Deltarune Turns 5 This Month; Here’s What To Expect

The sequel to Undertale, one of the most influential RPG games of all, Deltarune, will turn 5 years old next month, and with half a decade of development, we saw the creation of an elegant story, lovable characters, killer soundtracks, and dreadful secrets. But with over 2 years already passing since the release of chapter 2, it seems likely that an announcement for future chapters will happen sooner or later.

Toby Fox And His Announcements

Most of today’s updates and teasers were revealed by Toby Fox, the sole creator of Undertale and the main developer behind all things Deltarune. Toby has gone on to receive many awards for Undertale and has since been hard at work developing Deltarune. Toby reveals updates about his side projects and franchises every year, and the upcoming fifth-year anniversary will no doubt be the same.

Before we look at Deltarune, Toby Fox also focuses on the Undertale anniversary celebration, where he usually does some weird humourous event featuring the game’s characters and sometimes reveals new merch. For this year’s anniversary last month, Toby revealed new Deltarune merch arriving at stores and held a small Q&A with some of our favorite characters from Undertale.

Unfortunately, that’s what the peak was for this year’s Undertale newsletter; although it contained some speculative new lore for the franchise and some cool-looking merch, there wasn’t much to be in awe of. And Toby did give us a response on the lackluster event on his Twitter, talking about how he was happy he pushed out multiple newsletters and a ‘foam‘ picture of him.

Although there wasn't a huge event on the anniversary, over the course of the year I was able to send out 4 free newsletters and one image of me covered in mysterious foam to many people. Altogether, that's more content than many previous years, and several times more foam.

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) September 16, 2023

Previous Newsletters For Deltarune

In last year’s Deltarune newsletter, Toby showed some progress on the newest chapters and said there is still much to be done regarding development and cutscenes. “Sorry, nothing’s ready to release this year. So you can’t spend any money yet.” But after a year’s worth of development and a team much larger than Toby had initially estimated, the release of the new chapters should be on the precipice.

That may seem the case when we talk about 1 chapter, but Toby has decided to push the next three chapters out together, which will require more time and effort. However, some fans estimate the release to be way sooner than what was initially expected.

This season's UNDERTALE / DELTARUNE newsletter will come out on the anniversary in a few days! I think most everyone is signed up by now, but here's the link anyway.https://t.co/zmMuuMwvLa pic.twitter.com/V8pZdNKJ4Z

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) September 11, 2023

The current release cycles of the chapters could indicate that a release date for the new content and new trailers may be revealed in the upcoming months. This could be backed up with all the context that has been scrapped to improve what has already been implemented.

Toby did reveal a lot of info on the current development cycle for Deltarune chapter 3, stating that the entire chapter was playable from start to finish, with very few edits to the game remaining. Toby also talked about how he removed a stealth-based section from the game because of its poor pacing to the general gist of the game.

Aside from the near completion of Chapter 3, the other 2 chapters still seem deep in development. The most mysterious one, Chapter 5, is still far from reaching a stable point. Another thing to pay attention to is the release cycle. Since Chapter 2 took a long two years to reach a playable state, it’ll take the next few chapters much less time due to the enlargement of the development team.

Toby has revealed some concepts for future chapters and will soon reveal more about the specific gameplay elements. Toby has also stated that Chapter 3 will be light in its story and that it is an experimental chapter, different from our usual chapters. Toby could reveal more about the reason for changing the game’s pacing in the coming month.

Deltarune is extremely popular right now; with features on Nintendo Direct, a huge community, and the full support of Toby Fox and his fairly large developer team, the game will become one of the best RPG experiences of the decade.