Recently, “The Legend of Zelda Kingdom Tears” leaked through unofficial channels on the Internet, and Nintendo immediately took action, requiring all platforms to remove and remove content related to the sneaking incident of “Kingdom Tears”. Perhaps due to the sudden incident, Nintendo recently implemented copyright protection measures again and asked Lockpick to be removed from the shelves. Lockpick is a Switch self-made project that allows users to “export” their own digital keys from the Switch console and load them on emulators such as Ryujinx and Yuzu on personal computers.
Nintendo believes that Lockpick can evade the protection program of the Switch console, causing users to play unofficial Switch games on modified consoles or other systems. Ironically, many users have reported that the only way to legally emulate Switch games is now Lockpick, because it only allows users to transfer digital rights from the console to another platform, such as PC. With Lockpick disabled, emulator users are thus forced to hunt for pirated keys.
Lockpick has just been taken down on GitHub.
At the same time, Nintendo’s actions forced the Skyline team’s development to stop, to avoid any potential legal risks. Skyline is a popular Switch emulator for Android, and the Skyline team announced on Discord that the team will end emulator development. While the emulator itself is legal, the team says they run the risk of potentially violating Nintendo’s copyrights. Codebase or software versions will not be purged. However, due to the end of development, there will not be any performance or compatibility upgrades in the future.
But now the PC-side Switch emulator Ryujinx has officially stated that it will not stop development, and Yuzu has not made any statement. The Legend of Zelda Kingdom Tears supports 4K/60 FPS on Yuzu and Ryujinx emulators, but only on high-end PCs.