The Impact of Undertale
“You kill a lot of random monsters (sometimes even humans) in every RPG and the consequences for this are never addressed. What if they were?” -Toby Fox, creator of Undertale
Undertale, a 2015 2D RPG (role-playing game) created by indie developer and composer Toby Fox, was a very important game. It had a huge impact on the video game community and I would even go as far as saying it's one of the most important games ever released. But before we get into its impact, we have to talk a bit about how the game came to be. It all really started with the release of the 1994 SNES cult classic, “Earthbound”.
Toby was only four when he played the game Earthbound, but it left a huge impact on him. He has even stated, “I was so young that it helped me learn to read, and also transformed my brain forever.” (PCGamer). In his teen years he would make ROM hacks of the game, which is the process of heavily modifying a game’s graphics, music, etc.. to basically make any changes you want and even make your own game. This really is where his interest in game development began. The main idea of Undertale, that being that it’s “a traditional role-playing game where no one has to get hurt” (Undertale Kickstarter), seems to stem from an often misquoted conclusion to an old 1994 Doom review, “If only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances... Now, that would be interesting.”. Funding to create the game began with the launch of the kickstarter campaign for the game on June 25, 2013 with a reasonable goal of $5,000. When it ended just a month later on July 25, 2013, it had crushed the goal, making an insane $51,124. It was safe to say people had already fallen in love with the idea of the game, and about 2 years later it was released.
The game released to critical acclaim, averaging scores in the 90's out of 100, with many considering it an instant cult classic and a must play. People praised the game. They loved everything. The story, characters, gameplay, music... You name it. Some even went as far as to call it “the most affecting game produced in the last 10 years.” (Mike M., The Philosopher’s Meme). Needless to say, people enjoyed it, and at its release the game had already started to make an impact on people’s lives.
As time passed, the community grew more and more. Tons of fans began to release all sorts of cool projects. Beautiful fanart, songs, and even a ton of fan games began development not long after. The game had already touched so many, with one person stating, “... as long as we stay determined, we can break that barrier and have our happy ending. So to anyone else facing problems like what the artist was facing, don't sweat it. It'll be OK, just stay determined and I promise you, you'll be OK. It's incredible how much of an effect a game can have on people.” (DragonicPiggy, Reddit). For me personally, the game resonated with me a ton at the time. I was 12 when it released, and I watched someone play it and absolutely fell in love. I was drawing the characters all the time and I eventually (with some help) made a decently complex costume of one of the characters. It even got me interested in making a game of my own, though that’s still a long way off.
The game didn't only impact people, of course, but gaming as a whole. Undertale's popularity eventually led to him working with Nintendo and Gamefreak (Developers of the Pokemon series). On September 4, 2019, it is announced in a Nintendo Direct, a live stream in which Nintendo announces upcoming titles and content for their games, that Toby Fox will not only be working with Gamefreak on the soundtrack to their upcoming game at the time, but that a character from Undertale will be making its way to their hit game “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” as a paid costume. It even included a music track from Undertale with it, MEGALOVANIA, which is a fan favorite. He even got to meet the Smash Bros. creator Masohiro Sakurai and play the game with him. The experience meant a ton to him, and went on to say, “I wrote more beforehand but I'm so shocked that Sakurai-san talked about our meeting. If he's going to mention me, then I have to tell everyone that we listened to a CD of Smash music as he drove me home in his car (which I kept calling his Batmobile)” (Twitter 1). His game had reached the point where big game companies recognized his talent and the success of his game, and he was proud of that fact.
Nowadays he's working on another game, titled Deltarune, that he has actually been working on since before work on Undertale had started. He released the first chapter of the game, which is essentially the demo, on Halloween 2018 as a surprise drop. The game caught fans by surprise, and people quickly fell in love with it just as they had fallen in love with Undertale. The game had a lot of connections to Undertale in terms of characters, but it still stood out as something entirely new. This was gonna be a much bigger project, and it was obvious he couldn’t do it on his own as he did with Undertale. So he got a team together to work on it with him. Because of this, he can now get work on the game done a lot faster than he ever could’ve on his own. Only 3 years after the release of Deltarune Chapter 1, although he said he wouldn’t release more until the full game was ready, he revealed chapter 2 of the game at the end of a charity playthrough live stream of the first chapter, and a few days later it was released for everyone to play. “The world has been really tough for everybody recently. So I decided to release DELTARUNE Chapter 2 for free.”, he states in a September 2021 Status Update on the official website for Deltarune. Fans were once again completely shocked at the sudden drop, and overjoyed to be able to play more. Along with his development of Deltarune, he, along with Fangamer, holds charities every year on both the Undertale and Deltarune Chapter 1 anniversary dates, the most recent one taking place just this month on September 17, 2022 and generating an insane $322,805.68 for Child’s Play.
Toby Fox, in only 7 years since Undertale's release, has accomplished so much. From the money he's gathered for charities, to his interactions in the gaming space, it’s clear that he has impacted so many lives, including my own, which is something he said he wanted around the time the game first released! In his words, “I made UNDERTALE, but the resulting reaction feels out of my control... I hope in the end, UNDERTALE has an overall good effect on the world” (Twitter 2). I’m really glad his hopes and dreams came true in the end, and I can’t wait to see what he has in store.