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Deltarune Chapter 5 Unlikely To Release In First Half Of 2026

Toby Fox has released the latest installment of the Undertale newsletter, which includes an update about Deltarune Chapter 5.

In the letter, Fox shares a progress update on the Chapter, which is still in its early stages for development. He estimates that it will likely not launch in the first half of 2026, meaning that fans will have to wait quite a bit to see Chapter 5.

You can read the relevant section of the newsletter below:

Instead, let’s talk about Chapter 5!

Some of you might be wondering what kind of Chapter it is…

Well, right now, there is no reason to tell you that…

Both of us like surprises, right?

If I think of everything in the Chapter, there is very little I would like to share…

That being said, as an act of goodwill, I would like to spoil one optional Castle Town scene. This scene assumes you have seen the Special Room in Chapter 4…

Next time, I can show more from Castle Town.

This is the current status of progress as of September 8th, 2025.

AREAS

The early parts of Chapter 5 are complete, but need polish in optional areas.
Maybe the last 40%-or-so of the game is in a “rough first pass” state, and the last 10% is in a “prototyping” state.
Probably around 85% of cutscenes have been created up to a first draft state, however, of those at least 20% or so will require more polish.

ENEMIES

Regular enemies are mostly done. One programmer is already working on the regular enemy bullet patterns of Chapter 6.
The direction of the boss battles have been decided and many boss attacks have already been completed.
Once the attacks are finished, the next goal will be to arrange the attacks and make adjustments to them if necessary to fit the atmosphere of the battle.

OVERALL

With Chapter 3&4, there were some creative “hurdles” which made developing parts of the game difficult. How to do the Boards of Chapter 3, how to design the events in Noelle’s house, etc.

Once we got past those hurdles and expanded the team, everything went much more smoothly.

Chapter 5 was not without hurdles! But… we already passed all of the obvious ones, so there’s little to get in our way now! We just need to keep making the game.

TIMELINE

The rough timeline will look like this.

MAKING GAME (we are here)

v

LOCALIZATION / MAKING GAME / PORTING GAME

v

FINISH

v

TESTING & BUG FIXING

v

RELEASE

Currently, we have one main deadline: I want to begin the translation by the end of 2025. After that point, gameplay changes will be acceptable, but large-scale text and story changes will be heavily frowned upon.

Factoring the localization and testing… I don’t think that the game will be released in the first half of 2026.

… That’s not a surprise, right? From last time’s updates, you guys have access to exactly how long each step of the development took.

Anyway, we don’t have any external factors surrounding the release date this time. We’ll release it when it’s done, and we will continue to update you guys on the progress of its completion. Thanks!