Andy Walker / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Since the Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra shut down in March, many forks have appeared to continue development.
- Two popular Citra forks, Lime3DS and PabloMK7, are now closing down development.
- The two developers will work together to create a new, unified project with features from both standalone forks.
It’s been a rough year for Nintendo emulation fans, with emulators getting shuttered left and right. This week, two more Nintendo 3DS emulators, PabloMK7 and Lime3DS, are also being dropped by their respective developers, but for a completely different reason.
Both emulators are forks of the most popular Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra, which was shut down in the wake of the Yuzu case. Since it was open-source, new developers quickly picked up the project and implemented new features. However, as is the case with PabloMK7 and Lime3DS, these efforts were often done in parallel, effectively doubling the work for the same result.
Now, the two developers are combining their efforts to make a new Nintendo 3DS emulator (via Reddit). Details are still thin, but here is the announcement made on Discord:
…this new Citra fork is a collaborative effort between both Lime3DS and PabloMK7’s fork to create a new, unified project. No longer will development be fragmented between these forks, and instead all progress will be made in a single coordinated effort.
This is great news for Nintendo 3DS fans, since emulation is now one of the best ways to play N3DS games. Nintendo shut down the eShop for the 3DS and Wii U in March 2023, so your options to play these games are limited. That same fact may also protect this new emulator from Nintendo’s legal team, but only time will tell.
