Not that it’ll be of any help to you, but because I want to make games about elves, I feel like answering the title question.
What would it take? Money to reduce basic life stressors and time to either learn how to make the planned games or to hire creators to help. A potential audience interested in the game to keep up morale. (Knowing I’m the only person my games to date are really for is sucky sometimes.) I’d also need a place to live where the games won’t put me and mine in danger for publishing and promoting the work, because the less established the themes and visual tropes are, the more dangerous it is where I am now.
FWIW, I am working on an elf-themed narrative game with multiple point-and-click challenges for a simple quest.
There’s another much bigger game that’s similar, featuring elves at the edge of a human realm as they attempt to reclaim the land, but it’s a background project developing over years. Honestly, I would be surprised if I’m not only able to finish it but release it while I’m still alive.
I have seen elf games online that might not be to your taste that are available, but they’ve been marginalized to the extent that it’s hard to get copies.
For the non-indie games, there are the classics like Zelda and RPGs.