Eight years ago today, Toby Fox released Undertale.
In 2015, two hours into watching a “Let’s Play” series on Undertale, I exited YouTube mid-video, opened Steam, and bought the first game I had purchased in years.
I had grown up playing video games, but somewhere along the way, when I entered school and my free time slipped away from me, I stopped. The time and effort it took to play games was more than I was willing to put in, so I switched over to consuming the content others churned out. I’d grown up watching my brother play games in a similar fashion, so I was more than familiar with being a bystander. What about Undertale changed that?
It was all about choice–the one thing you can’t emulate by watching someone else.
On its surface, Undertale doesn’t look like much. Pixel-graphics and 8-bit music. Arrow keys for movement. It’s reminiscent of Earthbound–which makes sense, as it was inspired by the 1994 SNES title. There were no huge studios backing Undertale, and the target audience was niche at its most ambitious. The game’s positive reception overwhelmed all expectations.