'Alexa, play Another One Bites The Dust by Queen', because sadly another emulator has disappeared from the face of the earth. DraStic has been a go-to DS Emulator for a while now. We ranked it second in terms of performance underneath DeSmuME, and it was a solid Android emulator that always played games flawlessly and had some neat features like being able to change screen layout depending on the games you were playing.
I hate using the past tense when it comes to articles like this, but sadly DraStic is no more, and many people are speculating that Nintendo might have carried out another quick takedown due to the fact that the emulator was literally here one minute and gone the next. RetroHandhelds discovered that the emulator had disappeared leaving only a message telling users that the requested URL can no longer be found on the server - it all seems a bit suspect to me!
We know how quick Nintendo has been at taking down other emulators over the past 12 months; just look at their takedowns of Yuzu, the poorly named Suyu emulator, and Ryujinx as preparations for the Nintendo Switch 2 ramped up.
I've seen a lot of mock-ups online of a second screen being attached to the Nintendo Switch 2 and turning it into a giant Nintendo DS - could this be a reason why Nintendo might potentially be moving their attention to DS emulators? Could DS games be coming to the Switch 2 as part of the Nintendo Switch Online service, or is it purely that the DS is just next on their list after eradicating Switch emulators from the net? Let us know your thoughts!
