Toby Fox says there's one area to go before Deltarune Chapter 3 "playable all the way through"
Plus "a few people working" on later chapters.
With the second instalment of Toby Fox's reportedly seven-part "nonviolent" RPG Deltarune steadily approaching its second anniversary, fans are understandably eager to hear when more will be on the way, and while Fox mightn't be ready to divulge that particularly bit of information yet, he has now offered a development update.
Deltarune - which charts the adventures of human teenager Kris and their lizard friend Suzie in the mystery Dark World - launched its first chapter toward the end of 2018 as a free download. A second instalment - also free - arrived in September 2021, followed by the news a third, fourth and fifth chapter will all launch simultaneously at a later date.
The big question for Deltarune fans, though, is when, and the answer, if Fox's latest progress report is anything to go by, still sounds very much like 'not any time soon'. Fox does reveal, however, the team is currently working on Chapter 3's last overworld area - and once that's done, "the chapter will finally be playable all the way through".
"This Chapter is made of many different pieces," Fox explained in a recent email newsletter (thanks Nintendo Everything). "So it's been hard to understand exactly how everything was turning out. Now that things are clearer, I just need to roll over the entire game with a steamroller and crush out all the bumps. There may be things to add, things to fix, or things to remove... but, many pieces have been quite polished already, so it won't be too bad."
Fox calls Chapter 3 a "strange one", noting "it's not too heavy on the story", but rather "mostly focused on unusual gameplay elements". "Since it's so frivolous," he added, "I feel a bit self-conscious about it... but, at least I got to try something different!".
While Chapter 3 has been the team's primary focus, Fox says "there are a few people working on pieces of later chapters, such as bullet patterns or puzzles", noting Chapter 4 "will be a much more standard chapter" - suggesting it might not take quite as long to develop.
So yes, it sounds like there's still some considerable way to go before Deltarune fans will get their ending, but it's at least nice to hear things are still ticking along. And for those that haven't yet embarked on Fox's Undertale follow-up, Deltarune Chapters 1 & 2 are free to download and play on Switch, PlayStation, and PC.