Assassin's Creed Shadows is shown running on a Nintendo 3DS in an impressive bit of fan homebrew

Assassin's Creed Shadows screenshot showing Yasuke kneeling and praying while wearing a traditional purple robe
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

It's been a wild few years for dream ports. Most notably, we've had Xbox games released on PS5, with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle next in line (and rumors of Starfield and even Gears of War following in its footsteps). But sometimes these dreams don't pan out, and it's up to fans to do their thing, as we saw with the Sonic Unleashed PC port. And finally, fans have given us the thing that we've all been screaming about for years – Assassin's Creed Shadows on the Nintendo 3DS.

Yes, the thing we've all hoped for has been made possible, as Twitter user @BobWulff showed off images and video footage of Ubisoft's latest adventure running on the Nintendo 3DS. Which shockingly seems to work surprisingly well; the New Nintendo 3DS XL has nearly every button needed to run the game with only the L3 and R3 buttons missing (which have been handily moved to the touch screen).

But this isn't some miracle port like The Witcher 3 running on Nintendo Switch; sadly, this is a result of the 3DS' extremely active homebrew scene developing a way to use Sunshine / Moonlight game streaming on the handheld. Moonlight is an open-source version of Nvidia's GameStream protocol, which was used on Nvidia Shield devices. While Sunshine is a host program made for Moonlight.

The Nvidia version was axed a few years ago, but the open-source version is still a popular choice for streaming from your PC. Moonlight is available on the likes of Android, iOS, and PCs, as you may expect, but the community has made versions for the likes of Xbox Series X|S, PS Vita, the Nintendo Switch, and even the Wii U. This 3DS version looks to work just as well, so if you fancy playing the latest AAA games at a crisp 240p resolution, there's an option out there for you.

A fan of the Dreamcast is also trying to create a version of GTA 3 on the Dreamcast, which sadly can't save Sega's console, but it's cool to see.

Scott McCrae
Contributor

Scott has been freelancing for over two years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on 12DOVE in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.

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