Undertale

*Undertale* is a role-playing game created by Toby Fox and first released for Windows and Mac in September 2015. It begins with a human child falling into the Underground, a realm where monsters have been confined behind a magical barrier since a war with humanity. To return to the surface, the child travels through the Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall and Hotland toward the monster capital.

The first monster the child meets is Flowey, a smiling flower who offers dangerous advice. Toriel intervenes and shelters the child in the Ruins, but she cannot prevent their departure. Later encounters include Papyrus, an aspiring member of the Royal Guard; his brother Sans; Undyne, the Guard’s determined leader; Alphys, the royal scientist; and Mettaton, a robot entertainer. The journey leads to King Asgore, who has collected six human souls in hopes of breaking the barrier.

Combat makes the player’s choices central to the story. On an enemy’s turn, the player moves a small heart to dodge attacks. On their own turn, they can fight, use an item, or choose ACT and MERCY commands to interact with an opponent and potentially spare them. Individual battles introduce distinctive rules: Papyrus can turn the heart blue, subjecting it to gravity, while Undyne’s green-heart attacks require the player to block incoming spears.

The game tracks whether monsters are killed, and its major story paths reflect those decisions. A Neutral ending can follow many different combinations of actions. The True Pacifist route requires sparing monsters and forming friendships, ultimately revealing more about Alphys’s experiments, Flowey’s origins and Asriel Dreemurr. The Genocide route instead requires deliberately exhausting encounters in each area. It changes familiar scenes and dialogue, making the consequences of repeated violence difficult to ignore. Even the familiar RPG terms EXP and LOVE receive unsettling explanations within the story.

Fox also composed *Undertale*’s soundtrack, whose recurring melodies connect characters and revelations across the adventure. Tracks such as “Megalovania,” “Hopes and Dreams” and “Fallen Down” became especially well known. The game’s dialogue frequently responds to player behavior, including choices made outside a single battle; Sans, for example, judges the player’s conduct near the end.

After its original computer release, *Undertale* came to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in 2017, Nintendo Switch in 2018 and Xbox One in 2021. Its premise is not simply that every enemy can be spared: it asks what the player does once they know that fighting is a choice.