Fox's early work consisted primarily of composing music, notably for the webcomicHomestuck. Following the success of Undertale, he went on to compose music for a number of other indie games. Other notable works include contributing to the soundtracks of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the Pokémon video games.
Fox has stated that as a child, he was mesmerised by the music and atmosphere of Final Fantasy VI. Other Japanese role-playing games, such as EarthBound, Secret of Mana and Super Mario RPG served as major inspirations; Fox looked up to Yoko Shimomura's works in particular. Her song "Megalomania" for the game Live A Live was particularly inspiring for Fox, and he originally intended to use an EarthBound-themed cover of the song in a game, but he got tired of transcribing it and eventually made a new song called "Megalovania".[4]
In middle school, he discovered the Touhou Project series when he downloaded the demos for the sixth and seventh games in the series. He played a piano rendition of the Touhou Project track "Necrofantasia" at his church's summer camp. He was inspired by Touhou's philosophy of not giving up on a game simply to hear the music.[5] Fox later conducted an improvised Touhou music session on Tumblr, in which he created "improvised Touhou music that doesn't actually exist" including a boss track named An Apple Disaster.[6]
Early work
Toby Fox's earliest well-known work is the EarthBound Halloween Hack,[7] a Halloween-themed ROM hack of EarthBound, which released in 2008. He then moved on to compose a variety of music for Andrew Hussie's 2009 webcomic Homestuck during his senior year of high school. Though he did not initially respond when Hussie started a Music Contribution Team in April 2009 and put up a news post asking composers to participate, Hussie took note of his work when Fox started uploading piano covers of the webcomic's music on the MS Paint Adventures forums.[8]
Fox created many of Homestuck's iconic tracks until its conclusion in 2016, including pivotal themes such as: a version of Megalovania, Descend and Oppa Toby Style, as well as comedic songs such as The Nick Cage Song. He has stated in a tribute post to musician George Buzinkai that tracks such as the unused Homestuck theme called "Patient" inspired Undertale themes such as Another Medium. In particular, his remix of Buzinkai's song Doctor, titled Savior of the Waking World, was a "turning point" in his musical journey; it was used as the background music for a major moment in the fifth act of Homestuck.[9]
Fox's most well-known work is the 2015 role-playing video gameUndertale, which he also composed the soundtrack for.[1] The game sold more than 1 million copies,[10] becoming a "breakout hit" and "pop-culture phenomenon".[11] Fox worked on the entire game independently, besides the art assets—which he asked Temmie (Tuyoki) Chang to help with—to avoid relying on others.[12] He had some experience in game development before Undertale, using RPG Maker 2000 with his three brothers to make role-playing games and EarthBoundROM hacks in high school,[13][14] the most notable of which was Earthbound: The Halloween Hack.[15] He thought of the character designs and ideas for Undertale while in college, where he drew them in his notebook.[16]
Following its release, Undertale garnered an extensive fanbase.[17][18] Fox commented that he did not mind if people stated that they did not like the game, saying that it was "not for everyone".[18] Despite Undertale's awards and widespread acclaim, Fox wrote that his personal opinion was that the game was still "niche" and deserved an "8/10" review score.[17][19]
In 2016, Fox released a number of unused musical tracks from Undertale.[20] He also became a contributor to the A Profound Waste of Time magazine.[21] Fox was then chosen to be part of the 2018 Games Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his role in creating Undertale; by then the game had sold over 2 million copies.[22]
The success of Undertale, especially in Japan, afforded Fox the opportunity to visit Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai at his home, where they discussed the series and played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate against each other, and the two reportedly had a very similar skill level, trading wins and losses equally. Sans, a character from Undertale, was later included in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a Mii costume available through downloadable content, along with an instrumental composition "Megalovania", for which Fox provided a new arrangement.[23][24][25]
On October 30, 2018, Fox tweeted a request for fans of Undertale to check the game's official Twitter account in 24 hours. The following day, Fox released the first chapter of the followup to Undertale, named Deltarune, (an anagram of undertale) for free under the guise of a "survey".[26][27] On November 1, Fox shared more details regarding the game, including that the rest of the chapters were expected to release simultaneously, but work had not yet started, and there was no estimated timeframe for completion.[28] Fox also stated that he had been working on the project since 2012, and that the idea for Undertale developed from Deltarune during production.[28][29] On June 12, 2019, as only the first chapter of Deltarune had been playable for several months, Fox expressed on his Twitter account he had hope he would complete the rest of Deltarune, saying: "Slowly I'm writing and drawing it all out."[30] He stated that he had written "about 50 songs past Chapter 1".[31]
On September 17, 2021, Fox released the second chapter of Deltarune for free since "the world has been really tough for everybody recently", referring to the struggles of the COVID-19 pandemic. He plans to release the next two chapters simultaneously, with a price greater than Undertale, in 2025.[32][33]
In 2024, he partnered with Japanese game developer ZUN for the game Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost, which included a track that combined the Touhou song "U.N - Owen Was Her?" with the Undyne battle song "Battle Against a True Hero" from Undertale as "U.N. - Owen Was Hero?".[39] In September of the same year, he announced a new partnership for the same game on YouTube. The video contains a very brief preview of the song, which appears to be based on "Megalovania".[40]
Personal life
Fox is secretive and does not typically do interviews.[1][41] He has chronic wrist and hand pain that regularly disables him from programming and composing. In September 2020, Fox cited a flareup of this pain as a factor in the delayed development of Deltarune's second chapter.[42]
^Roach, James (December 4, 2019). "'yeah, it is'". tumblr. Archived from the original on August 20, 2023. Retrieved August 20, 2023. the title is meant to answer the question you ask while listening 'is this... megalovania?' then you go and check the track in the credits and it gives you your answer.
