Weeks after the Switch 2 was jailbroken for the first time, Nintendo's latest system update has reportedly patched the exploit that could have allowed users to mod and dump games, putting a stop to those activities… at least for now.
The initial jailbreak in question was always limited. Legitimate game-programming app SmileBASIC 4 – which could be downloaded straight from the Switch eShop prior to this whole debacle – could essentially serve as a gateway for exploits that could let folks access parts of the Switch 2 that the average user really isn't meant to reach.
There was a catch, though – as a tethered jailbreak, it relied on the software and on it staying open – if you were to turn your system off, you'd have to repeat the entire jailbreak process when you turned it back on.
Even so, hackers were still able to use this to dump Switch 2 games and their assets, as well as mod games like Mario Kart World – in fact, one of the jailbreak's first documented uses was putting Hatsune Miku, Peter Griffin, and Sanrio character Cinnamoroll into Nintendo's racing game. Now, though, according to modder and dataminer OatmealDome, that should no longer be the case thanks to Switch 2 system update 23.5.0, which rolled out a few hours ago.
"The OS exploit used in the recent jailbreak has been patched in version 23.5.0," OatmealDome writes on Twitter. "Dumping and modding games will be impossible again from this point forward, with the exception of some cartridge games (and maybe game updates) that are released in the near future."
[Switch 2] The OS exploit used in the recent jailbreak has been patched in version 23.5.0. Dumping and modding games will be impossible again from this point forward, with the exception of some cartridge games (and maybe game updates) that are released in the near future.November 10, 2026
They report that game exploits, like the aforementioned SmileBASIC 4 one as well as an exploit tied to physical copies of Civilization 7, still exist, but "it is no longer possible to 'escape' the game starting with 23.5.0. This effectively means that the capabilities of homebrew are locked to whatever the game can do already (i.e. not much)."
There's no doubt that as far as Nintendo is concerned, this patch couldn't come soon enough. Mere hours after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, the game was running on PC after being dumped from a Switch 2 copy, which I can't imagine the house of Mario was particularly pleased about.
But the question is, is Pandora's box now open? With exploits and the like, we often tend to see that striking down one thing just leads to another three appearing – just look at the literal thousands of clones of Switch emulator Yuzu that surfaced after Nintendo took down the original.
Some have also claimed that this update may not be as effective as you might think. According to Twitter account SwitchTools, it'll still be possible to dump new physical games on this firmware – though Game Key Cards will be immune. "Digital games, updates, and DLC cannot be downloaded and dumped without [Nintendo Switch Online]," they say.
Beyond that, multiple users online are expressing that they'll not be updating their system in order to keep access to the exploit, so it may not have been a perfect fix for Nintendo regardless.
