First public Switch 2 emulator builds: Eden fork Eglantine runs Mario Kart World, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave

Since October 29, 2026, the first Switch 2 emulator builds you can actually download have appeared: eden-nx2, Eglantine, Eden-NS2, PokeDinner and an Android port called Eden SX2A. All of them are unofficial forks of Eden. As of November 3, the fastest mover, Eglantine, is on build 168: Mario Kart World has working LAN play, Pokemon Pokopia and Splatoon Raiders get in-game, and Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment have started rendering gameplay. But every build is a pre-release with stutter, glitches and crashes. Eden-NS2 has been archived, the Android port is no longer maintained, Eden itself does not support Switch 2, and fake repos impersonating these projects are already circulating.

November 5 update

As of the afternoon of November 5, 2026 (Beijing time):

• Eglantine reached its first numbered pre-release. After builds 205 to 212 on November 4 (build 205 fixed Donkey Kong Bananza's purple screen and hangs; build 212 got Mario Kart World 1.8.0 packed as NUP to the title screen), Eglantine shipped v0.1.0-rc1 late on November 4 (UTC). It removes the "use the game's own DLSS" toggle and always uses the game's DLSS when it can. Within hours, users reported big slowdowns compared with build 212, such as Fire Emblem dropping from 50+ fps to 8-10 fps; the developers hadn't reached a conclusion yet.
• Lichii runs Star Fox. Build 70 (November 4) of this Eglantine fork got Star Fox rendering; DSOGaming reported a constant 30 fps on a Ryzen 5 9600X + RTX 3070. Build 75 (November 5) raises gameplay to 60 fps, per its developer.
• Ocarina of Time got in-game on release day. Lichii build 75 is the first released build that takes the new Ocarina of Time past the intro and into the game, at 12-22 fps per its developer and with washed-out visuals. Eglantine's own released builds still stop at a black "Launching..." screen. Details: Ocarina of Time on Switch 2 emulators.
• Elsewhere: the author of the Android port Eden SX2A has moved on to Banana Native, an Android port of nxnative. GitHub's DMCA archive still has no notice naming the forks (checked through notices processed on November 4).

The current version table is on Eden Switch 2 forks. The rest of this article describes the situation as of November 3.

Timeline

The forks: platforms and games

Performance below comes from each project's own notes and player reports. Nobody has run controlled tests, and results vary a lot between PCs.

eden-nx2: the first public build

On October 29, user Takoroka published an "NX2 release" from a personal repo on Eden's self-hosted code server. The account was registered that same day, and the release went up on the evening Eden opened registration. The release notes call it "experimental switch 2 integration for eden" that "needs a lot of fixes," and say some models are missing because shaders aren't implemented yet.

There is a single Windows x64 package. It asks for 64-bit Windows 10 or 11, a Vulkan GPU with at least 8 GB of VRAM and at least 16 GB of RAM. No new release has followed and development moved to Eglantine and other forks. On November 1, Takoroka also opened a VRAM-related pull request on Eglantine.

Eglantine: the fastest mover

Eglantine's GitHub repo was created on October 29 and describes itself as a "very experimental Nintendo Switch 2 emulator." The press generally treats it as the continuation of the eden-nx2 line. It ships a pre-release build almost every hour: the oldest surviving one, build 28, dates from October 30; it hit build 94 on November 1 and build 168 on November 3. Its GitHub stars went from about 1,450 on November 1 to about 2,620 on November 3. Twenty of its last 100 commits credited Claude when we counted on November 1, and the community widely describes the project as heavily AI-written.

Per the release notes, the main changes from November 1 to 3:

• Platforms: Apple silicon Mac builds were fixed and started shipping on November 1, with .dmg packages from November 2. Linux memory use dropped sharply. Support for the .nup file format was added. Build 142 completed the Japanese UI translation, build 158 made handheld mode the default, and build 168 added rumble for Switch 2 games.
• Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave: all 23 changes in build 121 (November 2) went to this game. It now gets past initialization and renders 3D scenes, the sky, health bars and cutscenes at its intended 30 fps (it previously ran at double speed). The game's built-in DLSS doesn't work, so build 167 substitutes AMD FSR 3.1. A user reports (issue #368) that builds 135, 158 and 167 all crash when the prologue calendar animation ends.
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment: from build 158, gameplay renders again. Before that, the scene was only visible behind the pause menu.
• Mario Kart World: build 158 fixed stutters of up to 4 seconds, and from build 167 LAN play (room mode) works.
• Other games: Splatoon Raiders got its shadows, crosshair and steam back, plus a vertex fix on AMD GPUs; Donkey Kong Bananza had a crash and an error-on-exit after cutscenes fixed; Mario Tennis Fever's distant scenery was fixed; GPU-decoded cutscenes no longer turn green.

Earlier fixes: build 77 stopped Mario Kart World from exhausting VRAM on AMD GPUs after a few minutes, and build 83 fixed moving objects getting stuck and wrong collisions. XDA called Eglantine the best fork for Mario Kart World, citing footage that ran "surprisingly well" with some stutter and no major graphical issues. The "full speed" in Wccftech's headline comes from the project's own claim and player videos, and depends heavily on hardware.

