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. 

TOPICS
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.

Read more
Ten planks of wood from Dark Souls, responsible for my nightmares in Blighttown.
The co-creator of Dark Souls' most ambitious mod resurfaces to inform me that Blighttown, source of my nightmares, was cobbled together with '10 bits of wood'
Key art of the videogame Lunacid, showing a pale, long haired knight in purple armor contemplating a purple, flaming sword surrounded by the different phases of the moon.
One of my favorite indie RPGs is getting a follow-up made with FromSoftware's 25-year-old Super Mario Maker for first person dungeon crawlers
Junya Ishizaki next to an image from Elden Ring: Nightreign
Elden Ring Nightreign director didn't want to 'encroach too much' on the lore fans hold sacred by including Dark Souls bosses, but admits 'I thought it'd be kind of fun'
Double headed wizard man holding arms up looking sad
A tabletop RPG designer made a game about the way FromSoft NPCs say cryptic stuff and go 'heh heh heh' all the time, and the result is a love letter to the 'grubby little weirdos'
elden ring nightreign
3 hours with Elden Ring Nightreign helped me accept it's not the co-op FromSoft game I asked for, but damn fun in its own right
The creator of the Elden Ring Seamless co-op mod is now infusing unlimited multiplayer into Dark Souls 3
Latest in RPG
A close-up of a scared young girl's face as she stumbles through the woods, a crown of twigs and flowers upon her head.
CD Projekt says it's not using generative AI on The Witcher 4 because it's 'quite tricky when it comes to legal IP ownership'
Ciri in The Witcher 4
The Witcher 4 won't be out until sometime in 2027 at the soonest, CD Projekt says
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 characters with their bodies replaced by skeletons, thanks to the KCD2 Skeleton mod.
Here's that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 mod that turns everyone into skeletons you asked for
Ghoul in sunglasses
I'm convinced being a ghoul in Fallout 76 is the best way to vibe in West Virginia, thanks to these powerful perk cards and my new true love: Radiation
A hunter digs in to some delicious dumplings in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds' first title update is overflowing with new stuff: A long-awaited Grand Hub, Arch-tempered Monsters, Arena Quests, and most importantly, fashion
Lou Graham
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 won't have typical RPG romantic relationships, but it will feature 'romantic feeding'
Latest in News
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
An image of a golden first place award from Geoguessr
'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April
Napster client circa 1999
Former music-pirating platform Napster to be reborn rather ironically as a metaverse for musicians to connect with their fans after $207 million deal
The snazzy red and black HyperX Cloud Alpha wireless headphones float in a teal void. The microphone is attached to the headset.
The best wireless gaming headset is now even better in the Amazon Big Spring Sale, boasting a more than $50 discount
A chip being held up in an Intel fab
Intel is reportedly 'working to finalize commitments from Nvidia' as a foundry partner, suggesting gaming potential for the 18A node