The latest installment of Toby Fox’s seven-part RPG saga Deltarune launched this week, and it has all the oddball humor, incredible music, and video game metacommentary you’d expect. Chapter 5 sees Kris and Susie enjoying amusement games and snacks at Hometown’s annual festival, before venturing into a brand-new Dark World that appears within Asgore’s flower shop.
At least, that’s what happens if you stick to the main storyline. Real sickos will know that, like its predecessor Undertale, Deltarune has an alternate route in which you’re encouraged to make the most vile choices imaginable. In Undertale, it was called the genocide route, since you must violently defeat every monster you encounter. In Deltarune, it’s called the weird route, and it involves our protagonist Kris asserting a very troubling level of control over the actions of their childhood pal Noelle Holiday, a sweetie-pie reindeer whose house looks like Homegoods in December all year round. The weird route has consistently been creepy and upsetting, but in Chapter 5 it takes an even more sinister turn.
Major spoilers for Deltarune’s weird route ahead.
If it’s been a while since you’ve played Deltarune — fair enough, since the first chapter came out all the way back in 2018 — let me bring you up to speed: The weird route is essentially an abbreviated, alternate version of the main story, which only appears in Chapters 2, 4, and 5. To trigger the weird route, you must force Noelle to defeat every enemy using her ice magic in Chapter 2. While she’ll protest at first, eventually she’ll grow more comfortable with the idea, and you’ll soon gain access to equipment that makes her magic stronger.
One such item is the ThornRing, which allows Noelle to cast the SnowGrave spell. This is the only magic in Deltarune said to deal “fatal damage” to enemies. At the end of the weird route in Chapter 2, Kris compels Noelle to use the spell against their annoying classmate Berdly, and it’s strongly implied that Berdly is dead in this version of the story.
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