Citra (emulator)

Citra is a discontinued free and open-source emulator of the handheld Nintendo 3DS for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. Citra's name is derived from CTR, which is the model name of the original 3DS. Citra can run many homebrew games and commercial games.

Citra was first made available in 2014. The core team behind it went on to develop Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu in 2018. Support for Citra by the Yuzu team was dropped on March 5, 2024, following a $2.4 million settlement reached with Nintendo of America.

Development
Citra was initially created in April 2014. The first commercial Nintendo 3DS game to be run by Citra was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D.

Citra has been able to emulate audio since May 21, 2016, and has had a JIT compiler since September 15, 2016. In November 2017, Citra announced networking support for the emulator. The networking support emulates the 3DS's local Wi-Fi, which originally made it possible to play over local networks. Additionally, Citra allows the networking to be compatible with other users anywhere. In April 2020, the Citra Team announced compatibility with New Nintendo 3DS games and support for save states, and in May 2020, they announced a version of Citra for Android. In September 2023, support for Vulkan was added as an experimental alternative to OpenGL. In March 2024, Nintendo and Yuzu developer Tropic Haze LLC reached a settlement prompting Tropical Haze to shut down operations for Yuzu. Additionally, Tropical Haze agreed to surrender or cease working on any project that involved Nintendo's copyrighted properties, and as a result support for Citra was dropped by the developers.