Toby Fox Explains Lack of Undertale Translations in Other Languages
The creator of Undertale and Deltarune, Toby Fox, explained the lack of official translations of his games beyond English and Japanese. The discussion gained traction especially among fans in Latin America, who have been requesting Spanish and Portuguese versions for years, but that is unlikely to happen.
Toby Fox Explains Lack of Undertale Translations in Other Languages
It all started when Toby Fox used social media to promote an update for the game OFF, a cult RPG developed by Mortis Ghost. In the comments, fans quickly compared the number of available languages in OFF with the limitation present in Undertale and Deltarune. The reaction led Toby Fox to explain on his Blue Sky profile on March 29 why Undertale and Deltarune only have English and Japanese versions.
According to Fox, the main reason for the lack of more translations is directly tied to his personal involvement with the game’s writing. He states that he is only fluent in English and Japanese, which allows him to closely supervise every detail of localization. Since Undertale is known for its humor based on wordplay and linguistic nuances, any translation error could compromise jokes and even important narrative elements.
This extreme care leads the developer to avoid fully delegating the process to external teams. For him, releasing an official translation that does not align with his creative vision would be too great a risk. Still, Fox acknowledges and appreciates the work of fans who created unofficial translations, allowing more people to experience the game.
In the case of Deltarune, the situation is even more complex. Chapter-based development already takes considerable time, and adding multiple official localizations would significantly extend that timeline. Fox mentions that he has explored alternatives with his publishing partner, 8-4, but without satisfactory results so far. However, he says he is considering new approaches for the future, aiming not to leave part of the audience behind.
From what I understood, it’s basically a “If I don’t know the language, I can’t supervise it and I don’t trust translators.” In fact, there is a lot of online controversy about Japanese games that receive “localizations” very different from what characters originally say.
For example, I recently finished a game called Valkyria Chronicles 4, and for those who don’t know, I study Japanese. So I played with Japanese audio and English text, and it’s incredible how much the text changed what the characters were saying!
It’s practically one story in English and another in Japanese, and I couldn’t understand the reason for so many changes (and for the worse, the English text was terrible). But anyway, that’s the reason.