While we’ve seen a whole new crop of launchers arrive for our handhelds over the past few months, ES-DE remains a community and fan favorite. Despite its last update being five months old, ES-DE 3.4.1 was recently released, and it’s a doozy.
The first major change with ES-DE 3.4.1 is the “official (although experimental) support for Linux on AArch64.” With Valve’s eventual release of new hardware sometime this year (we hope), ES-DE isn’t wasting any time and hopes to be ready to go on day one.
From there, ES-DE for Android now officially supports Xbox, Xbox 360, and “Namco-Sega-Nintendo Triforce”. Not just that, but PICO-8 support for ES-DE on Android is now natively available, removing any need to try and jump through any hoops. Lastly, at least for Android, “multi-user setups” are now possible within ES-DE 3.4.1, which is great for those who want to use such a feature.
The fun doesn’t stop there, as the Mac app has been updated with support for Xbox 360, OpenBOR, and “Namco-Sega-Nintendo Triforce”. Given recent updates to Xenia on macOS, it’s good to see ES-DE keeping up with the changes in the emulation community.
Although this might seem like just another “point” release, the truth is that there’s actually quite a bit more packed into ES-DE 3.4.1 than you might expect. Check out the full changelog below to see everything that’s new, and be sure to download the update on your devices.
ES-DE 3.4.1 / 3.4.1-58 Changelog
(Linux) Added initial support for the AArch64/ARM64 architecture (including its own set of find rules, import rules and system configuration)
(Android) Changed all RetroArch emulator entries to use %INTERNALDATA% and %EXTERNALDATA% to support multi-user setups
(Android) Added support for using the "Launch games on the other screen" option on devices where both screens have the same display name
Added translations for Vietnamese (vi_VN)
Added North America as an additional ScreenScraper region
Added a j2me platform to the j2me system so that these games can be scraped using TheGamesDB
Added scraper-start and scraper-end custom events for the multi-scraper
(Android) Added support for the Namco-Sega-Nintendo Triforce (triforce) system using the Dolphin RetroArch core
(Android) Added support for the Microsoft Xbox (xbox) system using the X1 BOX emulator
(Android) Added hakuX standalone as an alternative emulator for the xbox system
(Android) Added support for the Microsoft Xbox 360 (xbox360) system using the aX360e emulator
(Android) Added SUPER3 standalone as the default emulator for the model3 system
(Android) Added PICO-8 standalone as the default emulator for the pico8 system
(Android) Added aPS3e Game Serial, aPS3e Directory and aPS3e ISO standalone as alternative emulators for the consolearcade system
(Android) Added GameNative standalone as an alternative emulator for the epic system
(Android) Added idTech4A++ standalone as an alternative emulator for the doom, ports and quake systems
(Android) Added the Boom 3 RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the doom system
(Android) Changed the launch command for GameNative for the steam system to make launching work with their new behavior
(Android) Added GameNative emulator entries for Steam, Epic, GOG and Custom games for the windows system
(Android) Removed the generic GameNative emulator entry from the windows system
(Android) Made it possible to run both Steam games and locally installed games using the GameHub Lite emulator entry
(Android) Added a find rule entry for the new package name for Azahar
(Android) Added a find rule entry for the new package name for future GameHub Lite releases
(Android) Added a find rule entry for the MelonDualDS fork of melonDS
(Android) Added a find rule entry for the GL build of Visual Pinball
(Android) Set the official Vita3K release as the primary find rule entry instead of the Vita3K ZX fork
(Android) Changed Pizza Boy GBC/C to use %ROMSAF% instead of %ROM% as the developer has changed the way games are launched from frontends
(Android) Added the .idtech file extension to the doom, ports and quake systems
(Android) Added the .ps3 file extension to the consolearcade system
(Android) Added the .pk4 file extension to the doom system
(Android) Added the .epic and .pcgame file extensions to the epic system
(Android) Added the .pcgame file extension to the steam system
(Android) Added the .epic, .gog and .pcgame file extensions to the windows system
(Android) Added support for escaping forward slashes in %EXTRA% and %EXTRAARRAY% variable definitions
(Linux) Added UMU standalone as an alternative emulator for the pcarcade and type-x systems
(Linux) Added Plastic standalone as an alternative emulator for the famicom and nes systems
(Linux) Added support for the manually downloaded release of FS-UAE Launcher
