Toy time

Modder hacks Fisher-Price Xbox controller to play Elden Ring

A controller enthusiast named Rudeism has hacked a Fisher-Price toy controller to actually play games, complete with goofy sounds.

If there's a little one in your life, you might recognize the Fisher-Price game controller, which is an educational toy that doubles as an induction to the Way of the Gamer.

Still, the raw power of a child's imagination wasn't good enough for one engineer, who managed to mod it into a legitimate controller that works on his PC.

Make some noise — As you can see in the above video, controller hacker, Rudeism, demonstrates the pint-sized pad's capabilities by running around in Elden Ring for a bit. Every function on the controller works, from the shoulder buttons to the oversized face buttons and D-pad.

Though it lacks a right stick and start/select buttons, the yellow switch underneath the face buttons switches the stick function, as well as swapping some functions (such as the Guide button) needed for full control. And, of course, it still makes all of the delightful noises that the toymaker intended, which is either a great source of amusement or annoyance, depending on how long you've used it for.

Hail to the king — Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley endorsed the modded monstrosity on Twitter — considering that he authored the Duke, possibly the most divisive controller of all time, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I just don't want to have to learn another button layout. Any layout that puts anything but the default option (which should be the first in the alphabet, by the way) on the bottom button deserves to be stricken from the Earth.

Rudeism has achieved some truly bizarre stuff with controllers over the years. In the above tweet, he triumphs over the final boss of Dark Souls 3 by using a single button tuned to Morse code, which is pretty damn impressive. (Still wouldn't make our list of the craziest ways people have beaten Elden Ring, though.) He also completed a run through Hades using pieces of a pomegranate, which seems appropriate to the game's mythological origins.