Elden Ring fan is demaking the game for Game Boy

Elden Ring’s sprawling world has inspired lots of fan projects and mods. Fans are creating fan art, and 3D printing pot guys to celebrate their time 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 RingGB Studio 3.0 is a very popular tool for retro games. It supports both 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. They look great in 8-bit design, though Tarnished gets his stomp from the Grafted Scion in this teaser trailer.

The project was initially shared on Reddit and quickly became 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.”

This teaser trailer shows a few of the basic movements such as the dodge roll as well as how to fight the 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 streams his progress via Twitch as he demakes parts of the huge game.