“The most fun part is doing the sprite work”: Elden Ring fan on demaking the title for Game Boy

An Elden Ring fan has started his own project of demaking FromSoftware’s latest RPG for the Game Boy. The developer and streamer who goes by the handle of Shintendo is looking to demake the game for the platform, with the sole goal of making it work on “real hardware.”

Sintendo recently uploaded a video that shows to a certain extent just how much work he has already done on the demake.

So far, he has been able to make a very recognizable Game Boy replica of the first area of the game. It's where the Tarnished spawns, and is called the Chapel of Anticipation. As an added detail, he has also been able to add the Erdtree in the background, granting the demake a great deal of authenticity.

While the demake trailer might make the game look easy at first, given the cute 8-bit esthetic, Shintendo will be looking to keep its core difficulty intact. As can be inferred from the trailer, the Grafted Scion is still an incredibly difficult foe to deal with early in the game.

---

Shintendo shares inspirations behind Elden Ring Game Boy demake

After its initial post on Reddit, the demake garnered some steam from the Elden Ring community, and in an interview with Polygon, Shintendo explained some of the inspirations behind conceiving the project in the first place.

The developer pointed out that the idea was inspired by his friends when they were brainstorming possible uses for Game Boy Studio 3.0. The topic of Elden Ring came up as that was the title they were playing a lot of at the time.

He mentioned that “the most fun part is doing the sprite work,” and in the trailer, fans can see the Tarnished’s sprite showing off some basic player movements like attacking, rolling and dodging.

It will indeed be quite interesting to see the sprite ideas he comes up with for the various other NPCs in the game, like Ranni and Malena, whom players encounter very early on.

Shintendo’s current goal for the RPG's demake is to finish designing Limgrave by the end of May. It is one of the biggest regions in the game; however, he would like to get that part of Elden Ring rolling before deciding if the rest of the game will even fit on a Game Boy cartridge.