RIP Roblox’s Famous ‘Oof’ Sound, Which Has Been Removed

If you have ever been around Roblox for any extended amount of time, you’ll already be familiar with one of the game’s platform’s most well-known (or annoying) quirks: that every time a player dies, there used to be a childish “oof” sound that was played.

Here it is for those who have never heard it:

Earlier today, tucked away of the end of a series of announcements about changes being made to Roblox’s asset store, was a statement from the company saying that the famous sound has now had to be removed from Roblox entirely, and has already been replaced with a new “default”.

Related to sounds, due to a licensing issue we have removed the “oof” sound from Roblox and have created a replacement default sound which launches today.
We plan to expand our Avatar Shop with a whole range of both old and new sounds in the future. More to come on this.

— Roblox (@Roblox) July 26, 2022

Related to sounds, due to a licensing issue we have removed the “oof” sound from Roblox and have created a replacement default sound which launches today.

If issues over this sound effect sound familar, that’s because this isn’t the first time Roblox has run into problems with its use. The “oof” sound wasn’t made by anyone at Roblox; it was in fact made by Tommy Tallarico, formerly a video game composer and more recently CEO of the doomed Intellivision.

As we explained in 2020, when Tallarico first discovered Roblox’s use of the effect — originally made for the FPS Messiah, released in 2000 — he came to an agreement with Roblox where anyone building a Roblox game experience would have to pay $US1 ($1.44) (or 100 Robux) to be able to use the sound in their creation. Tallarico also agreed to “develop other paid sounds for Roblox”.

Clearly something has happened to this arrangement — either it expired or there has been a disagreement, we’ve contacted Roblox for more information — but whatever the reason for the sound’s removal, it’s a sad day for long-time Roblox fans, who must bid farewell to a sound so synonymous with the game you can hear it on playgrounds around the world.