Today's Nintendo Direct delivered one of gaming's most-anticipated announcements: Deltarune Chapter 5, subtitled The Field of Pink and Gold, releases on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, as a free update across all existing platforms. Developer Toby Fox and publisher 8-4 confirmed the date live during the broadcast — and then immediately dropped a second piece of news that sent the series fandom into overdrive. At the end of the new trailer, a single line appeared on screen: "Chapter 6 is waiting."
For anyone still on the fence about picking up the game, here is what today's announcement means in concrete terms. Deltarune currently sells for $24.99 and covers Chapters 1 through 4. Anyone who buys it after June 24 receives all five released chapters at that same price. Fox committed to this structure in April 2025, stating he would only charge for content that already existed and would add everything completed afterward at no additional cost. With seven chapters planned in total, a $24.99 purchase made today locks in the full remaining story — Chapters 5, 6, and 7 — without an additional payment.
Nintendo Direct June 2026: What the Trailer Showed
The Chapter 5 trailer confirmed a floral theme throughout. Enemies and environments are built around flowers and gardens, and the chapter's official description — drawn from text that appeared in Chapter 4 — reads: "The vast garden is charred in an inferno of jealousy." The game's known lore establishes that Asgore, the former king of monsters, runs a flower shop in Hometown; the trailer's visual language connects heavily to that setting. Chapter 5 will be the series' fifth of a planned seven, and the trailer's Chapter 6 tease signals that Fox's team is already well into subsequent content — a significant development given the years-long gaps that separated the series' earliest releases.
What Is Deltarune, and How Is It Different From Undertale?
Deltarune is Toby Fox's parallel story to his 2015 breakout hit Undertale — the two games share characters and a fictional universe but occupy separate continuities, and the name itself is an anagram of the earlier game's title. Where Undertale featured single-character combat with a random encounter system drawn from the Mother series, Deltarune introduced a structurally distinct battle engine that Fox built in GameMaker Studio 2.
That engine operates on three simultaneous layers. During the command phase, players select from a menu of options — Fight, Act, Item, Spare, or Defend — for a party of three characters: Kris, who handles the Act commands that allow enemies to be spared; Susie, the team's primary damage dealer; and Ralsei, who provides healing and the Pacify ability. During the defense phase, the player takes direct control of a heart avatar inside a constrained arena and dodges incoming projectile patterns in the tradition of bullet-hell games such as Touhou Project and Chrono Trigger's active combat model. A third layer, the TP (Tension Points) economy, rewards skillful near-misses: grazing enemy projectiles without being hit generates TP, which unlocks special abilities unavailable otherwise. This three-part structure — strategic command selection, real-time projectile avoidance, and a graze-based resource economy — does not exist in any prior mainstream RPG franchise.
The Chapters 3 and 4 package also incorporated a feature specific to the Nintendo Switch 2's hardware: a dedicated room built around the Joy-Con's mouse mode, making Deltarune one of the first titles to use that control scheme meaningfully.
Deltarune Chapter 5 Release Date: When Does It Arrive, and What Platforms?
Chapter 5 releases on Wednesday, June 24, 2026. It arrives as a free update on every platform where Deltarune currently runs: Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PC (Windows), and Mac. Buyers who purchase the $24.99 game for the first time after June 24 will have Chapter 5 included from the start.
The announcement comes roughly one year after the paid release of Chapters 3 and 4 on June 5, 2025 — the fastest turnaround between Deltarune installments to date. Chapter 1 arrived in October 2018, Chapter 2 followed in September 2021, and Chapters 3 and 4 released together in June 2025 as a Nintendo Switch 2 launch title. Chapter 5 continuing that accelerating pace is consistent with Fox's statements in early 2026 that development had moved beyond the core creative work into translation, testing, and platform certification.
How Toby Fox's One-Time Pricing Model Works
Fox has been unusually transparent about how Deltarune is priced. In his April 2025 newsletter announcing the $24.99 launch price for Chapters 1 through 4, he wrote that future chapters would be added as free updates and that the price reflected exactly what had been completed: "I only feel right charging for what there currently is, not what I say there will be." The practical result is that the per-chapter cost of a $24.99 purchase declines with each release. At four chapters, it implied roughly $6.25 per chapter. Once Chapter 5 arrives, that figure drops to $4.99 per chapter. With all seven chapters complete, the same $24.99 translates to approximately $3.57 per chapter.
This model sits closer to the shareware ethic — pay for what exists, receive additions free — than to the season-pass and DLC structures that have defined most episodic gaming since Telltale Games popularized the format in the 2010s. It also explains why Fox has been careful to frame each release as a complete product at its price point rather than a down payment on a larger promise.
Where Deltarune Stands in Its Seven-Chapter Arc
With Chapter 5 set for June 24 and Chapter 6 already teased in today's trailer, Deltarune is now past the series' midpoint with confirmed momentum toward its conclusion. The game's in-menu chapter selection screen has indicated seven chapters since the Chapters 3 and 4 release. Fox has not publicly announced a timeline for Chapters 6 and 7, but one member of the development team was confirmed to have begun work on Chapter 6's combat mechanics while Chapter 5 was still in final testing — suggesting the pipeline is continuous rather than sequential.
The parallel-story structure of Deltarune means multiple mysteries established across earlier chapters remain unresolved. The game has been praised by critics for its expressive pixel animation (led by Temmie Chang, who also served as the primary artist on Undertale), its battle system's mechanical depth, and a character-driven story that supports both casual play and deep optional investigation.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does Deltarune Chapter 5 come out?
Deltarune Chapter 5 releases on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, across Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC (Windows), and Mac. It arrives as a free update and will be automatically available to all players who already own the game.
Is Deltarune Chapter 5 free?
Chapter 5 is a free update for anyone who already owns Deltarune, which is sold as a single $24.99 package covering Chapters 1 through 4. New buyers who purchase the game after June 24 will receive Chapter 5 included at no extra charge. Developer Toby Fox has committed to adding all future chapters — including Chapters 6 and 7 — as free updates, meaning the $24.99 entry price covers the complete seven-chapter series.
How many chapters will Deltarune have?
Deltarune is planned to run for seven chapters total. Chapters 1 through 4 are currently available for $24.99, Chapter 5 releases on June 24, 2026, and a Chapter 6 tease appeared at the end of today's announcement trailer. No release dates for Chapters 6 or 7 have been confirmed.
Do I need to play Undertale before Deltarune?
Deltarune is a standalone parallel story set in a different continuity from Undertale, and it can be played without having finished the earlier game. That said, Fox has described Deltarune as being more enjoyable for players who have already completed Undertale, since both games share characters and the two universes have meaningful thematic connections.
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