Eden Switch 2 forks explained: Eglantine, Lichii, eden-nx2, PokeDinner, Eden-NS2 and Eden SX2A

"Eden Switch 2 forks" is our name for the wave of unofficial Eden forks that appeared from October 29, 2026: eden-nx2, Eglantine, Lichii, Eden-NS2, PokeDinner and the Android port Eden SX2A. They are the first publicly downloadable emulator builds that boot Switch 2 games. As of November 5, 2026, the main line, Eglantine, has moved from hourly builds (build 212) to its first numbered pre-release, v0.1.0-rc1. It runs Mario Kart World (60 fps on a strong PC, per DSOGaming), Donkey Kong Bananza, Pokemon Pokopia, Splatoon Raiders and Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment has started rendering gameplay, and build 194 fixed boot hangs and missing text in Mario Tennis Fever. Its fork Lichii is the first to run Star Fox, and its build 75 is the first released build that gets The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in-game, though slowly and with washed-out visuals. Eden-NS2 has been archived and the Android port is no longer maintained. None of them are made by the Eden team. Every build is a pre-release, the code base shifts almost daily, and stutter, glitches and crashes are normal.

We cover them on one page because these projects fork from and merge code into each other constantly, and tracking any single one goes stale fast. None of them has an official website.

Where they came from

On October 21-22, 2026, the Switch 2 software exploit ns2jb went public, letting people read files off their own consoles. On October 29, Eden opened registration on its self-hosted code server, and the same day user Takoroka posted eden-nx2 there: the first public build that boots Switch 2 games. Over the next few days Eglantine and Eden-NS2 appeared on GitHub, and PokeDinner and the Android port branched off from those. By early November, work was consolidating around Eglantine: it absorbed part of Eden-NS2's code before Eden-NS2 was archived, and eden-nx2's author Takoroka started sending PRs to Eglantine.

All of them build on Eden's code (yuzu, then Eden) and keep its GPL-3.0 license. Several say openly that they lean on AI: 20 of Eglantine's last 100 commits credited Claude when counted on November 1, and the Android port's release notes say it was "mostly written with an AI coding assistant (Claude)."

The forks at a glance (as of November 5, 2026)

A few notes:

• The game column comes from each project's README, release notes and player reports. There are no independent controlled tests. For example, Eglantine's release notes say Fire Emblem renders in 3D, but a user reports (issue #368) that builds 135, 158 and 167 all crash when the prologue calendar animation ends. One X user also reported that Splatoon Raiders crashes on its loading screen in Eden-NS2, which contradicts the README's "stable 60 fps."
• The press generally treats Eglantine as the continuation of the eden-nx2 line, but neither project documents the exact lineage. Eden-NS2 is a separate line.
• According to its release notes, Eglantine has also added .nup file format support, a Japanese UI (build 142), handheld mode as the default (build 158), rumble for Switch 2 games (build 168), the 1.8.0 version of Mario Kart World and NSP containers (build 174), NVIDIA DLSS in place of a game's DLSS in the Windows MSVC download (build 187) and Fire Emblem's own DLSS network (build 194). Android APKs appeared with build 171, but publishing was paused again in build 175.

Eglantine from build 205 to v0.1.0-rc1 (November 4)

Within hours, users opened several issues about rc1 running much slower than build 212: Fire Emblem dropping from 50+ fps to 8-10 fps on an RTX 30-series card (#586), a GTX 1080 Ti going from 13 fps to 3 fps in the same scene (#595), and Mario Kart World losing frames. These are user reports; as of the afternoon of November 5 (Beijing time) the developers hadn't concluded anything. If rc1 is slower for you, build 212 is the build just before it. A separate test build renames the data folder from "eden" to "eglantine" and shows a migration prompt, so expect that change in a coming release.

