This fan is creating an Elden Ring demake for Game Boy

facing down the lo-fi grafted scion
(Image credit: User shin on Reddit)

Elden Ring may have some performance woes on PC, but what about the original Game Boy?

User shin on Reddit posted WIP footage of their OG Game Boy demake of FromSoftware's hit action RPG. It most strongly resembles The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, with top-down exploration of scrolling environments and a familiar sword slash attack, but also translates the essential Souls Series dodge roll to the new perspective. 

im_making_an_elden_ring_demake_for_the_game_boy from r/Eldenring

The Reddit clip features shin's take on the Chapel of Anticipation starting area, complete with tutorial messages and a pixel art Erdtree, all awash in that creamed spinach color palette we all love from Nintendo's classic handheld. 

The demonstration ends with a battle against a cute-yet-menacing take on the Grafted Scion, Elden Ring's initial "supposed to lose" fight, followed by a suitably charming "YOU DIED" game over screen.

Shin is streaming their development process on their Twitch channel, shintendoTV. They're using GB Studio 3.0 to create the project, and have expressed a desire to at least flesh out their take on Limgrave in this style, if not press further.

It reminds me of the great Game Boy Color mockup of Breath of the Wild created by Nintendo Wire back in 2018, but unlike that demonstration, Shin's Elden Ring project will be fully playable on original hardware or emulator once finished. 

Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch.