The Most Correct Solution to Play Recreation Boy Video games Is Accessible Once more, however There is a Catch

Palmer Luckey, the person who took a profession crafting VR headsets and turned it into an organization that sells weapons of battle to the U.S. navy, also makes a Game Boy-like handheld. The ModRetro Chromatic, designed to play previous Recreation Boy cartridges, has proved extremely widespread.

Now, the hand held, in all its authentic colorways, is again after a yr of unavailability, however with a couple of adjustments. First, there’s an all-new grey and purple colorway that’s giving SNES vibes. Second, whereas the Chromatic nonetheless begins at $200, which will get you an identical magnesium alloy shell and a particular copy of Tetris, the display screen cowl is now Gorilla Glass as an alternative of the extra sturdy, scratch-resistant sapphire glass that every one authentic Chromatics had. If you would like the model with the sapphire display screen, that now prices $300 (additionally bundled with Tetris). Whether or not or not the Chromatic is value it is determined by how a lot you really liked your previous Recreation Boy Shade and the way a lot you may abdomen Luckey’s ongoing love affair with the military-industrial advanced.

The Chromatic is a form of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) emulation machine. Meaning it doesn’t merely recreate Nintendo’s authentic handheld as software program, like most typical emulators do; it successfully replicates the {hardware} and chip logic. As such, it might play authentic Recreation Boy and Recreation Boy Shade cartridges alongside ModRetro’s personal “Chromatic” cartridges.

ModRetro, an organization cofounded by Luckey and fellow Anduril lead Torin Herndon, began selling the Chromatic virtually a yr in the past alongside a couple of homebrew video games designed for the machine. There are a couple of extra ModRetro-specific video games to go alongside the hand held re-release. The choice now includes Sabrina: The Animated Series – Zapped!, First Contact Protocol, Depraved Plague, Self Simulated, and Gravitorque DX. The final of these is a gravity-manipulating indie platformer akin to lo-fi darling VVVVVV from again in 2010. ModRetro can be promoting a couple of extra equipment, together with a chargeable battery to switch the previous AAs, a mod equipment to swap its buttons and D-pad, and a hyperlink cable to commerce Pokémon with mates the old school method.

I’m happy to annouce our newest sport!

Gravitorque DX is a puzzle platformer the place you management gravity as an alternative of leaping, fixing mind-bending ranges throughout 4 distinct worlds.

Get it now on a REAL cart: https://t.co/94qOCZBbV5@modretro #modretro #GameBoy #gamedev pic.twitter.com/35Ob3LBYXx

— Nikita Kurylev (@NikitaKurylev) July 10, 2025

The Chromatic is at the moment probably the most correct option to replay Recreation Boy and Recreation Boy Shade video games, with the additional advantage of a backlit IPS LCD display screen and different trendy facilities like video out through USB-C. That IPS display screen replicates the colours discovered on Nintendo’s authentic handheld. Whereas there are different FPGA mod kits out there for DIY lovers like this one from FunnyPlaying, your solely different possibility for the same full system to play your previous Recreation Boy cartridges is the $220 Analogue Pocket. It’s a fellow FPGA emulation machine with a four-button structure that can be appropriate with Recreation Boy Advance titles and different non-Nintendo video games like Sega Recreation Gear with further add-ons. Whereas Analogue has executed a number of restricted version colorways earlier than, it’s at the moment solely out there in black or white. In the previous couple of months, Analogue seemingly managed to beat persistent inventory points, so no less than for now, patrons have a selection.

Grabbing your stash of Recreation Boy video games from the attic sounds attractive, till you think about who you’re shopping for the Chromatic from. With one hand, Luckey promotes his retro gaming enterprise—a continuation of his early days as a handheld modder. With the opposite, he’s turning his navy weapons maker, Anduril, into one of many authorities’s de facto suppliers of cutting-edge navy expertise. Recently, Anduril took Microsoft’s place making XR goggles for troops on the bottom, and he even partnered up with once-friend, then-enemy, now-friend once more Mark Zuckerberg to craft the XR machine for the U.S. navy’s future troopers. Past his overtures to his nerdy past, Luckey sees the world in stark strains. He has stated in past interviews his aim is to produce sufficient weapons to behave as a form of deterrent towards aggression towards U.S. pursuits. This type of “sport principle” isn’t what most players love most about their pastime, nevertheless it’s intrinsic to how Luckey views his different, non-Recreation Boy-related enterprise pursuits.

compartmentalize Luckey’s companies is as much as every particular person purchaser, however I personally can’t advocate supporting the arms supplier regardless of how harmless this enterprise appears. You have already got an unimaginable variety of software program emulation-focused gadgets out there—together with sub-$100 handhelds just like the Anbernic RG34XXSP or TrimUI Brick—so patrons will not be starved for choices. Luckey has instructed he’ll launch a Recreation Boy Advance-like machine and Nintendo 64 emulator sooner or later, however when these hit the scene, we’ll nonetheless have the identical reservations, all to do with Luckey himself.