Deltarune isn't in the Undertale world, will take a while to finish
Nope, really isn't Undertale
It may be quite sometime before we see the rest of Toby Fox's Deltarune, the Undertale creator has said after this week surprising us with a downloadable 'survey' which turned out to be the three-hour opening chapter of his new RPG. With Deltarune proving much more ambitious, Fox says he's planning to assemble a full team to help him make it. As for whether Deltarune is a sequel to Undertale or a prequel or... "Please don't worry too much about that," he says. It just is.
Fox released the mysterious program free through its site on Wednesday. It starts out as a survey but reveals itself to be a huge hunk o' game. Fox asked people to keep quiet about it for the first 24 hours, so fans could experience it fresh, then broke his own silence in a post last night. First, what even is it? He calls this the first "chapter" of Deltarune but says no, despite several Undertale characters and places appearing, it's... something else.
"Actually, I'm worried if people worry too much about 'what it is,' they might not be able to properly enjoy it... (laugh)," he wrote. "I will say that basically, what you're seeing here is not the world of Undertale. Undertale's world and ending are the same as however you left them. If everyone was happy in your ending, the people in the Undertale world will still be happy. So, please don't worry about those characters, and that world. It will remain untouched."
They're not real; don't sweat it.
As for when to expect more of Deltarune, well... "it could take up to 999 years", Fox says. He made Undertale largely by himself with only some help from one person, see, and its opening chapter demo only took him "a few months." This lump of Deltarune has taken "a few years", seeing as it's so much fancier. "Essentially it's not possible to make this game as one person (and Temmie)," he explained, so he's looking to build a team. He plans to release the rest in one go, rather than chapter-by-chapter, but has no idea when that might be. Alrighty then.
"By the way, I was really worried at first about making this," Fox concluded. "The expectations for my next work would be really high, so high that I knew that no matter what I did, I felt like people would be underwhelmed. If you played 'Undertale,' I don't think I can make anything that makes you feel 'that way' again. However, it's possible I can make something else."
He has expressed surprise about the mega-popularity of Undertale before, calling it "about an 8/10, niche RPG game." Bless him.
You can nab Deltarune's first chapter free from its site for Windows and Mac. The Windows uninstaller was bugged, removing other folders too, so avoid that and delete manually once you're done.