Toby Fox, the creator of Deltarune, recently provided a development update for the game. Discover the latest progress and details from Fox's newsletter.
Toby Fox Provides Deltarune Development Update
Deltarune Chapter 4 Approaches Completion
In his most recent newsletter, Toby Fox, the mastermind behind Undertale, shared an update on the development of the upcoming chapters of Deltarune.
Deltarune is Toby Fox's second major title following the highly praised Undertale. In his Halloween 2023 newsletter, Fox confirmed that Chapters 3 and 4 of Deltarune are planned for a simultaneous release on PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4. However, he clarified that although Chapter 4 is close to being finished, the joint release of Chapters 3 and 4 is not imminent. The first two chapters were released for free in 2018 and 2021, respectively, yet even these required years of anticipation from fans during their development cycles.
Chapter 4 is currently in the polishing phase. All maps are complete, and the battles are fully playable, though some fine-tuning is still necessary. Fox noted that two cutscenes require minor enhancements, one battle needs balancing and visual upgrades, another requires an improved background, and two battles are having their concluding sequences refined. Despite these tasks, Fox considers Chapter 4 essentially playable and has received encouraging feedback from three friends who have completed the entire chapter.
While Chapter 4 is advancing steadily, Fox highlighted the complexities involved in launching the game across multiple platforms and in different languages. "Releasing a free game would be less demanding," Fox explained in the newsletter, "but since this will be our first major paid release since UNDERTALE, we must dedicate additional time to ensure it meets our quality standards."
Before the launch of Chapters 3 and 4, he outlined several critical tasks the development team must complete, including:
⚫︎ Testing new gameplay functions
⚫︎ Finalizing the PC and console versions
⚫︎ Localizing the game into Japanese
⚫︎ Conducting comprehensive bug testing
According to Toby Fox's February newsletter, development for Chapter 3 is complete. While Chapter 4 still requires some adjustments, Fox mentioned that a small team has begun initial work on Chapter 5, drafting maps and designing bullet patterns.
The latest newsletter did not announce a specific release date but offered fans a preview of dialogue between characters Ralsei and Rouxls, a character description for Elnina, and a new item named GingerGuard. The three-year gap since Chapter 2's release initially left some fans feeling let down, but this was tempered by excitement for the expanded scope of the new content. Toby Fox amplified this anticipation by stating, "Chapters 3 and 4 combined will undoubtedly be longer than the first two chapters together."
As the wait for the full release continues, Fox shared an optimistic outlook for Deltarune's future development, suggesting that the release schedule for subsequent chapters will become more efficient once Chapters 3 and 4 are out.
