Guide
Lichii Switch 2 Emulator Explained: How the Fork Works
How the lichii switch 2 emulator came to be: Eglantine, Eden, yuzu and Sudachi roots, the nx2 branch, automatic builds and what a fork actually changes.
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A short family tree
Every lichii switch 2 emulator headline sits on a family tree. The roots are yuzu and Sudachi, two Switch emulators whose work the whole scene builds on. Eden grew from that stock as a community Switch emulator. When Switch 2 arrived, experimental forks of Eden began testing the new hardware, and Eglantine became the fastest moving of them. Begin with the build listed on Lichii official site so your results match ours.
Lichii is a fork of Eglantine, maintained by zortos293, created to merge the useful fixes from the other forks into one build while developing its own game compatibility and renderer work. It preserves the contributions and licenses of everything upstream, which is how open source is supposed to travel.
Branches and build numbers
Development happens on a branch called nx2, and release tags are numbered automatic builds rather than marketing versions. That is why you see build 70, build 88, build 130: each is a snapshot of the branch at a moment, published with notes naming what changed and what still misbehaves.
The project version file still reads 0.1.0-rc1, inherited from upstream Eglantine. Read that pair of facts together and you understand the project honesty: the version says how young this is, the build numbers say how fast it moves. The GitHub guide on this site shows how to read releases and notes like a tester.
What a fork actually changes
A fork is not a reskin. Lichii changes renderer behaviour, merges compatibility fixes for named games, and ships its own experiments: DLSS support through NVIDIA Streamline on desktop, FSR3 frame generation (off by default), per game add ons like Max Resolution and Dynamic FPS for Ocarina of Time, and an updater that checks the project releases and picks the right download for your platform.
The Android story is a fork of the fork: a separate port that pulls upstream changes in batches, leaves out the desktop only pieces, and adds the phone specific memory and driver work. Understanding that chain explains why Android fixes sometimes land a build after desktop ones.
Related reading: the GitHub guide.
Related reading: how updates work.
Quick Answers
Is Lichii a separate emulator or a mod of Eden?
It is a fork: its own project and codebase line, built from Eglantine, which builds on Eden, yuzu and Sudachi. It develops its own fixes and releases under its own name.
Why are releases called builds instead of versions?
Releases are automatic snapshots of the development branch, numbered in sequence. The inherited version file reads 0.1.0-rc1, which signals how experimental the project still is.
Does Lichii replace my Eden or Eglantine data?
No. Existing Eden and Eglantine saves and settings stay where they are; the rename does not move or delete them. Back up saves before testing new builds anyway.