Toby Fox is one of the most well-known auteurs in indie games, known for creating Undertale and Deltarune. Despite his works’ widespread popularity, he’s a very private person, hiding his face from the internet, only doing occasional interviews, and having a relatively restrained social media presence. So when he addressed backlash from Latin American fans this weekend, it was especially significant.
Fox works with a small team, where he has a lot of creative control. According to his recent statement, the reason he hasn’t had his work translated into more languages (like Spanish or Portuguese) is because he wants to be sure translations “match” his “vision,” and he only speaks English and Japanese.
Why address the Latin American fans in the first place? On Saturday, March 28, Fox posted on X to help promote the Japanese translation of OFF (a remake of a game that inspired Undertale), since he helped with new version’s soundtrack. Fox’s post includes Japanese text and English text, the latter of which reads, “OFF has an official Japanese translation now. The trailer is cool even if you don’t speak Japanese.”
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But since the topic of translations came up, many replies included people from Latin American countries, frustrated that neither of Fox’s games have received localizations into their native languages. It’s especially notable in Undertale’s case, as the game has been out since 2015. Fox doesn’t typically address the people in his replies, but in this case, he followed up with a post to Bluesky the following day, March 29, sharing two screenshots of larger text posts with the caption, “A message for my fans in Latin America.”
The March 29 post makes three points, which include the translation controversy and other related issues. Firstly, Fox says that despite the upcoming Undertale concert series not scheduling any stops in Latin America, he has little influence there, though the organizers have “heard the enthusiasm” from fans. Secondly, Fox acknowledges that, despite preferring otherwise, Fangamer (Undertale’s merchandise distributor) will not ship to Latin America, as the company says it’s “prohibitively expensive.” While Fox says “it would be amazing” if Fangamer found a way to make it work, he also says that he prefers to work with Fangamer “exclusively,” so unless the company finds a workaround, the merch will likely not come to Latin America at all.
Finally, Fox addresses the lack of Spanish and Portuguese translations of Undertale, insisting that the languages aren’t uniquely left out – the game is only available in English and Japanese. Fox goes on to say the following:
I know it sucks that there are no other official translations for UNDERTALE. But I want to make it clear that this isn’t because I have a grudge against other countries. It’s because, if I release something official, I want it to match my vision. I was only able to do this for the Japanese version because I know Japanese myself, and I worked very closely with our brilliant translator to thoroughly check the text. I am not against official translations for other languages if we could make it work the same way… In the past I have looked into various options with my publisher, 8-4, but nothing has come of that yet. Maybe I should try a different approach.
Fox also says Deltarune is unlikely to receive more translations either, writing, “it’s just not feasible from a development standpoint to support other languages right now, since it would make the game take longer to come out…” Fox then goes on to praise unofficial fan translations, saying he’s “very happy” they exist, and that they can exist without being “officially” perfect.
Based on the replies and reactions to the post, the statement is controversial, to say the least. While some defend Fox and his desire to keep the development team small, others say Undertale’s massive success more than justifies the time and cost of adding more languages. Some also say it’s unrealistic to expect such specific creative control over a translation, and that any official localization is better than none. At the time of writing, Fox has yet to post online again.
For more of Toby Fox’s elusive public statements, check out this interview freelancer Ana Diaz did with the developer in The Outer Worlds 2 issue of Game Informer from last September.
