Earlier today, a major breakthrough occurred in the world of Nintendo Switch 2 hacking. That’s because a developer by the name of pepsipu found a jailbreak for the console involving the SmileBASIC 4 game for Switch. Here’s their original post about it:
jailbreaking the switch 2 (Sammy Hajhamid’s blog)
As well as a GitLab repo where the files for the hack can be found:
Obviously, it’s early days for this sort of thing. There’s no custom firmware available here, and the hack doesn’t survive a console reboot. So, you’d have to set it up every time if you wanted to make use of it.
But there are some interesting things you can do with nonetheless. You can dump save files for Switch 2 games (albeit in an encrypted format), execute native code on the console and reverse engineer console exclusives like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. Heck, there’s even a video going around showing someone getting custom characters working in the former:
i jailbroke the nintendo switch 2
so i modded cinnamoroll, peter griffin, hatsune miku, and more into Mario Kart World, a switch 2 exclusive
now watch my friends and i get cooked by bots
learn more and get the exploit https://t.co/ykjgyfrFRp https://t.co/BOcFhejRz1
— pepsipu (@pepsipu) October 22, 2026
So, there are some exciting possibilities here for sure. Apparently, dumping Switch 2 game files is on the table now, as is making mods of them.
And that also likely means unused content is going to be datamined and discovered too. Remember, lots of Nintendo titles have a ton of unused assets and ideas lurking around in the files. Heck, we already know Mario Kart World itself has some of them, given that the stickers used to use the names of cut tracks when displayed on the official website:
Hence it feels like there’s a good possibility we’ll finally get to find out whether Ganondorf and Sonia were meant to be playable in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, or whether any other characters and tracks were planned for Mario Kart World or Kirby Air Riders.
Models and textures could be possible to access as well. That’s good news for any Donkey Kong fans wanting King K Rool’s new Bananza models, or any Mario Kart fans wanting to look more closely into how that game’s tracks and world are structured.
It also means that other exploits are now more likely to get found. Remember, SmileBASIC almost certainly isn’t the only Switch or Switch 2 game where something like this is possible. So, with access to the code for the latter’s games, it feels like other vulnerabilities are sure to follow.
Of course, Nintendo is not happy about the discovery in the slightest. Indeed, as of a few minutes ago, SmileBASIC 4 has already been yanked off the European versions of the eShop. So, it seems like the game’s being pulled offline for an emergency update as we speak.
Either way, the exploit is now out there, it’s confirmed usable, and Nintendo is clearly unhappy it’s a thing. But the situation does raise some very interesting questions on the side too.
For starters, the exploit itself was apparently found by Codex, an AI tool from Microsoft. So, it seems like these tools are going to make security a real nightmare for console manufacturers going forward.
They’ve already been used to port current generation titles to PC and mobile, and decompile almost every game under the sun. And they’ve already been used to find hundreds of exploits in other popular programs and systems.
Hence even if Nintendo patches out this exploit with a game and firmware update, they’re not going to be able to stop numerous others from being found in future. AI has made the barrier to entry for would be jailbreak discoveries is lower than it’s ever been.
The second question it raises is exactly what’s going to happen to anyone who does use this exploit, or ends up going online when it’s active. There has been talk of Nintendo being able to brick your system after all.
But for legal and reputational reasons, we’d hazard a guess that the outcome is likely going to be a bit less severe. Presumably, anyone caught using this online is likely to get their access to Nintendo’s online services revoked (so the eShop, online multiplayer servers, GameChat and the Nintendo Switch Online app), but their actual games will be usable in a purely offline sense. Sorta like what can happen if you try to connect to Nintendo servers on a hacked Switch 1.
Regardless, that’s the exploit that’s opened up the Switch 2 to hacks, datamining and save file editing. It’s not a full console setup yet, since you can’t install custom firmware or maintain the effects after a reboot, nor can use it to exploit anything other than individual games…
But it’s a major move for the console’s modding scene regardless, and one which is sure to have some major implications going forward. Depending on what else is found, it seems like the days of the Switch 2 being uncrackable may have come to an end.
Source:
Jailbreaking the switch 2 (Sammy Hajhamid’s blog)