This week's crossover feed split cleanly. On one side, @immalkwalahi shared clips of Leon S. Kennedy walking the Lands Between with a Resident Evil 4 over-the-shoulder rig—the mod is SupMyNinja07's Leon in the Lands Between, and a work-in-progress test build is listed on Melty.
On the other, @BennettWaisbren posted Sonic Adventure inside Grand Theft Auto V—Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles on foot in Los Santos—with no public download and replies still debating whether the clip is "real" modding or something else.
Together those posts logged about 2.7 million impressions on X at time of writing (Oct 14, 2026): roughly 1,666,956 on Waisbren's Oct 12 post and 1,088,838 on malik's Leon clip.
'Playable' means three different things.
This is the tension our playability badges exist to name. One project asks you to bring your own games and reads Leon's model, animations, voice, HUD, and effects from your Steam install of Resident Evil 4 (the 2014 Ultimate HD release of the 2005 game—not the remake) every launch. The other is fun to watch, risky to ship, and already drawing "AI slop" headlines before anyone attaches a file.
Open on X
Open on XLeon in the Lands Between: the zip ships no IP
The Melty listing for Leon in the Lands Between is blunt: "Nothing from either game is in the download." At launch the mod pulls RE4 assets from your owned copy while Elden Ring runs offline through ModEngine2 with Easy Anti-Cheat disabled (Melty starts the game that way per the listing). Feature bullets there include RE4 animations, over-the-shoulder camera, life gauge, handgun/shotgun/knife with RE4 sounds, knife parry, KICK prompts, QTE DODGE backflip, green herbs (carry up to three, each heals 30%), and F8 to toggle Leon on/off. Credits on the same page say pose-importer layout and pre-draw hook code is adapted from ER Mario (Delta / deltarooo, MIT), plus fromsoftware-rs, hudhook, Dear ImGui, and ModEngine2. It is labeled an unofficial fan mod for offline, single-player play.
That lineage matters for readers who remember Mario in Elden Ring as a clip-only catalog entry: the viral Deltaroo3D post that racked up views before a copyright claim disabled it, as summarized on our card and in coverage linked there. Separately, ER Mario on GitHub is a playable MIT project that imports Mario from your own US Super Mario 64 ROM—the same "assets live on your disk" contract SkyCraft uses when it demands owned Skyrim and Minecraft: Java Edition copies instead of redistributing art. Leon borrows code from ER Mario; it is not a clean-room browser tribute like GameMash.
@immalkwalahi followed up Oct 12 with a second Leon clip ("Btw it's real mod"). On Oct 13 they posted that the first test build was out on Melty (post; 652 likes, 19,277 impressions at time of writing). We are not calling malik the creator—the listing names SupMyNinja07.
How to install Leon (Melty walkthrough; we have not played it)
Everything below is paraphrased from the Melty listing, Melty's FAQ, and public posts—not a Game Mashups playtest.
Melty's site describes the launcher as a one-click path: it downloads the mashup, installs what it needs, and starts the game; uninstalling is supposed to put files back as they were (FAQ). For Leon specifically, the listing adds hard requirements beyond "own both games": Elden Ring on Steam v2.7.1, launched offline through ModEngine2 with Easy Anti-Cheat off; Steam must be running and logged in before you press Play—if Elden Ring is started outside Steam, the listing warns it closes itself a few seconds in. You also need Resident Evil 4 on Steam, the 2014 Ultimate HD release of the 2005 game (App ID 254700), not the remake. Windows only.
A practical install path, stitched from those sources:
- Back up Elden Ring saves (we recommend this for any mod; Melty's FAQ doesn't mention saves).
- Install Melty from melty.gg on a Windows PC where both games are already in your Steam library.
- Log into Steam and leave the client running.
- Open the Leon in the Lands Between listing and press Play. Melty should fetch the mod payload and launch Elden Ring through the offline ModEngine2 path the listing describes.
- Start a new Vagabond save if you want the experience the author built around: the listing says Leon begins with both guns loaded and one green herb, with carry state saved per character; an existing character works, but a fresh Vagabond is "the way it's meant to be played."
- If you own RE4, Leon's assets load from your install at session start. If you do not, the listing says Elden Ring runs normally and shows a notice—useful sanity check that the BYO hook is working.
Controls and toggles (from the listing)
The mod replaces Elden Ring's moment-to-moment verbs with RE4-flavored ones. The listing documents keyboard defaults (gamepad equivalents in brackets):
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| F8 | Leon on / off (off restores Elden Ring's native character, camera, and controls) |
| W / S | Walk forward / back |
| A / D | Turn |
| Shift + W | Run |
| S + Shift | Quick 180° turn |
| Right mouse (guard) | Aim; W / S tilt aim |
| Left mouse (attack) | Fire |
| 1 / 2 | Handgun / shotgun |
| R | Reload |
| Space (dodge) | Hold knife ready; left mouse slashes; slash on impact parries |
| Left mouse (when prompted) | KICK on stunned enemies |
| F (when prompted) | DODGE (backflip or dive) or CLIMB at ledges |
| E | Pick up herbs; confirm herb screen |
| H | Use herb (30% heal; up to three carried) |
| Left / right arrows (and mouse) | Look around |
Ladders climb themselves once Leon is on them. F8 is the emergency exit hatch: the listing explicitly promises Elden Ring's own character when Leon is off—handy if you need to compare vanilla movement or troubleshoot.