Eden-NS2: archived

Eden-NS2 also appeared on GitHub on October 29. It is source-only with no release builds. Its README had the most detailed game table of any fork, but those are self-reported: one X user said Splatoon Raiders crashes on its loading screen, which contradicts the README's "stable 60 fps."

When checked on November 3, the repo had been archived (read-only). Its last commit is from October 31 and the README gives no reason. Archived is not deleted; the repo is still visible. Some of its code, such as the audio renderer, has already been pulled into Eglantine.

PokeDinner and the Android port

PokeDinner is an Eglantine fork hosted on Eden's code server. It shipped 1.0.0 on October 30, focuses on Pokemon Pokopia and has an Apple silicon Mac build. Version 2.5.0 on November 3 adds a 30 fps lock and dynamic frame rate.

The Android port eden-nx2-android shipped v0.1 on October 31; v0.3.0 on November 1 was renamed Eden SX2A. Its release notes say it is "an unofficial experimental build, not Eden, and not supported by the Eden team," and that it was "mostly written with an AI coding assistant (Claude)." It needs Android 13 or newer, and its base changed three times in two days: eden-nx2, then Eden-NS2, then PokeDinner. The notes for v0.3.2 on November 2 read "Final release, unmaintained."

Forks of the fork

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

• Lichii: formerly Zortos's (zortos293) Eglantine fork, renamed on November 2. The author claims "up to 2x frame rate, 60 fps in most games" and that Fire Emblem is now playable, though Fire Emblem still crashes in the prologue on mainline Eglantine.
• selevet: a fork 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."

A different route: nxnative

All of these forks emulate the Switch 2. nxnative takes the native route instead: it turns games into programs that run directly, without an emulator. It added Switch 2 support on October 31 and is officially tested on Mac only. See nxnative adds Switch 2 support.

Where Eden stands

Eden does not support Switch 2. As of November 3, Eden's stable release is still v0.2.1 (June 1, 2026). Its nightlies stopped after October 18 and resumed on November 1 and 3. Both play original Switch games only.

Eden's Switch 2 pull requests:

• #4588, "WIP: Switch 2 test build": opened October 30 with about 37,000 added lines across 308 files. Still a draft, not merged. On October 31, Eden co-founder Camille LaVey began reviewing it. She said it needs GMEM support for the original Switch 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": opened November 1 and closed by its author the same day, who wrote that a lot needed to be redone, with too much to compare against and too little to verify, and that anyone was welcome to open a new PR.
• Smaller PRs have since been opened (#4619 and #4622, covering basics like recognizing the Switch 2 format). Both are awaiting review.

A core member reviewing the code shows the Eden team isn't rejecting Switch 2 work, but a merge is a long way off. The forks use Eden's code and carry its name, but they have nothing to do with the Eden team. On November 1, Eden also tightened its contribution rules: AI-written code is allowed, but PR descriptions, issues and comments must be written by a human. For the earlier background, see Eden's Switch 2 test build PR.

What the press got wrong

Fake repos are already here

As soon as real projects appeared, impostors followed:

• EglantineEmu/Eglantine-Switch-Emulator (GitHub, created October 30): a keyword-stuffed description, a "v0.2.1" version number that doesn't match real Eglantine build numbers, and a single zip. Its very first issue asks whether it's real or malware. The real Eglantine is under GitHub user Djihads80.
• A SourceForge project called "Mario Kart World MKW Recomp" that is actually a repackaged Switch 2 emulator build of unknown origin.
• An itch.io page called "Mario kart world for pc" that tells you to download and run a "Loader.exe" from an unknown repo, a classic malware delivery trick.

Modern Vintage Gamer warned on October 30 that downloads of these new emulators are likely to carry malware. The real forks are free and open source, with per-build release notes. Anything that asks you to pay, fill in a survey or run a lone Loader.exe is not one of them. More on this in Fake Switch 2 emulator scams.

Nintendo's side

• VideoCardz wrote on October 30 that the Switch 2 demo videos embedded in its October 28 article (Mario Kart World on Mac and iPhone, Splatoon Raiders on PC and others) had all been removed from X. "Nintendo is reportedly issuing copyright takedowns on Switch 2 content, but we can't confirm the reason for each video's removal." NoobFeed reported something similar on October 28; the number and scope of notices couldn't be independently confirmed.
• GitHub's public DMCA archive shows no new Nintendo notice after October 23. As of November 3, the eden-nx2 and Eglantine repos are still up, and Eden-NS2 is archived rather than removed.

What this means for players

The answer to "is there a Switch 2 emulator yet" has changed from "no" to "there are experimental builds, the list of working games is growing, and they're still very unstable." In two days Eglantine went from build 94 to 168, and games that wouldn't get anywhere before, like Fire Emblem and Hyrule Warriors, now show gameplay. Still, a game that works in one build often breaks in the next, and the hardware bar is high (eden-nx2 asks for 8 GB of VRAM and 16 GB of RAM). For details on each fork, see Eden Switch 2 forks. For per-game results, see Mario Kart World, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. For the bigger picture, see Switch 2 emulation status, and before you click any download page, read how to spot fake emulator sites. For original Switch games, the official Eden release is still the pick.