Choose your own adventure, at your own peril.

If there’s one thing AI can’t do, it’s work out why we care enough to play games.

In the decade since it was released, Undertale challenges the fundamentals of what we expect from RPGs. It takes the primal instinct to mow down enemy after enemy and flips it on its head, asking us to slow down and think about the bigger picture. These are living creatures. Do they deserve to die for our own gain? Undertale manages to deliver on this concept with a mastery that could only come from the mind of a creator who has a deep understanding of RPG mechanics and their implications beyond being a numbers game. 

I preface my conversation about Deltarune with Undertale for the exact same reason Toby Fox did; where Undertale incubates the idea of the reader being an active agent in fiction, Deltarune develops this idea into a full-fledged experience that reaches even further into meta-narrative than before. Undertale has a story that benefits from our involvement, Deltarune depends on it.

At a glance, Deltarune is a pseudo-sequel to Undertale that borrows liberally from its predecessor in both aesthetic and tone. To some extent, that’s all it needs to do. Undertale is popular enough that a more standard sequel might be enough to cut through the noise. Chapter One of Deltarune plays with this expectation; it retreads a lot of the fundamentals from the first game and lulls us into thinking this is just “more.” We learn that killing isn’t the only way, and we learn to spare instead.

The conclusion of Chapter One being the reveal that we and protagonist Kris are separate entities immediately opens the door for a story that becomes far bigger than itself, and a conversation that invites us to look at how we interact with the medium in general. 

That conversation being: Isn’t it screwed up that we control someone against their will when we play a game? It’s one of those foundational truths that simply goes untouched, something we take for granted. Few explore the friction between player and character, and even fewer manage to do it well.

Where Undertale questions our instinct to kill everything we fight in RPGs, Deltarune tackles the nature of interactive narratives and the fact we are, in essence, intruders. This concept isn’t necessarily groundbreaking, but Toby Fox’s intricate approach to narrative design ensures this is more than set-dressing or a wrinkle in an otherwise unrelated story.  

This is no more apparent than in the “weird route,” a divergent story that highlights how invasive we are. This alternative story has us literally wrestle with the character we control. We force Kris to harm their childhood best friend, all for the sake of our enjoyment. They reach out into text boxes that only we can see to plead “please don’t,” before we hit the breaking point. We steal control, and force them to watch us hurt their loved ones, because that’s what we want.  

Similar to the reflection that underpins Undertale, this feels like something that hinges on an intimate understanding of the genre it exists in. The juxtaposition of existential horror against some of the funniest dialogue I’ve ever read is one that consistently impresses and manages to elevate Deltarune to something far more than a “good” RPG; it’s transformative in a way that exemplifies why I love games so much. You can make protagonist Kris irreverently praise a priest with “bangin’ sermon, my man,” or you can force them to traumatise a childhood best friend. Neither feels wrong.

Without even being a finished story yet, Deltarune manages to avoid feeling jarring and instead seamlessly bridges the connection between us and it. We are an active agent in the world and are independent of the characters within. Impressively, Deltarune also never loses sight of the trademark humour that defines Fox’s games; how do you navigate the gap between a grammatically-challenged pumpkin and the nature of interactive storytelling? I struggle to do so here, but Toby Fox manages to within the space of a few hours. 

I can only imagine the pressure Fox feels in delivering a follow-up to Undertale. He has himself spoken about this immense pressure and how “no matter what I did, I felt like people would be underwhelmed.” Fox is open about how frightening this follow-up is from his point of view, and how singular his games truly are. Nearly seven years ago, Toby set the tone for Deltarune by saying, “I don’t think I can make anything that makes you feel ‘that way’ again,” and promised instead to “make something else.” It’s one of the most intensely relatable fears we all have: to want to outdo ourselves. There is a real pressure to keep on succeeding once you do, to never fail and to outperform what you’ve done up until now. It’s a core tenet of creating, and it’s always intimidating. 

Deltarune stands out in ways that speak to how particular Toby Fox’s vision is, despite being built on what came before. There is very clearly some kind of dialogue between Undertale and Deltarune; both mechanically and narratively, both exist in some kind of unison. The experience of seeing this larger story come together, with us at the quite literal heart of the story, is the epitome of what makes authorship so special. No AI model can intricately weave a decade long story, that ability lies with us. 

As of writing this piece, Deltarune has turned seven years old. And despite not being a “finished” game, it still stands as a highlight of just how far we can be pushed as players in a story. While it might be a good while before we see the ending that apparently kept Toby Fox awake at night, that wait is a part of what makes it so special. 

There is no artificial intelligence on this planet that could replicate that.