Elden Ring‘s vast world has inspired lots of fan projects and mods. Players make fan art and 3D printer pot boys and celebrate their hours spent in Lands Between. And a developer and streamer, Shintendo, is currently making the game for Game Boy, with the goal of working on “real hardware,” according to the description of the YouTube teaser trailer.
Shintendo is demaking Elden Ring using GB Studio 3.0, a popular retro game creation tool that supports Game Boy and Analogue Pocket devices. So far, he has designed a very recognizable place for early play – the Chapel of Anticipation with its long bridge and an Erdtree in the background. These places look cute in 8-bit style, though player Tarnished still gets kicked in the ass by the grafted Scion in the teaser trailer.
Originally shared on Reddit, the project quickly went viral.
“The idea was inspired by my friends, we played a lot of Elden Ring together, but we also like to do small video game projects together,” Shintendo told Polygon via Reddit chat. “We brainstormed possible uses of GB Studio 3.0 when the topic Elden Ring inevitably came up.”
His teaser trailer shows a few basic player moves, such as the dodge roll, as well as the fight against the scary early boss. “The funniest part is doing the sprite work,” Shintendo said. “It’s very satisfying to try to figure out how to represent a great character design like Varre or Ranni in a 16 x 16 sprite.”
His current goal is to try to complete the design of Limgrave by the end of May – a massive card in itself, though only a slice of the overall game – before deciding, “whether the rest of the game is at all possible to cram or not. into a Game Boy cartridge, “he said.” The most challenging part is definitely the limitations of Game Boy and GB Studio 3, the gameplay looks more like Adventure for 2600 than the Fire Ring right now. “
Shintendo is streaming its progress on Twitch as it continues to make parts of the huge game.