(Linux) Added support for the Flatpak release of EasyRPG Player
(Linux) Added support for the Flatpak release of VBA-M
(Linux) Added support for the Flatpak release of Ymir
(Linux) Added support for the repository/AUR release of azahar
(Linux) Added systempath find rules for xenia and xenia_canary
(Linux) Added staticpath find rules for the new pkgforge-dev AppImage filename for xenia canary
(Linux) Added staticpath find rules for the new official xenia canary AppImage
(macOS) Added support for the OpenBOR Game Engine (openbor) system
(macOS) Added support for the Namco-Sega-Nintendo Triforce (triforce) system using the Dolphin RetroArch core
(macOS) Added support for the Microsoft Xbox 360 (xbox360) system using the XeniOS emulator
(macOS) Added the YabaSanshiro RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the saturn and saturnjp systems
(macOS) Added the vitaQuake 3 RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the quake system
(macOS) Added Mariani standalone as the default emulator for the apple2 system
(macOS) Added Supermodel standalone as the default emulator for the model3 system
(macOS) Added Supermodel standalone as an alternative emulator for the arcade and mame systems
Added a popular standalone emulator as the default emulator for the switch system
Added the Azahar RetroArch core as the default emulator for the n3ds system
Added the AmiArcadia RetroArch core as the default emulator for the arcadia system
Added the JollyCV RetroArch core as the default emulator for the crvision system
Added the Dolphin RetroArch core as the default emulator for the triforce system on Linux and Windows
Added the ClownMDEmu RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the genesis, megacd, megacdjp, megadrive, megadrivejp and segacd systems
Added the SkyEmu RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the gb, gba, gbc and nds systems
Added the JollyCV RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the colecovision system
Added the Dolphin RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the consolearcade system
Added Dolphin standalone as an alternative emulator for the consolearcade system
Added Dolphin standalone as an alternative emulator for the triforce system
Added the Mini vMac RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the macintosh system
Added the Craft (Minecraft) RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the ports system
Added Geargrafx standalone as an alternative emulator for the pcengine, pcenginecd, supergrafx, tg16 and tg-cd systems on Linux, macOS and Windows
Added the Geargrafx RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the pcenginecd and tg-cd systems
Added the Gearlynx RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the atarilynx system
Added RPCS3 ISO standalone as an alternative emulator for the consolearcade and ps3 systems on Linux, macOS and Windows
Added Mesen standalone as an alternative emulator for the gba system on Linux and Windows
Added KEGS standalone as an alternative emulator for the apple2gs system on Linux, macOS and Windows
Changed the launch parameter for EasyRPG Player standalone on Linux, macOS and Windows to support zipped games
Added the .bigpimg file extension to the atarijaguar and atarijaguarcd systems on Linux and Windows
Added the .gbx file extension to the gb, gba and gbc systems
Added the .7z and .zip file extensions to the apple2 and wasm systems
Added the .tvc file extension to the arcadia system
Added the .iso file extension to the ps3 system
Added the .myv file extension to the colecovision system
Added the .img file extension to the macintosh system
Added the .xiso file extension to the xbox system
(Linux) Changed to building the AppImages using appimagetool-uruntime provided by the PkgForge project
(Linux) Changed the AppImage build scripts to use the bundled TLS/SSL certificates
(Linux) Added an AppImage build script for the AArch64 architecture
(Linux) Added RetroArch core find rule entries for NixOS and Nixpkgs
(linear-es-de) Added an OLED color scheme (thanks c-fan for the patch)
(linear-es-de) Updated the system metadata from the upstream system-metadata repository
The theme downloader will now use the bundled certificates on all platforms if built with the BUNDLED_CERTS option
Removed the obsolete and unsupported CEC functionality
Removed all specific configuration and code for the Raspberry Pi
Updated LunaSVG to commit b350c01cb09b48f1e894463dcb54d1b46d407162
(macOS) Added zstd as a dependency
(macOS) Updated Ogg to 1.3.6
(macOS) Removed obsolete entries for the Vorbis and Opus encoders from the build scripts
(Windows) Updated OpenSSL to 3.6.1
Updated the MAME index files to include ROMs up to MAME version 0.286
Bundled the February 2026 release of the Mozilla TLS/SSL certificates
Translation updates for all languages