Wondering which are the best Nintendo Switch emulators for Android? In this article we’ll be covering that very question and sharing with you the best Nintendo Switch emulator you can download to play Nintendo Switch games on your Android devices.
There are a couple different Android Nintendo Switch emulators available to play Switch games on, but not all are created equal.
Due to some recent potential legal issues from Nintendo that occurred around the time of this article being written, one of the emulators on this list is no longer being actively developed. Read on to find out more information on which emulator this is and which others are still being actively maintained.
Speaking of which, you might also enjoy this article we wrote regarding the question “is emulation legal”?
Also be careful installing any “emulators” from the Google Play Store that aren’t listed in this article as there have been rumored to be many fakes. Of the real emulators available, each has their pros and cons, so let’s get into it and discuss which is right for you.
You might also want to check out our Yuzu emulator guide for PC and Linux.
Contents hide
1. What Are The Best Nintendo Switch Emulators for Android?
1.1. 1. Egg NS Emulator
1.2. 2. Skyline
1.3. How To Play Nintendo Switch Games on Android?
1. Egg NS Emulator
- Price: Free
- Platform: Android
- Google Play Store
- Official website
- 3.3/5 ⭐
- 500k+ installs
The Egg NS Emulator is a Nintendo Switch emulator on Android devices which lets you play Nintendo games on your phone. It has been in development since 2017 and is developer by NTeam Studios. It is currently the best Nintendo Switch emulator that you can install on your android device.
Hundreds of Nintendo Switch games work decently on the emulator including some AAA titles. Game performance may very depending on the type of Android device you’re using to play, however most Nintendo Switch games can theoretically reach the full FPS if your device’s chip has the same performance as SD 855.
Egg NS supports an external Bluetooth controller as well as touch screen controls.
Based on the star rating for the app on the Google Play Store, not everyone is a fan of the Egg NS emulator. Usually, lower ratings for emulators on the Play Store are at least somewhat indicative of performance issues.
Looking through the app’s reviews, you can find many reports of it crashing for users, but we should mention that gaming experiences with all emulation will vary. The Egg NS emulator seems to have a fairly user friendly interface overall.
Egg NS does not currently have a games compatibility list available on their website, however they do have a list of game videos showing how they perform on the Egg NS emulator.
These games seem to be the ones that perform best. Some popular games are on the list, however we couldn’t find Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and many other first party commercial Nintendo Switch games.
2. Skyline
Skyline was a completely free open source project and an experimental Nintendo Switch emulator that runs of ARMv8 Android smartphones and emulated the functionality of a Nintendo Switch console.
Unfortunately, Skyline recently ceased development of their emulator due to potential legal risks from Nintendo. There’s no direct download link available to share, however you can still find the code on Skyline’s Github. It’s a shame that its development has ceased because it was known as the best Nintendo Switch emulator for Android.
The Skyline team just recently issued a statement saying that the Skyline Android Nintendo Switch emulator will no longer be in active development. The following statement was posted to their Discord:
It is with great sadness that we bring you this news. Recently, Nintendo has issued a DCMA takedown notice against Lockpick RCM which will likely come into effect on Monday.
Lockpick is a core part of legally dumping keys from the Nintendo Switch. They claim that it circumvents their copy protection (TPMs) and therefore violates their copyright. We find ourselves in a position where we are potentially violating their copyright by continuing to develop our project, Skyline, by dumping keys from our own Switches.
After much internal discussion, we have made the difficult decision to immediately cease all further development on Skyline. We understand that this is not the news our community wanted to hear, and we are heartbroken to have to deliver it.
The risks associated with a potential legal case are too high for us to ignore, and we cannot continue knowing that we may be in violation of copyright law. We would like to emphasize that we were entirely unaware of these potential legal issues before, and we fully believed that dumping keys was legal prior to this notice.
Despite this, Skyline itself is entirely legal and we wont be taking down the repository (it will be made read-only) or builds. In addition, all incomplete source code for taxman and mnvk will be made public.
We want to take this opportunity to thank our community for their years of support. The development of Skyline has been an amazing journey, and we are grateful for all the support we have received from our users.
We understand that the emulator is not where we ultimately wanted it to be, but we could not have made it this far without your dedication and enthusiasm. We hope that our community understands the difficult position we hav been placed in, we thank you all for everything Skyline was and wish it didn’t have to end so abruptly.
Skyline was considered to be one of the best Nintendo Switch emulators for android. It was created to target Android devices directly so its compatibility with an Android phone is solid.
The team did a fantastic job and consistently pushed out updates for users, however as mentioned above, the project has since ceased work and now is not longer in active development.
As with most Nintendo Switch emulators, it didn’t run all game ROMs perfectly, but the developers were passionate about their project and worked hard to improve it. At this time, there doesn’t seem to be a list available of compatible games for android phones.
It’s a shame that the project ceased official development because of potential legal issues from Nintendo, but because Skyline was an open source emulator and the developers left the code up on Github for anyone to fork and continue working on, here’s hoping that some other developers will take the project on and upkeep it for android users.
Even though Skyline is no longer in active development, it was worth mentioning and it absolutely deserved to be added to this list of Nintendo Switch emulators for Android.
How To Play Nintendo Switch Games on Android?
The Egg NS emulator is the best Nintendo Switch emulator you can get on your Android device. It is still actively maintained and the developers push updates to it on a regular basis. There are a good amount of Nintendo Switch games that are compatible with it.
Because Skyline is no longer in active development by the original developers, unless some developers from the community help keep it updated, it’s likely that its performance will suffer against newer version of Android. For now, the Egg NS emulator is our choice for Nintendo Switch emulation.
If you are a Mac user, be sure to check out our list of the best Nintendo Switch emulator for Mac computers.
