A Brand-New NES Game Officially Releases January 2027

A brand-new game is coming out for the Nintendo Entertainment System soon, and yes, you read that right. Nintendo’s first console to use cartridge-based games instead of built-ins, the NES era was a revolutionary period in video game history, spawning such classics as The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. 3.

Although the NES was succeeded by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by the early 90s, its impact can still be felt today. The graphical styles pioneered on the console, the properties introduced by it both live on today in sequels, remakes, or imitators. In fact, the NES proved so influential and popular that people are still developing games for it forty years later.

The Book of Rynn is a brand-new NES game by independent developer sebotron. The game, a fantasy RPG inspired by early Dragon Quest, follows four self-contained stories taking place throughout the world of Rynn. Rynn was destroyed by an evil power some millennia ago, and has spent the time since slowly healing — but fragments of that ancient evil may still remain.

A free demo of The Book of Rynn is available for download on sebotron’s Itch.io page now; it comes as an NES ROM, which you can open and play in your NES emulator of choice. However, the developer is also launching a Kickstarter campaign, beginning on January 12, to help fund the remainder of development, and to bring the game to real, physical NES cartridges.

The Book of Rynn includes a turn-based combat system, an original 8-bit soundtrack, and gorgeous, undeniably NES graphics. It’s not too hard for modern developers to imitate the NES style, but something like Rynn, which was developed specifically for the NES, is entirely different. The color palettes and the CRT monitor haze create an entirely different effect.

This isn’t the first latecomer for the NES; a handful of indie games have put out their own NES releases long after the console’s lifespan ended. D-Pad Hero, released in 2009, might have started the trend; in the years since, a few others have followed suit, including Holy Diver, Micro Mages, and Battle Kid.

Limited Run Games has also worked with a few developers to release NES versions of numerous retro-style games, usually tie-ins for popular media properties of the ’90s, like Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl or Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland. Limited Run even brought Angry Video Game Nerd 8-Bit to the NES as a limited edition.

Of course, developing games this way has its limitations: there’s only so big your file can get before it won’t fit on an NES cartridge, and performance is an ever-present issue. But these limitations have inspired a lot of really creative work, and The Book of Rynn is following in its footsteps.

So, while we can’t guarantee a release date for The Book of Rynn on the Nintendo Entertainment System just yet, it’s good to know that projects like these are still being worked on. If nothing else, it’s a testament to just how great of an impact these classics had on the people who played them.