Don't expect Switch 2 emulation to hit as fast as it did for Switch 1, as fan devs are already warning "THIS PROJECT WILL NOT BE READY FOR A DECADE MINIMUM"

Mario Kart World screenshot showing a racer almost getting eaten by a dinosaur — (Image credit: Nintendo)

The original Switch had a piracy problem. Most gaming platforms do, but the Switch was pretty unique in that some robust emulators were available during the platform's life which allowed pirates to play improved versions of official releases from the day they launched – sometimes even earlier. While some devs are trying to get Switch 2 emulators up and running, they're already warning that this could be a much, much longer process.

There are currently two Switch 2 emulation projects of note, both of which have pages on GitHub. oboromi describes itself as a "work-in-progress emulator foundation," while Pound is "an early-stage emulator." Pound also recently updated its page with a bold, all-caps warning: "IMPORTANT: THIS PROJECT WILL NOT BE READY FOR A DECADE MINIMUM!"

What's holding things up? That's pretty tough to tell from a layman's perspective, but it seems that Nintendo has upped security measures for Switch 2 in ways that would specifically thwart the types of hacks that opened up the original Switch. If developers can't hack a Switch 2 to get a solid look at its inner workings, they're going to have a very hard time figuring out how to replicate those workings in an emulator.

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The assertions that you'll find floating around that "Switch 2 won't get hacked" are certainly premature, but barring a sudden, shocking discovery about the system, we're probably not looking at a repeat of what happened with Switch 1. In that case, multiple emulator projects had already made serious development progress within a year of the system's launch, and within a few years its games were often running far better on PC than on their native platform.

Combined with extensive piracy of pre-launch Switch games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you start to see why Nintendo took an even heavier hand than usual against Switch 1 emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx. Emulators are, themselves, perfectly legal – it's when you start distributing copyrighted games and system software that you've tipped over into piracy. Nintendo alleged that Yuzu made illegal use of Switch's decryption keys, and while that argument was never actually tested in court, it was enough to get the Yuzu devs to agree to a $2.4 million settlement.

Emulators are an essential tool in ensuring games remain playable for generations to come, but their use in playing pirated games is equally impossible for publishers to ignore. I've no doubt that someday in the future a fully functional Switch 2 emulator will be out there – but perhaps it's best for all involved that you won't be using one to play Mario Kart World for free in 2025.