The popular indie PC game, Undertale (released back in 2015), will be released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita according to an announcement from the PlayStation E3 press conference.
The announcement trailer for Undertale shows off a monster truck named the “Bone Cruncher” driving over what seems to be dog bones with a bunch of ancient Egyptian treasure in the trunk. Just kidding! The actual game is described as “the friendly RPG where nobody has to die.”
You play as a young child who falls into the Underground, a place right under the Earth’s surface where monsters reside. Instead of killing all the monsters, though, players have the option to keep everyone alive which will change the course of the story. It uses a “butterfly effect” system, where your choices to kill or to keep alive will change the way character’s feel about you. Attacks consist of a “bullet pattern” system, where the player has to avoid bullets in a small screen in order to keep your health full.
The trailer ends off with a shopping channel-like advertisement, showing that the regular version will include the game and an illustrated story booklet. The collector’s edition of Undertale that will include the game, the illustrated story booklet, the official soundtrack and heart shaped locket that plays music. The end of the trailer concludes with the narrator saying “Undertale for PlayStation 4, part of a complete breakfast.”
The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions of the game will have Japanese localization, meaning that players can change the language in the game to Japanese. The creator of Undertale, Toby Fox, revealed in a PlayStation blog post that this was the reason why he brought the game to console.
“However, after a year had passed, I realized the “goal” hadn’t been absolutely completed. The games that had inspired me came from Japan, but Japanese audiences were not able to play the game easily,” said Fox. “To solve this, I would have to overcome two obstacles. First most obviously, the game is not in Japanese. Second most obviously, which is actually least obviously in a list of two objects, the Japanese PC game market is surprisingly small. Even if the game was released on PC in Japanese, many would not play it. So, I had to bring the game to consoles.”
Undertale became a hit amongst indie game lovers, reaching over 2 million copies sold according to SteamSpy (this information may be inaccurate, since SteamSpy is still in beta testing. The game got over 68,000 overwhelmingly positive views on Steam and has a score of a 92 on Metacritic. Also on Metacritic, it ranked third in Best PC Game of 2015, third in Most Discussed PC Game of 2015, and second in Most Shared PC Game of 2015. As shown, this game is incredibly popular by both fans and critics, leading to the excitement for a console release.
Giant Bomb gave Undertale a score of 5/5, saying “It was a whispered reminder that great games can do more than impress with sheer complexity and breadth, they can also draw us in close to them as to engage with our humanity.” The full review can be found on Giant Bomb’s website.
The prices for both editions haven’t been revealed at this time and pre-order is currently not available. Pre-orders will begin on fangamer.com and the PlayStation official store website, and fans can sign up for pre-order information here.
Although there is no official release date, Undertale will be released in the summer of 2017 on the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation Vita. So, fans won’t have to wait that long until it is officially released!