None of these builds includes the fix that lets Ocarina of Time start (PR #567, merged early on November 5 Beijing time). On build 212 and rc1 the game stops at a black "Launching..." window with a Userspace PANIC (issue #574); as of the afternoon of November 5 Eglantine hadn't published a build with the fix.

Lichii

Lichii is an Eglantine fork by zortos293, created on October 31 and renamed from "Zortos's Eglantine fork" on November 2. Early on, the author claimed "up to 2x frame rate, 60 fps in most games" and that Fire Emblem is playable. It is the fork the press now names most often:

• Build 70 (November 4): Star Fox goes from a black screen to rendering, with controller input working. DSOGaming reported on November 5 that this is the first time Star Fox runs on any Eglantine fork; in the video it covered (Ryzen 5 9600X + RTX 3070) it holds a constant 30 fps "without any graphical glitches." Known issues in the release notes: gameplay capped at about 30 fps, and RTX 50-series cards can lose the GPU device on scene changes. The same build fixes crashes after cutscenes in Donkey Kong Bananza, a white world in Kirby Air Riders and a GPU device loss in Mario Tennis Fever.
• Build 75 (November 5): Star Fox gameplay runs at 60 fps instead of 30 (developer claim). It is also the first released build that gets The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in-game: per the release notes it "boots, gets through the intro and plays," at 12-22 fps on a Ryzen 9 5900X + RTX 3080 (developer claim), with far too much fog and glow outdoors. Users report the 3D view going black in handheld mode; switching to docked mode makes it render on NVIDIA cards, but slowly, while on an AMD RX 5700 the screen still goes black after starting a new game. The Linux ARM build on an AYN Thor handheld shows only a black screen. Full story: Ocarina of Time on Switch 2 emulators.

Forks of the fork

Eglantine has spawned more forks of its own. Everything below is the authors' own claims, with no independent testing:

• Orchid (MythosOfs): split off from zortos293's Eglantine and focused first on Mario Tennis Fever. Its 0.7.0 (November 4) gets Star Fox to show stable frames before it crashes shortly after.
• selevet: tuned for Zen 3 CPUs plus an RTX 3050. Some users say Mario Kart World and Splatoon Raiders hold a stable 60 fps.
• A Steam Deck fork: built specifically for the Deck. Its author notes the Deck has only 8 GB of shared VRAM, while the games themselves need over 7 GB.
• EglantinePS5: a port to Linux on hacked PS5s. The author says one game went from 4 fps to 10-12 fps, "barely playable."
• There is also a version that cuts Eglantine's memory use (its author says from over 20 GB to 4-5 GB, and Welcome Tour boots) and a repo porting to Xbox developer mode. Information on those is thin.

Per-game details live on the game pages: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Star Fox, Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, Pokemon Pokopia, Splatoon Raiders, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour.

Hardware

Most of these forks don't publish requirements. Here is everything on record:

In practice, plan on at least what eden-nx2 asks for, and more VRAM and RAM helps; the Steam Deck fork's author also says the games themselves need over 7 GB of VRAM. The Android port is no longer maintained; its author now works on Banana Native, an Android port of nxnative that runs games natively rather than emulating them. For original Switch games, see hardware requirements; Switch 2 asks for noticeably more.

Where Eden stands

None of these forks come from the Eden team, and Eden doesn't support them. They use Eden's code, some live on Eden's code server (anyone can create a repo there since registration opened), and several carry Eden's name, which is why so many people assume they're official.

Eden's own status as of November 4, 2026:

• The stable release is still v0.2.1 (June 1, 2026). Nightlies paused after October 18, resumed on November 1 and have shipped daily since (latest November 4). Both play original Switch games only.
• #4588, "WIP: Switch 2 test build" (October 30, about 37,000 lines) is still an unmerged draft. Eden co-founder Camille LaVey began reviewing it on October 31. She said GMEM support for the original Switch has to come first, that the team should set a roadmap with the fork authors, and that "only around 40%" of the code is genuinely useful for Switch 2 compatibility.
• #4611, "WIP: Switch 2 Support" (November 1) was closed by its author the same day, who said too much needed redoing and too little could be verified. Since then, only small PRs such as recognizing the Switch 2 format (#4619, #4622) are awaiting review.

