nx2android 0.2.0 ports your own copies of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Metroid Dread and Super Mario Odyssey to Android as native apps

A project we hadn't covered yet is picking up attention this week: nx2android by shirai91, a tool that takes a Nintendo Switch game you own and turns it into a native Android app. Its 0.2.0 release (October 31) added eight games, among them Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Metroid Dread and Super Mario Odyssey, and coverage picked up on November 3. The developer lists all three as playable at 60 fps on a Lenovo Legion Y700 tablet (Snapdragon 8 Elite, Adreno 830). Pokémon Legends: Arceus runs at 30 fps on the Switch.

How it works

nx2android isn't an emulator, and it isn't a game-by-game recompilation like the ports in our directory. The Switch runs arm64 code, and so do Android phones, so nx2android keeps the game's own code and runs it directly on the device. A host layer stands in for the Switch's system services, and the game's NVN graphics calls are replayed on Vulkan. It's the Android version of nxnative, which does the same on iPhone and iPad. Each game still needs its own fixes, so only games on the supported list work. Anything else isn't supported yet.

New in 0.2.0

• Eight new games: Pokémon Legends: Arceus (update 1.1.1, 60 fps), Metroid Dread (2.1.0, 60 fps), Super Mario Odyssey (1.4.1, 60 fps; shake the device to throw Cappy), Paper Mario: The Origami King, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, both UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH games, and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, which is marked work in progress because walls flicker black for single frames.
• A macOS app for Apple silicon Macs, next to the Windows one.
• A save manager for moving saves between the device and the PC. The in-game pause menu can export and import saves in the same folder layout console save tools use.
• Fallbacks for Vulkan 1.1 drivers that lack timeline semaphores or BC texture support.

What you need

• A Windows PC or an Apple silicon Mac to run the porting tool. Its Setup tab downloads the Android NDK, the .NET SDK and platform-tools (about 1 GB) from Google and Microsoft.
• Your own game files (NSP, XCI, NSZ or XCZ, with the update the list asks for) and your own prod.keys, dumped from your own Switch. The tool never ships or downloads either, and Overclocked doesn't link them.
• An Android device whose GPU reads BC-compressed textures: Adreno (Snapdragon) or Xclipse (Exynos 2200 and later). The README says Mali and PowerVR can't run these games, so MediaTek and Unisoc handhelds are out for now.
• A USB cable with USB debugging on if you want the tool to install the APK for you. You can also copy the APK and data folder yourself.

Our take

Native Switch code on a Snapdragon handheld is a big deal for handhelds like the AYN Odin 3, AYN Thor and Retroid Pocket 6, all on Adreno GPUs. All the developer's results come from one high-end tablet with a fan, though, so expect lower and less steady frame rates on phones without active cooling. The README says plainly that you must dump your own games and keys and must not share the APKs or data packs you build, since they contain the game. It also notes that Nintendo's takedowns so far have targeted project hosts, not players, and that whether decrypting your own games is legal depends on where you live. Download only from the official release page. For emulation instead, see our Eden setup guide, and our ports directory has more native ports.

Sources: nx2android v0.2.0 release notes, nx2android README, handheld.guru (via iXBT). Facts verified against the original reports; written by Overclocked.