Undertale was, for me, at least, the defining game of the indie RPG genre back when it came out in 2015. Far from just its ubiquity on social media, I remember this thing blowing my mind in ways that, nowadays, feel almost a little pedestrian. That's not to knock it in retrospect—it's still rather very good—but it was very much making strides in what videogame RPGs could actually, well, do. There's a reason other indie RPGs have followed in its progenitor footsteps.
Maybe I'm a little biased, since I was in University at the time, still wrapped in the cosy blanket of Tumblr (before it was bad) and a dearth of fanart and AU nonsense, but still. Having a game that straight-up remembered that I'd tried to save-scum my way out of my bad decisions was novel as all heck back then.
If you missed that particular window, good news! For the next three days, you can get Undertale for less than the price of a cheap hotdog: At the time of writing (and until March 20) it's currently under $1 on Steam as part of the 2025 Steam sale.
What's more, this feeding frenzy has seen it hit a new peak player count, as pointed out by creator Toby Fox himself on X: "Since going on sale on Steam for only $1, UNDERTALE reached a new peak of concurrent players for the first time since 2015!" Looking at the numbers, it's currently at an all-time peak of 11,071. Compare that to its release, back in 2015, which saw it hit 10,473 players.
Given that, if you do all of the game's routes, you're looking at around 20 hours of goodness? One dollar is pretty much a steal.
It's hard to overstate how fond I am of this game—while I'm sure anyone who grew up in the same period got a little worn-down by a deluge of Megalovania remixes and, uh, questionable fanart, Undertale really stands to me as a nugget of gaming history. It's charming, gut-bustingly funny at times, heartwarming, and—for its time—super inventive. If you want to join the 10,000+ players enjoying the game that launched a thousand fanfics, I can highly recommend giving it a go. You will not have a bad time.
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