iiSU: The Future of Emulation Frontends
When it comes to emulation, the experience often feels less like a console and more like a tedious series of menus and poorly labeled files. Emulation frontends like ES-DE and Beacon try to fix this, but none are as ambitious as iiSU.
First revealed two months ago, a slick new video highlighting planned features was released yesterday. Helmed by experienced motion graphics designer Eddie Collazo (AKA iShade or UsagiShade), iiSU features a level of polish that’s rarely seen outside of first-party hardware from Nintendo and Sony.
The home screen, seen below, displays a series of widgets. These include games you’ve recently played, media, and more. It looks like a modern take on the Nintendo 3DS UI, with different themes and customization options. It goes well beyond what’s available on the Nintendo Switch or any other modern console.
Games, which will not be included with the app, feature exclusive custom art and music. Other parts of the app also feature custom music created by Thaddeus Silva, which again harken back to the days of the Nintendo 3DS.
iiSU draws heavily from the 3DS and PSP user interfaces, with a modern touch.
For more hardcore retro gamers, iiSU will also integrate directly with RetroAchievements. This open-source platform provides achievements for emulated retro games, similar to what you’d find on Xbox or PlayStation. iiSU displays the full achievement set directly in the app, and provides notifications when you complete them in-game.
Drawing inspiration from the PSP, iiSU will also allow you to browse and play local media files directly from the app. This works with photos, videos, and music files. These can also be used to create custom backgrounds or decorate your homepage.
Many of those features are found in other emulation frontends, but iiSU is far more ambitious with its future plans. It will include something called iiSU Network, which is a social network that integrates third-party platforms, like the modern Pictochat clone Pictoverse. This allows you to connect, message, and potentially even play with your friends via online multiplayer in supported emulators.
iiSU will later incorporate a full social network, plus a shop for custom themes and icons.
Several additional features are planned for the future. These include Shopii, where you can buy or sell custom themes or icons, and iiChannel, which is a dedicated newsboard that integrates RSS feeds. If it can deliver on even half of the features shown in the presentation, it will go well beyond what’s possible in any current emulation frontend.
Shortly after the presentation went live, iiSU opened signups for the platform, which quickly overloaded and crashed as users flooded the servers with sign-up requests. With more than 200,000 views on the presentation video in less than a day, it’s safe to say that this project has struck a chord with the emulation community in a way that no other emulation frontend can match.
However, it’s worth noting that most of the features shown in the presentation were mock-ups. The lead developer, who goes by SapphireRhodonite, releases test builds on his Patreon, but currently, only basic frontend features are working. iiSU is promising a lot of very interesting features, but it may be a while before any of them are usable. That said, an early dual-screen version is available, which can’t be said for more established frontends.
Still, work on iiSU has progressed fast in the two months since it was announced, and the team is hopeful that a public build will be available as early as Spring 2026. The basic features of the app will be free and ad-free, with a paid version available for a one-time fee of .99. This unlocks extra themes and widgets, and helps support the development team and social infrastructure.
However, iiSU will be exclusive to Android when first released. The team may later work on a build for Linux, but for now, it isn’t a priority.
To learn more about iiSU, head over to the official Discord, which now boasts more than 26,000 members. For a taste of what iiSU will become, you can follow the developer builds by SapphireRhodonite, or download some of the project’s custom assets free of charge via Dropbox.
