Elden Ring may be one of the most critically acclaimed games to release this year, but the burning question on everyone's minds remains, "why can't I play it on the original Game Boy?"
Worry no more, because one Elden Ring fan has begun developing a "reversal" of the FromSoftware epic, shrinking the game's colossal open world to fit on 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 laying around, you can play the Elden Ring demake on it, unlike 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 the Elden Ring's starting location, the Chapel of Anticipation, with a boss fight featuring 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 of the Elden Ring demake also appears to be going smoothly, with Shin planning to have Limgrave, the Elden Ring intro area, complete by the end of May.
The lure of From Software undone
Shin's intention to create a demake of Elden Ring for Game Boy is incredibly impressive, pero tampoco is the first thing a fan dedicated to creating a retro version of a popular From Software title.
Earlier this year, developer Lilith Walther released the final version of Bloodborne PSX, a remake 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 at the moment.
Clearly, there's something appealing about reimagining FromSoftware's games as old-school classics, and it's fascinating that these remakes draw from two very different inspirations. Bloodborne PSX looks like early PS1 hack-n-slashers like Nightmare Creatures, while the Elden Ring version looks like 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 big, but we certainly hope to see as many fascinating Lands Between translated into a Game Boy adventure as the developer sees fit.
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