PUBG Game Boy
PUBG being played on a Game Boy Color. Michael Darby

An intrepid modder has managed to play Bluehole's smash hit early access shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds on the tiny 4cm screen of Nintendo's beloved 1998 handheld the Game Boy Color.

Able to compete with 99 other players, the modder achieved the feat not by actually running the game on the Game Boy's relatively primitive hardware (that'd be impossible) but by streaming it to the device after modding it with a Raspberry Pi microcomputer.

The result was shaky, and a lack of buttons meant modder Michael Darby was unable to reload, but it ran and he did manage to play it all the same.

Michael explained how he achieved the feat in a post on Hackster.

Once he assembled his modded Game Boy (burning the d-pad in the process – Michael admits he's still learning the tools of the trade) he first played Quake 3, then Minecraft, which both ran with notable performance issues.

To play PUBG he streamed the game from his PC using Steam's Big Picture mode, and he filmed the results (you can watch that video below).

In PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, 100 players airdropped onto a large island map compete solo or in squads to gather equipment and fight to be the last competitor or competitors standing.

In Michael's first match, he parachuted straight into a body of water only to get stuck when he got out. The second match went a little better. This time he was able to find land and some gear before dying and finishing 86th overall.

In his third and final run he fared better still, even if he spent most of the game locked in a shack before being killed and finishing 62nd. Slow progress, but progress.

"Well there we have it, PUBG on a Game Boy Color," he says as the video ends. "We can do it, but should we do it? I don't think so. Thanks for watching."

Released in an early, unfinished form in March, PUBG was still an instant success and has only continued to grow in the time since. A version for Xbox One is expected to launch this year as part of some kind of exclusivity deal with Microsoft.

A PS4 version is assumed to be on the cards, but until the Xbox version has been released Microsoft and Bluehole are staying quiet on the subject. We wouldn't bet our money on an official Game Boy version, but a version for Nintendo's current handheld the Switch?

Here's hoping.