Undertale's Toby Fox is composing for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and "this time, my music is not optional"

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
(Image credit: The Pokemon Company)

Undertale creator Toby Fox is back composing music for Pokemon, and his contributions will be seen much more extensively throughout Scarlet and Violet.

"I had the honor of composing the field music for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet! After creating a concept sketch, Game Freak arranged it into many versions that you'll hear throughout the game," Fox says in a tweet. He adds that this composition is in today's new trailer, but he doesn't specify which theme it is.

"A few more Toby Fox tracks will appear in the game, too, so please look forward to those! This time, my music is not optional!!!"

That "optional" line references Fox's contribution to Pokemon Sword and Shield. He composed the theme for the Battle Tower in those games, an optional area that only appears as part of the more challenging post-game content.

In a blog post ahead of the launch of Sword and Shield, Fox explained that he got into contact with Pokemon developer Game Freak because composer Go Ichinose was following him on Twitter. Eventually, Fox went out for sukiyaki with the team and pitched the idea of composing a track for the game, and "right there in the cafe, they immediately told me a concept for a song I could make, and, as I walked home, my heart was burning with inspiration... a melody entered my head, and as I stumbled past salarymen in the dark, I sang it to myself over and over so I wouldn't forget it!"

Clearly the folks at Game Freak are happy with Fox's contribution, if he's coming back for even more in Scarlet and Violet.

Check out the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Pokedex for all the new creatures confirmed so far.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.