Image credit: Em Stonham for Kyusai/tobyfox
Every time a new Deltarune Chapter comes out, a new barrage of players join the community; as a long-time fan of the game, I love seeing people experience it for the first time. It’s an RPG like no other, following up its predecessor, Undertale, in style.
Figuring out which order to tackle the games in is tricky, though, as characters from Undertale are in Deltarune, and the timeline isn’t strictly linear. Here’s a breakdown of which game to play first out of Deltarune and Undertale.
Do you have to play Undertale before Deltarune?
Undertale came out on September 15, 2015, with Deltarune following it up as a Halloween release three years later. Both of them are exceptional RPGs with bullet hell mechanics, and while Deltarune isn’t a beat-for-beat sequel or follow-up story to Undertale, the two are still related.
On paper, you do not have to play Undertale before playing Deltarune – but it’s heavily recommended for the best experience.
It’s feasible to play one and not the other, or even start with Deltarune, then play Undertale, of course, but Deltarune is best enjoyed through the lens of someone who’s experienced the first game.
A handful of characters from Undertale make an appearance in Deltarune, filling very different roles in the games respectively.
Without playing Undertale beforehand, the significance of seeing Sans in Deltarune’s Hometown may be lost on a player, especially seeing as his brother Papyrus has not, at the time of writing, made an appearance in the second game. Sounds like a very Knight-like thing to do, if you ask me.
Lore-wise, the characters who originated from Undertale are crucial in Deltarune’s story. While I’m sure they’re enjoyable characters for folks who haven’t played Undertale, seeing characters like Sans and Toriel in Deltarune for the first time blew my mind, and it’s one of the biggest reasons why playing the first game is vital.
There’s some debate over the timeline of Undertale and Deltarune. Upon initial release, some folks believed it was a sequel, then a prequel, but the most widely adopted understanding nowadays is that Deltarune is a parallel story to Undertale, although the exact parallels and timings are still unclear.
With the events of Chapter 5, this is still a heavily debated topic in the community. Hopefully, once Chapter 7 rolls around and the full Deltarune story is out in the wild, we’ll have a better grasp of where exactly the two games sit in relation to each other.
For now, the best indication of where the games sit in relation to one another is the Deltarune Steam page, which describes the game as “the next adventure in the UNDERTALE series” and “UNDERTALE‘s parallel story, DELTARUNE…!”
As someone who adores both games, I’d strongly recommend playing through Undertale before dipping into Deltarune to get a feel for the gameplay and writing style.
Both games are gorgeously written with a smattering of eye-rolling puns and quirky characters, and the blend of bullet-hell combat with story-led exploration and puzzles is unique.
Playing Undertale before Deltarune will give you a strong foundation of what to expect, and give you the ability to take part in community theory discussion, too. The Deltarune fan theory community is rabid – I say this lovingly as a theorist – and exceptionally active, and understanding Undertale is arguably crucial for taking part.
FAQs
Undertale came out on September 15, 2015.
Deltarune came out on October 31, 2018.
Undertale is a story-led RPG that features exploration, puzzle-solving, and a bullet-hell combat system.
Deltarune’s sixth Chapter is due to come out in 2027. A complete release date is not known yet at the time of writing.
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