No, of Course You Can't Actually Play the New Lego Game Boy

Back in January, as the world awaited news on the Switch 2, Lego jumped in and teased a collaboration with Nintendo that would bring the classic Game Boy console back to life in brick form. Now it’s here—and it looks even better than we expected. But, the promo video for launch has caused a fair bit of confusion as to whether you can actually play it.

The video is a remake of part of the original Game Boy commercial from 1989. As the included brick-built game cartridges are placed into the GamePak slot, the video's actor at least looks to start playing, before turning the Lego Game Boy to the camera—which shows the game on the screen moving pretty convincingly.

"THE GAME IS PLAYABLE?!?!" says one excited commenter. Another jumps in: “Wait, so the screen is a real working screen?” And they continue: “Can you play other games if you have the cartridges?” “So, is this a functional Game Boy?” For anyone stumbling across the video in their newsfeed, it's fair to say it is… unclear.

However, click the audio on and the reality is, unfortunately, confirmed. The voiceover says that the games are “interchangeable and not playable” and the moving display is actually down to “the lenticular display pieces.”

But even that hasn't stopped people's questions. “Did he say ‘not playable’?” asks one viewer. “So you can't actually play the games?” asks another. Some are just straight up disappointed: “All that effort to make it look like [it] is playable to quickly say is not playable.”