How to Unpack Unity Assets with a Hacked Nintendo Switch

As a developer or modder interested in recreating games in Unity, you may be looking for ways to access the underlying assets of a game without needing to reverse-engineer its code. In this tutorial, we'll explore how to unpack Unity assets using a hacked Nintendo Switch and various tools.

Step 1: Prepare Your Hacked Switch

Before we begin, make sure your Nintendo Switch is properly hacked with homebrew installed. This will allow us to run custom applications on the console.

Step 2: Dump the Game Data

Using your hacked Switch, dump both the romfs and exefs data from the game you're interested in unpacking. You can do this by running a homebrew application like NXDumpTool.nro in native mode (hold 'R' as you launch the game).

Step 3: Extract Assembly-CSharp.dll

Within the dumped folder, locate the file called Assembly-CSharp.dll. This is the key to unlocking the Unity assets.

Step 4: Run IL2CPP Dumper

Open IL2CPP Dumper and provide the il2cpp binary file located in the exefs folder (not main.npdm). The program will then ask for a global-metadata file, which you can obtain from the romfs folder.

Step 5: Move Files to Your Computer

Once IL2CPP Dumper has finished processing, move the extracted files to your computer. You should now have a 'dummyDLL' folder located in the Metadata directory.

Step 6: Extract Assets with UABE

Using the Unity Assets Bundle Extractor (UABE), you can extract asset files from an owned Unity game. This tool is particularly useful for extracting images and textures. Follow the instructions provided on the documentation page to learn how to use it.

In this tutorial, we've covered the basics of unpacking Unity assets using a hacked Nintendo Switch and various tools. While this process doesn't allow direct editing of the code, it can be a significant boon for developers looking to recreate games in a clean project in Unity or research the ROM itself.

Remember to always respect copyright laws when using these extracted files. They should only be used for promoting the game (including wiki use), or modding purposes.

Unity assets unpacker