Sidecar files and bug reports
The Melty page documents files the mod writes beside itself:
leon_light.txt— brightness (default 1.0; listing suggests 1.3 for brighter Leon), re-read every few seconds.qte_timing.txt,qte_reach.txt,qte_heavy.txt— QTE windows learned from incoming attacks.logs/leonring.log— log file the author asks you to attach to bug reports.
The listing calls the build work-in-progress, says things will be rough, and invites bug reports. Treat frame-time and stability as unknown from our desk; third-party clips (malik's posts, coverage below) show it running, but that is not a benchmark.
What the timeline added (primary posts only)
malik's Oct 12 part 1 clip ("Leon in Elden ring / Mods going crazy") drove most of the Leon impressions we quote. Their part 2 clip explicitly says the mod is real. The Oct 13 Melty announcement points players at the listing—652 likes at time of writing, but only a handful of replies, so we are not treating X as a bug database.
lowkeyGG's YouTube upload (embedded below) is third-party reaction footage; we have not verified its settings or build version.
Open on XSonic Adventure in GTA V: watchable, not installable
Waisbren's Oct 12 post is the one that ate the timeline:
I put Sonic Adventure into GTAV and I literally can't stop playing it / Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are all fully playable / This is the golden age of modding
— @BennettWaisbren, Oct 12, 2026 (34,060 likes, 3,823 reposts, 1,666,956 impressions at time of writing).
An Oct 9 build post already showed Sonic and Tails playable with rough edges (21 likes, 1,482 impressions). From the replies: he intentionally ramped Sonic's speed while running; Tails' jump sound, carried over from Sonic Adventure DX, already sounds odd in the original (Waisbren's wording: the effect "sounds weird in Sonic Adventure DX (where this was ported from)"); he fine-tuned Knuckles' glide to echo yellow-cape Mario dives; and when a critic called the project a parlor trick he said he stayed up playing it because it was fun.
Download status: Waisbren replied Oct 13: "No download yet." He is "looking into whether I can put out a version that works with your own copies of both games (Sonic Adventure DX and GTAV Legacy). Stay tuned"—and separately that he does not want "Sega coming after me." That is the same legal instinct Leon's empty zip encodes, except Leon already shipped a test path.
Coverage split between delight and dismissal. NerdBaller (Oct 12) noted the HUD and map stay on screen so it reads as in-engine play, found no public download, and pointed to Everyeye.it asking whether the video itself could be AI-made. Arkade framed it as a curious solo experiment. GamingBible (Sam Cawley, Oct 14, 2026) went harder—headline "an affront to gaming"—and attributes the mod to "Claude Opus 5.5." Waisbren does tag other work "Made possible with Claude Opus 5.5" (for example his Oct 6 "First contact" post), but we did not find him naming a model on the Sonic thread itself—treat GamingBible's Sonic attribution as press inference unless he states it on that project. The piece also calls it "AI slop" and argues it would bore after ten minutes, while noting human-made Sonic movement mods for GTA V already exist—including community work cataloged elsewhere such as Sonic Ultimate Speed & Combat.
We are not ruling on whether the Sonic clip is AI-generated video. We are marking the gap between watchable and installable—the same gap Minecraft in Elden Ring still occupies in our Clip only row.
Bring-your-own as community answer—not immunity
The pattern is spreading because redistribution is where takedowns live. SkyCraft documents two owned titles and shared memory. ER Mario documents a US SM64 ROM you supply. Leon's Melty page copies that sentence structure: nothing from either game in the download. That does not erase copyright or trademark claims—Capcom, FromSoftware, and Sega still own their works—but it shifts the mod archive from "here is Mario.zip" to "here is glue code; bring licenses you already paid for."
The AI-era mashup wave in AI Game Mashups added clip-only spectacles that trained audiences to assume every crossover is one prompt away from play. October's pair shows the fork: installable BYO glue versus viral footage with legal hesitation. HappyGamer (Oct 12) tied Leon buzz to a wider modding moment, quoting an @yx_Fox reply (per that article) about using Claude on a Force Unleashed-in-Elden Ring WIP—we have no primary source that Leon itself was AI-assisted, so we are not stating that—and noted that replies under malik's clip jumped to other crossover jokes rather than install tips.
Another RE4 crossover on Melty is 7 Days to Resident Evil 4 (7 Days to Die plus RE4, 2005); we have not played it.
Skepticism is healthy. GamingBible's tone is one pole; Waisbren's overnight play session is another. Before AI reminds us designed crossovers once shipped as cartridges with permission slips—today's frankenbuilds often ship as threads, launcher entries, or silence. Fair accounting means labeling engagement at time of writing, linking primary posts, and refusing to invent downloads.
If you want Leon in the Lands Between, you need both Steam libraries, tolerance for WIP jank, and offline discipline—the spec box and install section above are the checklist. Sonic in Los Santos remains clip-only until Waisbren ships a BYO path, if ever. Until then, the mashup is the video, and playable belongs in quotation marks.
