The Pope started 2022 by blasting a song from hit RPG Undertale

Pope Francis sitting in chair with hands up

(Image credit: Mondadori Portfolio / Getty)

For some reason, the Pope has now heard one of the most iconic videogame songs of the 2010s, as sighted by Kotaku. Yesterday, during a weekly general audience, the speakers in the Vatican blasted Undertale's "Megalovania" as circus performers juggled and unicycled in front of His Holiness. There's video proof too, in case you, like me, couldn't believe this actually happened.

Late into the circus segment, the song that backs Undertale's boss fight with Sans plays and nobody bats an eye. This jazzy, trumpet-filled version of "Megalovania" works pretty well with the performance, and the wide camera shots of the performers juggling balls while an expressionless audience looks on make it extra surreal. That, and how the entire thing takes place in front of the haunting glory of Fazzini's The Resurrection. Maybe in 2023, someone will play the Halo theme or put on something from Deltarune.

This year just started and we already have the insanity of Megalovania being performed in front of the Pope. pic.twitter.com/QBxGtl9v1cJanuary 6, 2022

The Pope has actually been exposed to Undertale before. In 2016, YouTuber MatPat was invited, among a bunch of other influencers, to speak with Pope Francis. As a gift to represent the US, MatPat gave the Pope a copy of Undertale. The YouTube personality said the gift was to echo the Pope's declaration that 2016 was a year of forgiveness and compassion. Here we are six years later and the game is rippling through the halls of the Vatican. If the Pope never started Toby Fox's now-beloved indie RPG, maybe this will change his mind.

MatPat, on the other hand, believes the Pope was just taking his time. "Took him five years, but he finally got the Sans fight," he wrote on Twitter.

Before the Pope was introduced to Undertale, President Barack Obama was given a copy of The Witcher 2 during a trip to Poland, but we're not sure he played his gifted game either. What other games will slip their way into the presence of government and religious officials? And if the Pope did play Undertale, would he even fight Sans in the first place? That would take killing everyone in the game and going down the "genocide" route. It's all a lot to think about for the first week of the new year.

Tyler has covered games, games culture, and hardware for over a decade before joining PC Gamer as Associate Editor. He's done in-depth reporting on communities and games as well as criticism for sites like Polygon, Wired, and Waypoint. He's interested in the weird and the fascinating when it comes to games, spending time probing for stories and talking to the people involved. Tyler loves sinking into games like Final Fantasy 14, Overwatch, and Dark Souls to see what makes them tick and pluck out the parts worth talking about. His goal is to talk about games the way they are: broken, beautiful, and bizarre.