Devs of axed Nintendo DS emulators join forces for new Android emulation project

Citra, a well-known Nintendo 3DS emulator for Android, shut down earlier this year along with Yuzu, but, by some miracle, several forks of the project managed to slip Nintendo's gaze. Now, though, both Lime3DS and PabloMK are both shutting down, although Nintendo's legal team seems to have nothing to do with it in this case. 

According to a post on X from PabloMK7 and an announcement in the public Lime3DS Discord, the two emulator projects will both cease development, with the developers now working together on a new 3DS emulator for Android. As of the time of writing, the new emulator does not yet have a name, but the developer behind Lime3DS promises to share more information about the new project in the coming weeks. 

"I have some exciting news to share about the future of the project.

You may have seen on Twitter that PabloMK7 recently posted about the discontinuation of his Citra fork in favor of a new project.

I am happy to announce that this new project won't be a solo endeavour, as 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.

As a result of this, development of Lime3DS will also be discontinued, and development time after the release of the 2119 update will be focused on getting this new project off of the ground.

On release, the new emulator will contain features from both forks, so prior development efforts will not be lost in the transition.

Further details of this new project will be shared in the coming weeks, and we hope you look forward to learning more about it."

Interestingly, the development unit has confirmed that the new project will inherit the community and Google Play Store page from Lime3DS, and existing users of Lime3DS will be able to upgrade to the new emulator project seamlessly via a Play Store update. It's currently unclear, though, how save files and similar in-game data transfers will work, although niche emulation communities are generally technically capable enough to navigate migrations of that nature. So far, the community seems pretty excited about the notion of a new emulator from the developer duo, since both of the former projects were popular in the emulation community. 

If you're into Android Nintendo console emulation, check out the delightfully retro Retroid Pokcket 4 Pro (curr. $249.99 on Amazon).