Seemingly out of nowhere, the open-source, cross-platform emulation tool RetroArch has launched for iOS devices. For those unfamiliar, RetroArch is an all-encompassing program that lets you plug in different emulation cores to access retro games from a variety of platforms easily. It also offers a ton of customization options for display resolution, texture smoothing, performance tweaks, and controller remapping among others.
While some users might prefer dedicated emulators to run specific systems, RetroArch does give you the option to have everything situated within one application. As a preview image on the iOS App Store highlights, RetroArch can support emulators for the Atari 2600, 5200, and 7800 as well as obscure devices such as the Atari Lynx or the Bandai WonderSwan. As you can likely guess, RetroArch also supports more popular systems such as the NES, SNES, N64, PS1, PSP, etc. The possibilities for emulation on your iPhone have just been expanded immensely.
RetroArch is a free download and comes with a gigantic list of included emulation cores. It also has the following quality-of-life improvements and features:
- Netplay
- Soft patching
- RetroAchievements
- Save states
- MFi controller support
- Key remapping per core or per game
- Gyro
- Cheats
- Custom overlays
- Shaders
- Fast forward and rewind
- Game artwork
- AI translations
- Advanced latency management
Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
