Ryujinx is dead

Ryujinx, the popular Nintendo Switch emulator, suddenly ceased development and was removed from GitHub at the end of September after gdkchan, the project founder, came to an “agreement” with Nintendo.

“Yesterday, gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he’s in control of” said riperiperi, a Ryujinx co-developer, in a post on the project Discord that was widely reported. “While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it’s safe to say what the outcome is.”

We don’t know the details of gdkchan’s agreement with Nintendo, but there was broad speculation that Nintendo offered a payout for the removal of Ryujinx. The Verge’s Sean Hollister didn’t go that far, but pointed out rumors the developer “was based in emulation-friendly Brazil” and that there were no signs of a DMCA takedown or lawsuit similar to Nintendo’s takedown of Yuzu a few months ago.

A less widely reported comment from riperiperi a few days later denounced speculation that gdkchan profited from the agreement. “This shouldn't need saying, but apparently it does. gdkchan's ‘agreement’ can't have been in any way beneficial to him. This was clearly a threat.”

With Ryujinx’s removal, the last of the popularized software that brought widespread emulation of the Nintendo Switch on handheld PCs is now gone. But both Ryujinx and Yuzu were open source, and the end of Ryujinx doesn’t give Nintendo quite the same ammunition for mass DMCAs of forks as Yuzu’s did.

Valve backs Arch Linux developers

Valve is providing backing to Arch Linux for “two critical projects”, Arch developer Levente Polyak announced in late September (via Gaming on Linux), “a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave”.

Arch Linux is the basis for SteamOS, so it’s not surprising Valve is offering to foot the bill for the team to add features its hardware will benefit from. The company already heavily leverages open-source developers with contributions for its more ambitious projects; The Verge reported it was “directly paying more than 100 open-source developers to work on the Proton compatibility layer, the Mesa graphics driver, and Vulkan, among other tasks like Steam for Linux and Chromebooks” in 2022.

According to Arch Linux contributor Antiz, a package manager for the project who was interviewed by YouTuber A1RM4X, the Valve-backed projects will streamline build triggering and signing — current a manual process with steps that would multiply with every architecture.

In a Reddit thread about the interview, Antiz summarized the discussion: “A central build service and a central secure signing enclave (the two projects concerned by that Valve "sponsoring") would streamline the overall process by allowing automated build and signing for packages without requiring any manual steps / interventions from Package Maintainers anymore (and it will also allow to increase the security of the process as a side benefit). Only such a streamlined / automated workflow would allow us to start working on supporting multiple architectures without implying to multiply the current amount of required effort.”

Valve told PC Gamer that it preferred Arch Linux’s rolling updates over the previous SteamOS foundation, Debian, back in 2021, as it allows the company to keep its software up to date more consistently. Add the company’s penchant for pushing updates to recent signs of new SteamOS versions and Proton on ARM, it makes sense that Valve would want to streamline processes for managing multiple architectures.

In Other News…

Nintendo issues copyright claim to handheld content creator

Nintendo is extremely mad about the MiG Flash (formerly MiG Switch), and has used copyright strikes against at least one YouTuber covering the product who have shown Nintendo gameplay in their videos.

The MiG Flash V2 is a third-party Nintendo Switch cartridge that users can insert a microSD card into with dumps of their Switch cartridges, allowing users to have all their games on a single cartridge. The MiG Dumper, meanwhile, allows users to dump the files from their cartridges to use on the MiG Flash.

Retro Game Corp, a (fantastic) YouTube channel dedicated to gaming handhelds and retro games, covered the device on their channel. In it, they showed just the title screen of Super Mario 3D World, which Nintendo used to issue a copyright claim that resulted in a copyright strike on the channel, Retro Game Corp said in a video explaining the incident — skipping a more democratic DMCA.

It seems pretty clear that was a slimy workaround to get the video taken down. Here’s hoping Nintendo has become acquainted with the Streisand effect over this one.

Star Wars Outlaws will arrive on Steam later this year

Ubisoft has announced that Star Wars Outlaws will arrive on Steam November 21st, just months since the title’s summer Epic exclusive release.

The company also “indicated that it’s no longer going to do timed Epic exclusives on PC,” PC Gamer reported.

The announcement came just before Insider Gaming reported soft sales figures of just 1 million copies in the month since the game’s release — low numbers for the IP.

Rockstar removes GTA V Steam Deck compatibility

GTA V, one of the top played titles on Steam Deck, is now unsupported on the device after Rockstar implemented BattlEye anti-cheat for GTA V Online, Steam Deck HQ reported.

The base single-player game is still playable, of course, but some users are obviously upset about the sudden change. There’s even been suggestions that Valve is issuing refunds over the change.

Valve clearly isn’t happy that support for one of its handheld’s top titles is gone, and allegedly told one user that it’s “working with Rockstar Games to find a fix.”

In an FAQ, Rockstar says that “Steam Deck does not support BattlEye”. Weird, since as The Verge reported, multiple BattlEye games (DayZ, Ark, Mount & Blade, etc.) do work with the Steam Deck and Proton.

What Are We Playing?

Resident Evil 2 (remaster)

After playing through the Chris campaign of Resident Evil HD Remaster last month, I moved straight on to the Leon campaign of Resident Evil 2’s 2019 remaster.

And ohmygod is it excellent.

Just an all around great remaster of a game with appealing modern graphics and controls that plays beautifully on Steam Deck. This series of remaster really deserves the love it gets, and I can’t recommend it enough.