Games Like Undertale That Do Something Weird With the RPG Formula

Undertale isn't just an RPG with a pacifist option. It's a game that watches you play it and responds accordingly. It remembers what you did even after you reset. It makes you feel guilty for actions the game told you were okay. Toby Fox built something that uses the medium of video games as the subject of the game itself, and finding something that replicates that feeling is harder than finding "another RPG with combat."

The games below don't replicate Undertale. Nothing does. But they each capture a piece of what made it special.

The Meta Ones

Deltarune is the obvious first recommendation because Toby Fox is making it. Chapters 1 and 2 are free and they're brilliant — the characters are instantly lovable, the humor lands, and the relationship between player choice and narrative control is being explored in new ways. The remaining chapters are still in development, and the anticipation is justified.

OneShot breaks the fourth wall more literally than Undertale does. The protagonist knows you exist. The game manipulates your desktop, your files, your system clock. It's a puzzle adventure where the puzzles extend beyond the game window, and the emotional core — your relationship with a character who trusts you completely — hits with unexpected force.

Inscryption starts as a card game and then transforms into something else entirely, multiple times. Daniel Mullins made a game that uses genre shifts as narrative revelations. If what you loved about Undertale was the feeling that the game was doing things games shouldn't do, Inscryption does that repeatedly.

Doki Doki Literature Club weaponizes visual novel conventions against the player in ways that have become legendary. It's free, it's short, and going in blind is essential. Team Salvato made something that uses player expectations as the horror mechanism.

The Emotional Ones

Omori deals with depression, grief, and trauma through a dual-world structure — a cheerful dream world and a darker reality. The turn-based combat uses an emotion system where psychological states affect stats. It's a 25-hour game that earns its emotional payoffs through careful character development, and the final hours are devastating in the best way.

To the Moon is a narrative RPG about two doctors who traverse a dying man's memories to fulfill his last wish. Freebird Games made a game with minimal gameplay and maximum emotional impact. The pixel art RPG Maker aesthetic belies writing that will make you cry.

Celeste isn't an RPG at all, but it captures Undertale's emotional sincerity — its story about anxiety and self-acceptance is woven into the gameplay so naturally that the narrative and mechanics become inseparable. If Undertale's emotional core mattered more to you than its combat system, Celeste hits the same nerve.

The Choice-Driven Ones

Disco Elysium is the best-written game ever made and it takes Undertale's "your choices have consequences" philosophy to its logical extreme. Your skills are voices in your head arguing with each other. Your ideology, personality, and failures shape every conversation. There's no combat at all — everything is resolved through dialogue and skill checks.

Undertale Yellow is a fan-made prequel that's free and captures the spirit of the original with remarkable fidelity. The combat is inventive, the characters are charming, and the multiple routes reward replay. It's the closest thing to "more Undertale" that exists.

The roguelike deckbuilder genre captures a different kind of meaningful choice — every card pick, every relic, every path fork changes your run permanently. Granny's Gambit and Slay the Spire both give you that "my decisions matter" feeling, just through game mechanics rather than narrative branching.

The Tone Matches

Bug Fables is Paper Mario if Paper Mario remembered what made the N64 original great. The writing is warm and funny, the turn-based combat has genuine tactical depth with its action commands, and the bug characters are more endearing than they have any right to be. If Undertale's humor and heart are what you're chasing, Bug Fables delivers.

Wandersong is a game about a bard who saves the world through singing instead of fighting. It's relentlessly positive, genuinely funny, and uses music as its core mechanic in clever ways. The art style is paper-craft vibrant, and the emotional arc from "silly adventure" to something much deeper mirrors Undertale's tonal shifts.

Undertale proved that an RPG made by one person with a clear vision could resonate with millions. The indie games that followed learned different lessons from it — some took the meta-narrative approach, others took the emotional sincerity, others took the subversive combat design. No single game captures everything Undertale does, but together they map out the space that Toby Fox opened up.