What you need to know
nxnative is an open-licon by adapting compatibility and graphics for Apple systems. It lists 61 playable games, though some titles have glitches or fail to launch. Mac app builds require users’ own legally dumped game files and console keys
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Just days after we covered The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom running natively on Apple Silicon, another project is bringing the same capability to a much wider library of Nintendo Switch games. Known as nxnative, the open-ds, and YouTuber Andrew Tsai has also demonstrated the technology on Apple Silicon Macs
Unlike traditional Nintendo Switch emulators, nxnative takes advantage of the fact that Nintendo’s console and Apple’s chips share the ARM64 instruction architecture. This lets Switch game code run natively on Apple Silicon. The project handles compatibility with Apple’s operating systems and translates graphics instructions to Metal.
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This approach is similar to the recently covered MacNativeGames project, which focuses on running Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom natively on Apple hardware. NX Native took a more horizontal, mobile-first approach, building a universal pipeline that can convert almost any Switch game.
- Read more: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom native port hits Apple Silicon MacBooks, runs at 90 FPS on an M4 Air
- Read more: This fan-made project lets you run Xbox One games on your iPhone or iPad
In terms of performance, Monster Hunter Rise runs at a locked 60 FPS on a base fanless M1 MacBook Air with 8 GB of RAM. Console exclusives that never received a Windows release, such as Unicorn Overlord, also run natively.
Other tested titles like Dragon Quest XI S and Square Enix’s newly released Final Fantasy Resonance are already playable, though the latter has minor graphical flickering. Meanwhile, Dark Souls Remastered runs smoothly offline despite occasional vertex glitches. Heavy titles like Doom Eternal failed to boot during testing.
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MacNativeGames still holds an edge in desktop-specific enhancements for the open-world Zelda titles, including MetalFX 2K upscaling, frame interpolation, and 21:9 ultrawide aspect ratios. With the rapid pace of development thanks to AI-assisted coding tools, we may see many of these features spill over to nxnative as well.
Tsai noted that nxnative was actually designed to package Switch games into .ipa files for iPhones and iPads. Generating a standalone macOS .app bundle was initially an afterthought that requires an extra terminal command, which Tsai details in a companion tutorial. To build an app, users must supply their own legally dumped Switch game files and prod.keys extracted from a modded console.
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That clean-room approach is critical for keeping these projects online. Because these projects distribute no Nintendo code, assets, keys, or pre-compiled shaders, they operate in a clean-room legal grey area similar to emulators. Even so, Nintendo has aggressively targeted demonstration videos of MacNativeGames running Tears of the Kingdom with DMCA takedowns, including striking one of Tsai’s own videos earlier this week.
The broader recompilation wave shows no signs of slowing down. Another developer is already preparing a static recompilation of Tears of the Kingdom for native Windows x86-64 PCs, slated to debut next week, which could be particularly transformative for Android-based handhelds like the Retroid Pocket, AYN Thor, and whatnot.
How do you build a standalone macOS app with nxnative from a legally dumped Switch game?
Which macOS versions and Apple Silicon models support nxnative?
How does nxnative game compatibility differ between iPhones and iPads and Apple Silicon Macs?
Which nxnative-compatible Switch games have been tested on Macs, and how do they perform?
Want something else? Ask TweakBot.
While Nintendo’s legal team continues to scrub gameplay footage from social media, the underlying GitHub repositories remain intact for now.
