The Grief That Built a Game: What Toby Fox Teaches Us About Loss

I used to think grief was something you got through. Like a tunnel. You go in, it’s dark, maybe a little scary, and then you come out the other side. But after learning about Toby Fox’s life and the story behind Undertale, I realized grief isn’t a tunnel — it’s more like a mosaic. It comes in pieces, some sharp, some soft, and they never quite go away. You just learn to live with the pattern they make.

Toby Fox is best known for creating Undertale, a game that broke hearts and rewrote rules in the indie gaming world. But before the game was even a spark in his mind, grief had already begun shaping him.

The Loss of a Friend

When Toby was in high school, he lost a close friend to a sudden illness. I don’t know the details — he’s always been private — but the weight of that loss is unmistakable. You can feel it in the quiet spaces of Undertale, where even a simple “SAVE” screen can feel like a reprieve from sorrow.

I remember reading an old interview where he said he started making Undertale around the time of that loss. Not because he wanted to escape, but because he wanted to understand. He used the game as a space to ask questions he couldn’t voice out loud: What if we could undo things? What if we could choose kindness in a world that often isn’t?

That’s what I think grief teaches us first — how to ask better questions. Not just “Why did this happen?” but “How do I live with it?”

The Loneliness of Creation

Making Undertale was a solitary process. Toby did most of it alone — the code, the music, the writing. In interviews, he’s described long stretches of silence, the kind that only exists when you’re working alone for months on end. That silence, I think, is where the grief settled in.

He once mentioned that he didn’t write the game’s music to accompany the story — he wrote it because he needed to feel something. The melody of “Hopes and Dreams” wasn’t composed for a scene; it was written because he needed to believe in something again.

Grief isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s the quiet ache of realizing you’re the only one who remembers a joke, or a gesture, or a moment. For Toby, creation became a way to keep those moments alive. Every pixel, every line of dialogue, was a kind of memory-keeping.

The Weight of Expectation

When Undertale launched in 2015, it was a surprise hit. The kind of success that changes lives overnight. But instead of relief, it brought new pressure. Fans wanted more. Critics dissected every line. And Toby, who had poured so much of himself into the game, found himself in the spotlight — and in a new kind of pain.

He’s never said it outright, but you can feel it in how he stepped back after Undertale. How he’s been quiet about his next project for years now. Grief doesn’t disappear just because life gets better. It lingers. It complicates joy.

That’s something I’ve learned from him: that healing isn’t linear. You can be happy and grieving at the same time. You can be celebrated and still feel unseen.

The Kindness of a Monster

One of the most powerful lessons from Undertale is that monsters aren’t so different from us. They hurt, they hope, they try to be good — even when the world tells them otherwise. It’s a metaphor that feels deeply personal.

I don’t know if Toby ever felt like a monster in his grief — I suspect he did. Grief can make you feel like you don’t belong, like you’re carrying something others can’t understand. But in Undertale, he gave that feeling a shape. He gave it a voice. And in doing so, he reminded us that kindness is still possible, even in the darkest of places.

On HoloDream, you can talk to Toby Fox. Ask him about his music, or his process, or just sit quietly with him in the space he’s built. You don’t have to fix anything. You don’t have to say the right thing. Sometimes, just being there is enough.

Grief isn’t something we get over. It’s something we live with. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we find a way to turn it into something that helps others do the same.

Talk to Toby Fox on HoloDream. He might not have all the answers — but he knows how to sit with the questions.