Deltarune
A quiet human teenager, a rude monster classmate and a gentle prince from the Dark World team up to head off a prophecy in Deltarune, a pixel-art RPG released one chapter at a time. It is the second game in Toby Fox's Undertale series.
Each chapter lands the party in a different Dark World, such as the playing-card kingdom of the first or the flower realm of the fifth, and each ends on a boss fight of its own. Players can start from any chapter on the select screen, although the developer recommends going in order the first time.
Top 3 Reasons to Play
- Toby Fox wrote the story and the soundtrack, and Temmie Chang drew most of the pixel art. Steam's most-applied user tags include Story Rich and Great Soundtrack.
- Novelty is built into the production method. Toby Fox told Game Informer that every enemy arrives with new bullet patterns and new actions, and every area with new puzzles. Chapter 3 stages a cooking-show segment in TV World, while Chapter 5 sends the party across platforming sections in the Flower Kingdom.
- Each chapter holds a Shadow Crystal boss that the story never requires you to defeat. Steam bills the hidden bosses as "jevilishly difficult," and Jevil in Chapter 1 and Spamton NEO in Chapter 2 set the pattern.
Story and Lore
Hometown is a small town where Kris, a human teenager, lives among monsters. School pairs Kris with the intimidating Susie for a group project, and a trip to the supply closet sends them tumbling into a Dark World. There, Ralsei, a gentle prince, lays out a prophecy: Light and Dark are meant to stay in balance, and when the balance breaks, disaster follows. The three heroes it names are supposed to prevent that by sealing the Dark Fountains that a figure called the Knight keeps creating around town.
- Chapter 1, The Beginning: the Card Kingdom, where the childlike Lancer keeps getting in the heroes' way on King's orders.
- Chapter 2, A Cyber's World: a library's Dark Fountain opens onto Cyber World and its eccentric ruler Queen, with Noelle and Berdly already stranded there.
- Chapter 3, Late Night: the Dreemurr home turns into TV World. Tenna, a TV host, invites the party onto his game show, TV Time.
- Chapter 4, Prophecy: a church hides the next fountain, and the Dark Sanctuaries beyond it bring the party into direct conflict with the Knight and introduce the Old Man.
- Chapter 5, Festival Day: a Hometown festival gives way to a Dark World that forms in a flower shop.
The prophecy is told as the legend of the Delta Rune. Separately, the game's title is an anagram of Undertale.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Play splits between two settings. The Light World is Hometown itself, where you talk to residents through a simple menu and never fight; SAVE points appear there only in some chapters. The Dark World is where the adventure happens: enemies roam the map in plain sight, and you can slip past them by running or walk into a fight on purpose, and puzzles and item hunting fill the gaps between encounters.
In battle, each party member takes a turn choosing FIGHT, ACT or MAGIC, ITEM, SPARE or DEFEND. When the enemy takes its turn, the screen becomes a bullet board and you steer Kris's SOUL around incoming attacks. Skimming close to a bullet, known as grazing, raises the party's TP, and TP pays for spells. The Steam page names Touhou and Chrono Trigger as inspirations for the fights.
- Enemies can be beaten with FIGHT or recruited through ACT, and casting Pacify on a Tired enemy also ends the fight peacefully. Both approaches feed into how a chapter's route plays out.
- SOUL modes change how the heart moves in certain fights; Chapter 5 introduces an orange one.
- Every chapter allows up to three save files. Cutscenes cannot be skipped, but holding the MENU button speeds through text on a replay.
Beyond the standard route sits the Weird Route, a darker branch that rewrites key scenes once specific conditions are met. Choices travel between chapters through a Completion FILE, and starting from the default file is an option for anyone who prefers a lighter replay.
Characters and Factions
Lightners live in Hometown, the everyday side of the story. Darkners, who populate the Dark Worlds, come to life from objects in the Light World.
Kris is the quiet human the player steers, and the story gradually shows that Kris is unhappy about being steered. Susie, a rude monster classmate, lands in Kris's group project and stays as a companion. Ralsei, the gentle Dark Prince, arrives with the prophecy. Noelle, a fellow student, is pulled into events from Chapter 2 and joins the party in Chapter 5.
- Lancer is a childlike Darkner who tails the heroes in Chapter 1, sent by King, the ruler of the Card Kingdom.
- Queen rules Cyber World. Spamton, who lives in a dumpster in Cyber City, returns later as Spamton NEO.
- Tenna hosts Chapter 3's TV Time.
- Jevil is kept out of sight deep within the Card Castle.
- Rouxls Kaard turns up across several chapters, and the battle track attached to him is titled "It's Pronounced ‘Rules’."
- The Old Man, Susie's mentor in Chapter 4, is a Darkner built from the mementos of the late Gerson.
Among the Lightners, Toriel and Asgore are Kris's parents, Sans is part of Hometown's crowd, and Berdly is a fellow student who falls into Cyber World alongside Noelle. The main threat is the Knight, whom fans also call the Roaring Knight; it creates the Dark Fountains and clashes with the party in Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 5 brings Flowery, a plant sprung from a golden flower in a Hometown shop, as its antagonist.
Editions
The game comes as one edition that covers Chapters 1 through 5. No deluxe or collector's tier exists.
On consoles, one purchase covers both hardware generations: a PS4 copy includes the PS5 version, and a Nintendo Switch copy can be upgraded to Switch 2 for free, and the reverse, except in Japan, where a small fee applies. The interface supports English and Japanese, and the developer's FAQ lists no physical edition yet.