Toby Fox, the solo developer and publisher behind the indie cult-hits Undertale and Deltarune, has attempted to quell the ire of his non-Japanese/English-speaking fans in a recent post on Bluesky after noticing “some frustration from Latin American fans” due to a lack of localization support for his games abroad.
“Recently, Fangamer asked me to make a post in Japanese regarding the translation of OFF,” Fox stated. “Well, in the responses to that post, I noticed some frustration from Latin American fans…”
The post in question that Fox is referring to was shared on X in celebration of the official Japanese translation of the 2025 re-release of Fangamer’s 2008 cult-classic OFF. The majority of the top comments on that post are from Latin American users. “Translations seem to be a privilege nowadays, huh? For a game about inclusion, its creator seems to only care about Japanese people, and the worst is that said creator is practically a millionaire,” reads one reply.
You do know that there are OTHER languages besides English and Japanese, right? 😃
— DylanXW3 – LEVEL5 FAN (@DylanXw3) March 28, 2026
The latter half of Fox’s response on Bluesky details his reasoning for why both Undertale and Delatrune lack localizations outside of their Japanese and English versions. “Unfortunately, there are no translations for Undertale into other languages besides Japanese…” it began.
“I know it sucks that there are no other official translations for Undertale,” Fox continued, “But I want to make it clear that this isn’t because I have a grudge against other countries. It’s because, if I want to make 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.”
Back on X, several users defended Fox’s decision not to localize the game for other languages. “There’s a whole 271-page-long book about how Undertale was translated into Japanese and how meticulous that process was and what sacrifices were made in said process,” posted user DRN_003. “And you really expect that perfectionist guy to want to translate the game into the language he doesn’t know…”
I hate to be that person who talks about the loss of reading comprehension, but seriously, people need to understand that when a story is reliant on words and wordplay and double meanings, it’s harder to translate and the author has to be involved in the process.
For some people… https://t.co/k6Ex7BuGTP
— dᴇᴇ (@deejuusan) March 30, 2026
For context, one dedicated fan figured out that Undertale “consists of 78,000 words in total,” which, for comparison’s sake, is 1,000 words longer than Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Fox also stated in his post that attempting to translate Deltarune into other languages is “just not feasible from a development standpoint” at this current time, as “it would make the game take longer to come out.”
I doubt Fox’s argument will actually be of much comfort to those who want to play his games in their own languages. He didn’t state that future translations of his work are never going to happen, as he stated that he may “try a different approach” to localizing his games in the future. But for now he hasn’t been swayed by the recent backlash.
Fox signed off his post on Bluesky by saying, “I’m honored to have many fans across the world, and of course that means Latin America too. I don’t want anyone to feel left out. I’m sorry if my silence made me seem like I was ignoring anyone.”
