Has *Red Dead Redemption 2* really become Elden Ring? This mod is kind of brutal

I’d give it an 8. Because this isn’t the kind of project that just swaps the skin and dares to call itself a “massive MOD.” This time, Blurbs really did cram the skeleton of Elden Ring straight into Red Dead Redemption 2.

Let’s start with the conclusion: the most terrifying thing about this isn’t Arthur being able to swing a greatsword. That’s just surface-level spectacle. What’s truly absurd is that the creator recreated boss cutscenes at a 1:1 scale, built a custom melee system, a complete UI, and even implemented health bar changes down to the display meter. To put it bluntly, this is no longer just “Western-style Elden Ring” — it’s more like someone welded the memory cards of two consoles together.

From the showcase, you can see characters from Red Dead Redemption 2 pulling off Elden Ring’s signature moveset, including heavy slashes and upward strikes. Magic isn’t just for show either: the creator made custom skills with special effects that can knock enemies back and apply damage over time, recreating the “Scarlet Rot” mechanic. Veteran players will probably feel a bit of that old excitement from modding The Elder Scrolls to chaos, but this time the level of polish is clearly much higher.

What’s even more interesting is that it also copies over Elden Ring’s community features. Summon signs are there, the message system is there too, and the messages are generated directly from livestream chat comments, while the summoned helpers come from the audience. That idea really goes hard. You could say it isn’t “authentic” enough, but then again, those messages on the ground in Elden Ring were already half true and half nonsense anyway. Swapping them for livestream chat somehow makes it feel even more fitting.

Of course, don’t rush to crown it a masterpiece. Blurbs himself said this MOD doesn’t yet cover all hidden dialogue and minor bosses. In other words, the core spectacle is in place, but the surrounding details still haven’t been fully filled out. With a huge MOD like this, the biggest fear is that it looks like a Metal Gear Solid 3 remake at first glance, but up close all the interactions turn out to be made of cardboard. Fortunately, from what’s been shown so far, it at least doesn’t look like some half-finished product trying to fake it.

There’s also a practical issue: it still hasn’t been released publicly. The creator’s wording is cautious too — he’s only “considering” uploading it for players to use. Veteran players know what that means. It’s basically the same as the “Now Loading” at the start of a Capcom game — there’s hope, but don’t get too excited just yet.

Blurbs has done plenty of wild MOD projects before, like turning Red Dead Redemption 2 into a Pokémon RPG, and some of them even made it onto NexusMods. This one, though, is his biggest project so far. What does that say? It says that MOD creators, a lot of the time, understand better than some major studios what players actually want to see. It’s not about piling up open-world checklists or stuffing maps with question marks, but about making two classic games that have absolutely nothing to do with each other collide and create that fresh sense of “wait, this actually works.”

If you’re a PC player, this is worth keeping an eye on. Not because it’s guaranteed to become a complete game you’ll play for the long haul, but because it represents a trend: the most vital content today may not come from new releases at launch, but instead from the monsters stitched together by player communities with their own hands. Just like how the Half-Life community once gave rise to a whole string of legendary MODs, today’s creators are reminding big studios of something too: stop making “creativity” feel like a system notice. Sometimes, all players really want is a genuinely good surprise.