Dopamine 2.5 Beta 1 dropped today from developer opa334, and it carries a significant addition: the DarkSword kernel exploit is now integrated directly into Dopamine, extending support to iOS versions that were previously out of reach.
The release landed on GitHub on March 26, 2026 — and if the name DarkSword sounds familiar, it should. We covered it earlier this month when it first surfaced as a sophisticated iOS exploit kit. Now opa334 has put it to work inside the most capable rootless jailbreak available.
What’s New in Dopamine 2.5 Beta 1
The headline change is DarkSword integration, which unlocks two new version ranges:
- iOS 15.8.7 — now supported on A9 and A10 devices
- iOS 16.7 through 16.7.15 — now supported on arm64 devices
That second addition is particularly meaningful. iOS 16.7.x is the latest security maintenance branch of iOS 16 — a series of updates Apple has continued pushing to older devices that can’t run iOS 17. Anyone who stayed on iOS 16.7.x believing they were safe from jailbreaking now finds themselves in range.
Known Issues — It’s Still a Beta
opa334 is upfront about the rough edges in this first beta release:
- DarkSword does not yet support A8(X) devices
- May not work correctly on A9X
- The race condition in DarkSword fails on early iOS 16 versions — roughly 16.0 through 16.3.1
- DarkSword can sometimes cause the Dopamine app to crash and close
- Other unspecified issues may exist
One quirk worth noting: the version number displayed inside the Dopamine app will show as 2.4.9 rather than 2.5 — this is intentional, done to avoid triggering the in-app updater during the beta period.
What Dopamine Already Supports
Before this release, Dopamine 2.x supported iOS 15.0 through 15.8.6 on all arm64 devices, and iOS 16.0 through 16.6.1 on arm64 devices, with arm64e support capped at iOS 16.5.1. The DarkSword addition now stretches the iOS 16 arm64 ceiling from 16.6.1 all the way to 16.7.15 — the very latest iOS 16 release.
Does This Mean iOS 17 Support Is Coming?
Not yet. DarkSword, as opa334 has integrated it here, targets the iOS 15–16 kernel. It’s worth noting that iOS 17.0.0 exactly does have a known jailbreak — but Apple patched it in 17.0.1, leaving a very narrow window. For the vast majority of iOS 17 users on any later version, there is no public jailbreak available, and this release doesn’t change that.
For devices on iOS 17 or newer, palera1n remains the only realistic option — and only for A9 through A11 devices using the hardware-level checkm8 exploit.
The DarkSword Connection
It’s notable that DarkSword — first reported as a sophisticated commercial iOS exploit — has now been folded into a public, open-source jailbreak tool. This is a pattern the jailbreak community has seen before: exploits that begin as private or commercial tools eventually make their way into public tools once they’re sufficiently known. The security window for DarkSword on affected iOS versions is now effectively closed for anyone who stays updated, but it remains very much open for the large installed base still running iOS 15 and 16.
You can find the Dopamine 2.5 Beta 1 release on opa334’s GitHub. Given that it’s a beta, casual users may want to wait for a stable release before diving in.
