 It's a Halloween miracle! Toby Fox has announced that Delta Rune chapters 3 and 4 will be releasing sooner than he'd originally planned. But while the dialogue and gameplay in chapter 3 is basically finished, it's still not releasing just yet. The latest edition of Toby Fox's newsletter has arrived, marking exactly five years since the release of Delta Rune chapter 1 and, wait, really? Five years? Huh. Delta Rune was never originally intended to be an episodic game. Because it's such a large game compared to Toby's debut original title Undertale, he made an initial chapter which released for free on Halloween 2018, hoping to then use the momentum from this to build a team and complete the game no matter how long that took. Then, in a change of plans two years ago, Toby released Delta Rune chapter 2. In explaining this change, he said, The world has been really tough for everybody recently. So I decided to release Delta Rune chapter 2 for free. I guess like a pet cat that drops bugs at your doorstep, I can, with some pride, show you the weird things I've been doing. I'm not sure if it will help, but I hope so. When he released chapter 2, Toby still had the goal in mind of finishing the rest of the entire game, chapters 3, 4 and 5, before putting the entire game up for sale as one complete purchase. According to his latest newsletter, plans have changed again. In the newsletter, Toby talks about how, now that 3 is basically quote, content complete, he shared the game with a friend on his birthday. He said it was very gratifying to see his friend laugh at his jokes and enjoy his creation. This enjoyment of feedback is perhaps part of the reason for Toby's decision to release chapters 3 and 4 of Delta Rune before chapter 5 is complete. He says, My original plan was to release chapter 3, 4 and 5 together. However, the finish line of chapter 5 is still pretty far off. And I don't think anybody really wants to wait that long to release anything. Especially me. So, new strategy. No more waiting for chapter 5. Instead, we are going to focus on putting Delta Rune out for purchase once we finish chapter 4. That should make everything a bit more reasonable. This is good news for Delta Rune fans who don't want to have to wait endlessly for a new installment. And it sounds like Toby is quite pleased with the opportunity to get part of the game out a bit sooner as well. Toby adds that he feels the process of making chapter 4 feels like it's going smoothly. He says, When we started chapter 3, to be honest, it took a lot of trial and error to figure out how it would work. But with chapter 4, I already feel very confident about how we can progress. It's worth pointing out though that Toby has said something similar in pretty much every Delta Rune update newsletter. It was tricky to figure things out to this stage, but he's hopeful that the rest of the process will go a little smoother. So, take this with a pinch of salt. Because ultimately, game design is really difficult and trial and error is somewhat baked into the whole process. From the sounds of it though, the team working on Delta Rune are having a fantastic time. The newsletter features an interview with several of these developers, in which they all agree that one of the best things about working on the game is having Toby describe the plot to them. According to Toby's little helper, Chess, rather than having us each skim a written plot summary, he'd basically act out a live radio drama of the entire chapter himself. He'd read all the dialogue aloud with character voices, play the appropriate music for each scene, the works. I'd even be prompted to make choices where appropriate, truly the optimal way to experience the story of Delta Rune. Of course, Toby holding all of this game's story in his head and being responsible for all the decisions in the game is part of the reason why development moves so slowly. One thing that Toby does note is that he has hired a new producer for the rest of the game. Toby hopes that this producer will speed up development. We'll have to wait and see. One thing is clear though. Much like a wizard, installments of Delta Rune are never late, nor are they early. They arrive precisely when Toby Fox means them to. We won't see Delta Rune Chapter 3 or 4 or eventually 5 until they're ready. Frustrating as it may be to wait, this is good news for the fan community as a whole. At a time when crunch and rush development cycles are leading to games that release in an unfinished state, it seems that Toby Fox is making sure that his latest project will be made to a high standard of quality. The moral of the story? To be this good, it takes ages. Hey, that sounds familiar.