Renamed Elland: The Crystal Wars will be released in physical format for the Game Boy Advance

Dune is experiencing a particular peak of popularity thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s brilliant adaptation of Frank Herbert’s work. The franchise is one of the most important in science fiction and fantasy literature, and The Game Awards 2021 gave us what will be the next strategy title to adapt the work, Dune: Spice Wars. However, two decades ago, we were very close to having a promising game about Arrakis for Game Boy Advance, which was finally cancelled when it was practically finished.

In 2002, Frank Herbert’s Dune: Ornithopter Assault was in development for the GBA, when a series of financial problems drove its publisher into bankruptcy, ending Soft Brigade’s project and the hopes for this ambitious adaptation. Two decades later, The Retro Room Games, has rescued this project to relaunch it for its original system in a successful Kickstarter campaign.

The game has been renamed Elland: The Crystal Wars as they could not get the original Dune license and have removed the references to the franchise that the game contained. Otherwise, it retains everything that made it unique in 2002. A 3D shooter that puts us at the controls of an aerial vehicle, offering us different missions to carry out.

There are only a few hours left for the project to finish on Kickstarter, and the good news is that it has comfortably surpassed the amount needed to get this unreleased game off the ground. The Retro Room already surprised us recently with Gelatinous: Humanity Lost, an interesting Metroidvania released for Game Boy in physical format. The passion for retro is leading many studios and publishers to release console games from several decades ago in physical format, making consoles like Game Boy or Mega Drive more alive than ever thanks to homebrew.

Source: as