Every time Toby Fox announcement a new chapter of Deltarune, I have been excited to catch up and see the story develop. However, every new instalment, with the most recent one being chapter 5, has been filling me with a sense of dread, as I think about what the ending of Deltarune could possible be.

Toby Fox has stated that he once had an intense fever dream in college, which would be his inspiration for the ending of Deltarune. And he was specified, that there is only one ending. Initially, when chapter one was released, I didn’t really think much of this. I felt that Toby Fox was writing a traditional, linear story with Deltarune, and that he had to specify that the game only had one ending because it was a followup to Undertale, which had multiple endings. But when chapter 2 came out…things got a little bit weird.

The weird route of Deltarune has always made me question what it means for the ending, ever since it’s introduction. If you just examine chapter 2 only, yes the normal route and the weird route end the same. You seal the fountain in the cyber world and Susie stays over at Kris’s house, where they make a dark fountain in their living room, triggering the events of chapter 3. But even before the disturbing result of the chapter 5 weird route was revealed, i wasn’t sure if chapter 2’s route split would work as a metaphor for the entire game. The idea that, the normal route, the weird route, and even an aborted weird route would all end up in the same place, is a bit hard to believe. Perhaps Toby Fox is just being dishonest, and it will be revealed that Deltarune actually has multiple endings. But i don’t think he is lying to us, i think the game will have one ending, and it’s a bit unsettling to think about.

First of all, I reject the idea that the wierd route will be an alternate ending because it is the weird route. The weird route being something forbidden, rule breaking and going against the intended path does not mean it would result in a different ending, and I would be a bit disappointed if the premise of Deltarune having one ending was ruined simply because an alternate route was presented as being something forbidden. So instead, I will explore the possibilities of how the weird route could still maintain Deltarune only having one ending.

One explanation, which is the simplest, is that every branching path in deltarune all end up at the same conclusion, that Toby Fox’s fever dream ending is at the end of every possible timeline. Thinking about this doesn’t make me imagine Deltarune having a happy ending, but rather think of some unescapable event that haunts the narrative. A theory that has some fans have expressed is that the ending of Deltarune is exactly what happens when you give up at the game over screen. There is text stating ‘THEN THE WORLD WAS COVERED IN DARKNESS’ , the screen turns black, and plays the track, Darkness Falls. The first time you get a game over in chapter 1, it even says ‘IT HAS APPEARED THAT YOU HAVE REACHED AN END’. This theory, of the world being covered in darkness being the only ending of Deltarune is believable, until you consider the fever dream aspect of this ending. I feel like Toby Fox must have saw something chaotic, colourful and powerful in his dream to inspire him to create an entire video game, and I don’t think darkness is something that would be the focus of such a powerful dream. If the events of his dream lay at the end of every narrative path, then i cannot fathom would it could be, but I am very curious about the possibilities.

Another explanation for the weird route and normal route resulting in one ending is that they are both required to achieve the ending of the game. That the ending would require flags from completing both a normal play-through, and a weird route play-through, as the weird route is also known as ‘side b’, possibly suggesting that they are two sides of the same coin. Now, I don’t really believe in this explanation, because while I do think the weird route is important, I doubt it could be mandatory. I could imagine a casual Deltarune fan completing a normal play-through only to be hit with the reality that they would have to play the entire game again, and play through very creepy and unsettling scenarios to reach the end of the game they were invested in. Of course, if this is Toby Fox’s intention than I will respect it, I just don’t think this will end up being the case.

There is also the possibility that Toby Fox is going to use some form of trickery to achieve the one ending for deltarune, by making it so that not every route reaches an ending. If one of the routes for example, results in a time loop, leading into chapter 1, while the other route achieves a definitive end, then deltarune would still have one ending. It doesn’t have to be a loop either, Toby Fox could softlock the player in one of the routes, preventing them from reaching an ending. I could imagine this occurring in the weird route, where the bizarre chain of events that result from whatever happens after the chapter 5 section of the weird route results in an impossible scenario that prevents you from progressing, whiles still giving some sort of lore or information to the player as a reward for doing the weird route. I do have to consider though the possibility that the normal route of the game is the one that doesn’t end. When Susie is battling with Gerson, she states that she doesn’t want an ending, and that she prefers for things to go on forever. I wonder if, there is a possibility that the normal route of deltarune results in Susie’s dream becoming real, a never ending adventure with no conclusion, while the weird route is the player seeking out an end instead.

With only 2 chapters of Deltarune left, i anticipate the moment where we learn the truth about Toby Fox’s ending of Deltarune, and see what his dream was.