Yuzu, a popular Nintendo Switch emulator, is ceasing development following a lawsuit submitted by Nintendo against its developer. Yuzu has since settled the case for $2.4 million with its Patreon, websites, and all official distribution channels for the emulator set to be taken down. The group also revealed that Citra, a 3DS emulator made by the same developers, will also cease development.

In a statement shared on both the team's official Discord and on X (formerly Twitter), lead developer bunnei said the following.

Piracy was never our intention, and we believe that piracy of video games and on video game consoles should end. Effective today, we will be pulling our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and, soon, shutting down our websites. We hope our actions will be a small step toward ending piracy of all creators’ works.

The end of the road for Yuzu and Citra

Yuzu is a Nintendo Switch emulator that is available on both PC and on Android. It was a free-to-use emulator that allows users to play Switch games on many devices that those games weren't intended for, and that included games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Yuzu does not offer pirated games itself and also requires users to source their own decryption keys to run those games, but Nintendo alleged that the developers still facilitated software piracy in directing users to software they could use to get those keys from their own devices.

Emulators have many uses outside of pirating games, such as allowing users to play their own library of games on the go on other systems. They can also facilitate modding, where users can increase the resolution of games, modify them to add additional functionality or features, and more. While there are currently other Nintendo Switch emulators available, it's unclear if they will also cease development in order to appease Nintendo.

As for the 3DS, development on Citra more or less ended quite a long time ago. While there are arguments to be made that the Nintendo Switch being an actively-supported system means that there doesn't need to be an emulator for it, the 3DS is officially at the end of its life. It's no longer sold, and Nintendo's online services for that handheld have now been taken down as well.

With Nintendo's lawsuit having sparked conversation around the legality of emulation, many hoped that Yuzu would fight it and get a clear answer once and for all. Now, that won't be the case.