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Eden’s multiplayer system emulates the Nintendo Switch’s local wireless (LDN) networking layer and tunnels that traffic over the internet through shared “rooms.” Each player runs their own emulator instance, and as long as everyone joins the same room and the game supports local wireless play, each emulated console sees the others as if they were on the same local network. Every player keeps an independent save and console state — only the in-game wireless packets travel through the room server.

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How it works

When you join or host a room, Eden intercepts the game’s LDN discovery and communication calls and forwards them through the room server to every other connected player. From the game’s point of view it is performing ordinary local wireless multiplayer. The room server acts as a relay, so no player needs to broadcast their home IP address directly to others. This design means you need a game that supports Local Wireless or LAN Play — titles that only support Nintendo Online cannot use this system.

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Frequently asked questions

No. The only emulator with Switch console interoperability is Ryujinx and its forks, which require loading a custom module on a modded console. Eden does not support this.
No. Nintendo Online games connect to Nintendo’s official servers. Emulating that infrastructure (as projects like Pretendo do) is outside Eden’s scope. You can only play titles that support Local Wireless or LAN play without a server.
Online refers to games that communicate with Nintendo’s official servers — this is not supported on any Switch emulator today.Multiplayer in Eden’s context means peer-to-peer play over LDN (Local Wireless/LAN), tunneled through a room server. The rule of thumb: if a game lets you play locally without an internet server (Local Wireless or LAN mode), Eden can facilitate that over the internet. If the game requires Nintendo’s servers to function, it cannot work.
Yes. The operating system or hardware you run Eden on does not matter for compatibility. Steam Deck players can join Windows players, Android can join macOS, and so on. Different emulator forks (Eden, Citron, Ryubing, etc.) are also generally compatible with each other, though switching everyone to the same fork can resolve edge-case connection issues.
Emulator version mismatches — Updates occasionally change how LDN is handled internally. If players can join the same room but the game fails to connect, check that everyone is on the same emulator version first.Game version mismatches — It is strongly recommended that all players use identical game versions. Games are black boxes; differing update versions can silently change how LDN logic is handled, causing connection failures that are hard to diagnose.Latency — Eden’s LDN emulation is essentially a virtual LAN, which is far more sensitive to network latency and packet loss than traditional online netcode. If latency is causing problems, consider hosting your own room geographically closer to all players.
Some games only support local co-op (multiple controllers on a single console) and have no LDN wireless mode at all — for example, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. No Switch emulator currently has a netplay solution for this case.The practical workaround is Parsec, a low-latency remote desktop tool:
  1. Both players install Parsec (free for personal use) and create accounts.
  2. The host player accepts an incoming Parsec connection from the remote player. The remote player can now see the host’s screen and send controller input.
  3. In Eden, go to Emulation → Configure → Controls.
  4. On the Player 2 tab, enable Connect Controller and select the input device that Parsec exposes as a virtual gamepad.
  5. Configure the remote player’s button mapping, click OK, then launch the game and enter its local co-op mode.
The game sees two controllers attached to one machine; Parsec handles carrying the second player’s inputs over the network.

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Metaserver troubleshooting

Eden uses a metaserver at api.ynet-fun.xyz to list public rooms. Some ISPs block or intercept this domain, which prevents the public lobby browser from loading.
Add the following line to /etc/hosts to bypass the DNS lookup issue:
28.165.181.135 api.ynet-fun.xyz api.ynet-fun.xyz
Save the file (you will need sudo) and restart Eden. The public lobby browser should now load correctly.
If you are using Zapret to work around ISP filtering, add the following entries to lists/list-general.txt:
api.ynet-fun.xyz
ynet-fun.xyz
Restart Zapret and then Eden.

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Next steps

Joining a room

Browse the public lobby or directly connect to a private room using an IP and port.

Hosting a room

Create your own room and make it accessible to players outside your local network.

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