After waiting three years for any kind of news about the next chapter in the Deltarune series, indie dev Toby Fox surprise announced earlier this week that it would be out on September 17. When it finally became available the game was free and the rush of players trying to download it was so large that it temporarily crashed all of Itch.io.
Deltarune is a new game series that appears to be set in the same universe as the super-popular Undertale. Like that game, Deltarune is developed by Toby Fox, though this time Fox isn’t alone and is working alongside a team of other devs. The first chapter of Deltarune was also released as a surprise when it was launched back in 2018.
The hype surrounding this new chapter was enormous and once it was released, demand for the game crashed Itch.io’s servers for about five minutes, with about an additional eight minutes of degraded performance for users trying to access the store.
Like the first chapter released three years ago, Deltarune Chapter 2 is available for free. On the official website for the game, creator Toby Fox explained why the latest chapter was being offered for free.
“The world has been really tough for everybody recently. So I decided to release DELTARUNE Chapter 2 for free,” said Fox. “I guess like a pet cat that drops bugs at your doorstep, I can, with some pride, show you the weird things I’ve been doing. I’m not sure if it will help, but I hope so.”
In that same post, Fox detailed how the next chapters in the Deltarune saga will be released, explaining that they will all be released at the same time when they are finished. These future chapters will not be free and instead, the full game will be sold and is “definitely going to cost more than UNDERTALE.” No date was given for when fans can expect Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of Deltarune.