch emulator Ryujinx has seemingly ceased development and been pulled offline, following an alleged reach out to its creator from Nintendo itself.
This news would follow the high-profile shutdown of another Switch emulator – Yuzu on that occasion – earlier this year, with that instance seeing Nintendo go the full lawsuit route and come to a settlement that saw Yuzu’s creator agree to a settlement which predicated on the project ceasing to be a thing.
After users noticed that Ryujinx’s Github and download pages were beginning to return error messages or in the case of the latter, a literal blank space, a message on the emulator’s Discord server from a developer with the handle riperiperi that seemingly explains the situation has been shared by Ryujinx’s Twitter account.
“Yesterday, [Ryujinx’s lead developer] gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organisation and all related assets he’s in control of,” the message read, “While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it’s safe to say what the outcome is.”
“There words are my own. I don’t want to speak for anyone else here, so just remember that while reading,” riperiperi continued, before giving what looks to be a eulogy for the project. As of writing, while trying to access the aformentioned pages returns what I outlined in that paragraph, Ryujinx’s Patreon page and website homepage haven’t been taken down.
Both The Verge and Kotaku’s Ethan Gach report attempts to reach out to Nintendo about this as having resulted in the console maker declining to comment, and pointing them to a spokesperson or spokespeople for the ESA (Entertainment Software Association), who stated that they couldn’t speak on behalf of Nintendo. In Gach’s case, the ESA spokesperson also provided a general statement about copyright piracy.
