Available to users who backed the project via Patreon, these builds featured experimental optimizations, cutting-edge graphics fixes, and early support for newly launched games. The final Early Access build was EA 4176 , dropped just days before the project’s sudden shutdown. Key Milestones in the Yuzu Release Timeline
On March 4, 2024, Nintendo filed a lawsuit alleging that Yuzu facilitated "piracy on a colossal scale." Rather than fight, the developers settled immediately.
In the wake of Yuzu’s shutdown, several open-source forks have emerged, most notably:
The team's initial goal was not to run commercial games but to support homebrew software and test programs, establishing a foundation upon which more complex features could be built. Despite this early stage, the community's excitement was palpable. The first major breakthroughs came quickly. Games like "Puyo Puyo Tetris," "Cave Story+," and "The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+" were the first titles to simply boot up within the emulator, proving that its core concept was sound. yuzu releases
| Version | Date | Significance | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | 1.0 | Jan 2018 | First public boot | | 75 | Mar 2019 | Vulkan support added | | 200 | Jun 2020 | Multi-core CPU (2x speed boost) | | 300 | Feb 2021 | Pipeline caching (No stutter) | | 600 | Dec 2021 | Resolution scaling (4K/8K output) | | 1000 | Sep 2022 | Input rewrites (Lowest latency) | | EA 3600 | May 2023 | Tears of the Kingdom 60 FPS | | 1734 | Mar 2024 | Final build (RIP) |
In May 2020, the team released . This update split the emulator's workload across multiple CPU cores, mimicking the Switch’s internal architecture. The performance leap was instantaneous. Games that previously required a high-end, overclocked CPU suddenly became playable on mid-range gaming laptops. The Golden Era and High-Profile Game Launches (2022–2023)
The settlement's terms were executed with brutal efficiency. The entire yuzu-emu.org website, a vast repository of guides, compatibility lists, and news, was taken offline. The official GitHub organization, which contained the complete source code and version history of the emulator, was also removed. In an act that angered many fans, the beloved Nintendo 3DS emulator, Citra—created by the same team and sharing significant code with Yuzu—was also discontinued as part of the fallout. The official Discord server, which had boasted over 200,000 members, was shuttered. It was a total erasure of the project's official presence. Available to users who backed the project via
This era saw the most dramatic performance leaps. Each targeted a specific flaw in the emulation chain.
Early iterations of Yuzu ran exclusively on a single CPU core, mirroring the limitations of older emulation architecture. The release of the "Prometheus" update introduced true multi-core CPU emulation. By separating the Switch's core processing duties across multiple host CPU cores, this release instantly doubled or tripled frame rates for users with modern processors. 2. The Vulkan API Rewrite
On May 30, 2023, Yuzu officially arrived on Android—a massive milestone that brought the emulator to mobile devices for the first time. The Android version launched as an Early Access release, divided into a free version and a paid Early Access version with additional features and faster updates. In the wake of Yuzu’s shutdown, several open-source
Throughout 2019, the Yuzu team focused on foundational improvements. The emulator’s compatibility list grew steadily, and the developers refined their understanding of the Switch’s hardware architecture. By November 2019, Yuzu had reached in-game status on several Nintendo Switch exclusives, marking a significant turning point. However, the most transformative updates were still on the horizon.
: These are prominent "forks" (continuations) of the Yuzu source code. They aim to provide compatibility updates and bug fixes where the original Yuzu left off.
While these forks show that the spirit of Yuzu lives on, many in the community note that none have yet reached the same level of polish, compatibility, and widespread use as the original project. The loss of the core Yuzu development team, which had intimate knowledge of the codebase, has proven to be an immense setback.