So "Eden supports Switch 2" is wrong, but so is "Eden wants nothing to do with it": core members are looking at the code, though a merge is far off. Another common mix-up is "Camille LaVey made Eglantine." Eglantine's README copied Eden's description, and "started by Camille LaVey" refers to Eden. For the full story, see First public Switch 2 emulator builds and Eden's Switch 2 test build PR.

A different route: nxnative

All of these forks are emulators. nxnative takes the native route: it turns games into native programs that run directly, rather than emulating them. It added Switch 2 support on October 31 and is officially tested on Mac only; as of November 5 it lists nine Switch 2 games, Star Fox among them. See nxnative adds Switch 2 support.

Telling real from fake

Impostors showed up as soon as the real projects did. As of November 5, the actual maintainers are:

Known impostors and suspicious downloads:

• EglantineEmu/Eglantine-Switch-Emulator (GitHub, created October 30): a keyword-stuffed description, a "v0.2.1" version that doesn't match real Eglantine build numbers, and a single zip. Its very first issue asks whether it's real or malware.
• "Mario Kart World MKW Recomp" on SourceForge: called a recomp, but actually a repackaged Switch 2 emulator build of unknown origin.
• "Mario kart world for pc" on itch.io: tells you to download and run a "Loader.exe" from an unknown repo.
• "Eden-NX2 download" pages on assorted download sites.

How to tell: the real forks are free and open source, with per-build release notes. They have no official websites and no paid versions. Anything that asks you to pay, fill in a survey for an "unlock code," disable your antivirus, or run a lone Loader.exe or Launcher.exe is not one of them. Now that Eden-NS2 is archived and Eden SX2A is unmaintained, be extra careful with any "new version" carrying those names. Modern Vintage Gamer also warned on October 30 that downloads of these new emulators are likely to carry malware. More patterns in how to spot fake emulator sites and Fake Switch 2 emulator scams.

Stability and risks

• The base changes daily. The Android port switched its base three times in two days (eden-nx2, then Eden-NS2, then PokeDinner), and Eglantine ships well over a dozen builds a day. A game that works today may break in tomorrow's build. There is no compatibility list either; Eglantine says one will come later.
• Projects can stop at any time. Eden-NS2 was archived on November 3 and Eden SX2A stopped after its November 2 release, each just days after appearing.
• Everything is a pre-release. No fork has shipped a stable release. Graphical glitches, missing models and crashes during loading are the norm.
• DMCA risk. As of November 5 (notices processed through November 4), GitHub's public DMCA archive has no notice naming these forks. But Nintendo has taken down Switch emulator repos with DMCA notices several times in 2026, and VideoCardz reported on October 30 that Switch 2 demo videos had vanished from X, reportedly through Nintendo copyright claims. These projects could disappear or be renamed at any time, and renames are exactly when impostor repos multiply.
• Game versions matter. Some claims name a game version (Eden-NS2 lists Mario Kart World 1.8.0, while the Android port tested 1.0.0), and results may differ between versions.

Who it's for

• People curious about Switch 2 emulation progress, with a strong PC and patience for crashes: Eglantine is the main line to watch, and Lichii is where Star Fox and Ocarina of Time first got in-game.
• Apple silicon Mac users: Eglantine and PokeDinner both have Mac builds, though they're very unstable. nxnative's native route is the other option to look at.
• People who want to play Switch 2 games reliably: a real Switch 2 is still the only option.
• People who want to play original Switch games on PC or phone: use the official Eden release. These forks' changes are all aimed at Switch 2. See the best Switch emulators in 2026.

For the wider Switch 2 picture (Pound, oboromi and other projects, plus nxnative's native ports), see Switch 2 emulation status.