You can do a lot with an Android smartphone, and the number of emulators that you can get for both modern and retro systems is incredible. From ancient systems like NES all the way up to the Nintendo 3DS, you can play them all from your phone. It’s a little harder to emulate newer systems, such as the Nintendo Switch. After a conceptual Nintendo Switch emulator launch and then a shady emulator that required a certain gamepad to use, Skyline is the first real Nintendo Switch emulator that actually works and you can already test it.
To roll back a bit, Skyline has been under development for over a year now, and it only did so recently some games become playable. As I was told by one of the developers, Skyline is extremely specific to just Android devices and have been built from the ground up according to this philosophy – all the while making use of community projects to help with development. For example, Ryujinx is used as a reference throughout the project thanks to its accuracy, and the shader compiler used in Skyline is a fork of yuzu. Both the teams behind Ryujinx and yuzu have provided assistance in Skyline’s development, where the Skyline team has also been granted a license exemption when it comes to yuzu.
Currently, developers tend to focus on getting one game running at a time. The first was Sonic Maniathe other was Celesteand now the third is currently under construction Super Mario Odyssey. This is because when one game runs almost perfectly, other games will also start working.
The Skyline app
The Skyline app itself is pretty bare bones, even though it has all the features you need. You can set a theme, layout, performance statistics, change how logs are saved, username, language and more. There is also controller support with support for more than one, so you can play multiplayer with friends. All you need to do is make sure you have your production keys and title keys with your games and you can get them by dumping your keys with Lockpick RCM on your Nintendo Switch.
Game compatibility is hit or miss
At the moment, Skyline is not in a fully playable mode right now – in fact far from it. ONE lot of games do not work and the playable part of the compatibility list is quite short. That said, we tested both Super Mario Odyssey and Celeste to give you an idea of what to expect, and it’s quite impressive to say the least. We also tried to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons but it did not run. Note that while the recording below is out of sync, the sound was not out of sync during playback.
Celeste
Celeste is a fun platformer that is available on many platforms but not on Android. It runs between 40 and 60 FPS on my OnePlus 10 Pro with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, making it perfectly playable. It’s a lot of fun, even if the touch controls are a little bit risky, even if it’s because the game requires pretty precise input.
Super Mario Odyssey
Super Mario Odyssey is a game that is the latest focus of the Skyline team’s efforts. At the moment, it can somehow display the menu, but the world itself does not load on my OnePlus 10 Pro. 3D games are harder than 2D games to emulate, so it may take a while before you see this run properly on a device.
Download and install Skyline
To try Skyline, be sure to join the team Discord to see the latest APKs available for download and read the rules before speaking on the server as well. You will need a GitHub account, and if you type “.rl ftx1” in the bot command channel, you will get a link to download the latest APK for your device. Otherwise, you can build the app yourself from its source code on GitHub by following the team’s build instructions.