Elden Ring’s sprawling world has inspired lots of fan projects and mods. Players are making fan art and 3D printing pot boys, celebrating their hours spent in the Lands Between. And one developer and streamer, Shintendo, is currently demaking the game for Game Boy, with the goal of it working on “real hardware,” according to the YouTube teaser trailer description.
Shintendo is demaking Elden Ring using GB Studio 3.0, a popular retro game creator tool, which has support for Game Boy and Analogue Pocket devices. So far, he has designed a very recognizable early game location — the Chapel of Anticipation with its long bridge, and an Erdtree in the background. These locations look cute in 8-bit style, even if the player Tarnished still gets their ass kicked by the Grafted Scion in the teaser trailer.
Initially 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 make small video game projects together,” Shintendo told Polygon via Reddit chat. “We were brainstorming possible uses for GB Studio 3.0 when the topic of Elden Ring inevitably came up.”
His teaser trailer shows off a few basic player movements, like the dodge roll, as well as the fight against the intimidating early boss. “The most fun part is doing the sprite work,” Shintendo said. “It’s very satisfying trying to figure out how to represent an awesome character design like Varre or Ranni in a 16 x 16 sprite.”
His current goal is to try to finish designing Limgrave by the end of May — a massive map in its own right, though just a slice of the overall game — before deciding, “whether or not the rest of the game is even possible to cram into a Game Boy cartridge,” he said. “The most challenging part is definitely the limitations of the Game Boy and GB Studio 3, the gameplay looks more like Adventure for the 2600 more than Elden Ring right now.”
Shintendo is streaming his progress on Twitch, as he continues to demake parts of the vast game.
