Brandon Fletcher
Prepare to be amazed by an incredible sight: a rugged, armored character ascends a set of stairs leading to a massive metal portal. He bends down to grip the door from the bottom, which, in a surprising twist, opens by rolling upwards like the entrance to an unusual medieval garage. Beyond this entrance lies an expansive outdoor area dominated by a gigantic, radiant tree. Just outside the entrance stands a peculiar figure wearing a white mask, who mockingly teases the warrior for being “maidenless.” Yes, this is Elden Ring, but wait… is that a PlayStation 1?
This captivating three-scene demonstration is crafted by an individual known as 2009Aero, who has burst onto the YouTube scene with a flurry of similar creative uploads. His previous notable projects include “I built Dark Souls on a real Nintendo 64” and “I built Pokemon in TempleOS.” If you are unfamiliar with TempleOS and its creator, Terry A. Davis, prepare for a deep dive into a fascinating and somewhat somber rabbit hole that will likely capture your attention for hours.
The Elden Ring demo features three fully operational scenes, and it genuinely feels like a stroke of magic. How does one even initiate the process of getting Elden Ring to operate on a PS1? According to 2009Aero, the journey does not start with Elden Ring. Instead, he began with Minecraft—specifically, a prior project focused on running that game on a PS1. Using that port as a foundational framework, he worked on transforming the environment to appear less like Minecraft and incorporated character models derived from drastically downsampled yet still recognizable Elden Ring assets. Achieving movement for the Tarnished character in a simplified version of Limgrave required extensive memory management, aggressively culling anything not immediately visible to the player. It truly feels miraculous that he succeeded in making Godfrey’s boss fight operational.
Several fascinating insights emerge from this project: for example, one of the main challenges faced was transferring Elden Ring’s audio to the PS1, rather than focusing on the graphics. It is also quite jarring to be reminded of how limited the console’s hardware truly was; its 32-bit CPU operated at a mere 33MHz, a speed slower than the 386DX-based system that I proudly assembled several years prior. While direct comparisons between general-purpose PCs and dedicated gaming consoles may not always be fair, it is essential to recognize that the PS1 was not cutting-edge technology in 1994, and it had become nearly obsolete by the time the PS2 launched six years later.
All of this makes 2009Aero’s accomplishment that much more remarkable. Unfortunately, this isn’t the complete game, as one might expect: the video description humorously mentions that “Elden Ring on PS1 would have required over 10 CDs,” where the word “over” really emphasizes the point. Nonetheless, the three scenes that 2009Aero managed to create are playable, and impressively, they run not just on an emulator but also on a physical PS1 console. He even burned his creation onto a CD and successfully booted it up on a real PS1, at which point he humorously faced defeat at the hands of Godfrey’s second phase. (Don’t worry, 2009Aero—we’ve all experienced that.) As a demonstration of technical expertise, this is truly outstanding, and we eagerly anticipate his upcoming video, rumored to be titled “I built Cyberpunk 2077 on a bag of small nectarines.”
Daniel Mercer
