by Elden Ring may be one of the most critically acclaimed games to be released this year, but the burning question on everyone’s mind remains, “why can’t I play it on the original Game Boy?”
Worry no more, because an Elden Ring fan has begun developing a “demake” of the FromSoftware epic, shrinking the game’s colossal open world to fit Nintendo’s handheld.
And the best part? The developer, Shin, plans to make the Elden Ring demake playable on real hardware. This means that if you have an old Game Boy lying around, you could play the Elden Ring demake on it, as opposed to an emulator on PC.
Shin shared a proof of concept for the demake on the Elden Ring subreddit (thanks, GamesRadar) where it quickly went viral. The one-minute proof of concept shows a recreation of Elden Ring’s starting location, the Chapel of Anticipation, with a boss fight with the grafted Scion at the end. While the animations are rudimentary at this early stage, it’s still an impressive concept that we can’t wait to see more of.
Development on the Elden Ring demake also seems to be going smoothly, with Shin planning to have Limgrave – the introductory area of Elden Ring – completed by the end of May.
The lure of From Software undone
Shin’s attempt to create a demake of Elden Ring for the Game Boy is incredibly impressive, but it’s also not the first time a fan has taken to creating a retro version of a popular title. from From Software.
Earlier this year, developer Lilith Walther released the final version of Bloodborne PSX, a demake of the PS4 classic that emulates the look of a PS1 game, with relics like texture warping and muffled sound design. A humorous sequel, Bloodborne Kart, is also in development right now.
There’s clearly something appealing about reimagining FromSoftware’s games as old-school classics, and it’s fascinating that these demakes draw from two very different inspirations. Bloodborne PSX resembles early PS1 hack-n-slashers like Nightmare Creatures, while the Elden Ring demake resembles The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
We have yet to see how much the Elden Ring Shin demake will cover. As mentioned, the PS5 and Xbox Series X title | S is incredibly huge, but we’re certainly looking forward to seeing as many fascinating Lands Between translated into a Game Boy adventure as the developer deems possible.
