Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
It comes down to the chips. Nintendo’s console and Apple’s newer devices share the same ARM architecture, so the game’s code doesn’t need translating to run. nxnative only replaces what’s unique to Nintendo. A lightweight helper plays the role of the console’s system software, and the graphics are converted to run on Apple’s Metal graphics API.
Nintendo Switch games can now run natively on iPhone and iPad.
nxnative takes your own Switch game files and turns them into an IPA that runs the game’s code directly on Apple silicon.
• Not an emulator
• Switch graphics rebuilt on Metal
• 60 FPS on supported games
• Touch… pic.twitter.com/Ct4WoseQYQ
nxnative started trending after Techjunkie Aman tweeted about it, and its GitHub page now lists over 60 tested games, from Super Mario Odyssey to Metroid Dread. With the right update, Fire Emblem Engage and the two latest Zelda games can hit 60 FPS, while the Switch caps them at 30.
Mac owners can join the party with one more command. Mac gaming YouTuber Andrew Tsai had Monster Hunter Rise running at a steady 60 FPS on an entry-level M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM, and even got Unicorn Overlord working.
You’ll need a fair bit of patience. Start by supplying games and decryption keys from a Switch you own, then run the build script in Xcode on a Mac. The first build can stretch to an hour. Next, install the app with AltStore or Sideloadly. On mobile, it requires iOS or iPadOS 26 on an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, or an M1 iPad or later, because older iPhone chips don’t support the texture format these games are packed in. Online play and amiibo won’t work.
Credit goes to GitHub user seedds, and the project has no ties to Nintendo. You provide every file yourself, so nxnative doesn’t hand out any games. Still, Nintendo has a track record here. Switch emulator Yuzu’s team agreed to a $2.4 million settlement in 2024, and Ryujinx disappeared soon after Nintendo got in touch. So we don’t know how long this project would last before Nintendo’s lawyers come calling.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.