Hey, fellow Undertale and Deltarune fan. Did you know there was a Deltarune ARG going on? Did you know it’s technically been going on for three years now? Yeah, neither did I!
I first learned about the Deltarune ARG (Alternate Reality Game) earlier this week, when a video about it surfaced in my YouTube recommendations. I started out just mildly curious, but I quickly fell down a rabbit hole that had me digging through massive spreadsheets, scouring Reddit threads, and pouring over weird corners of the official Deltarune website. And now, I’m going to infect you with it too.
In order to fully unpack the entire ARG in a way that covers every little bit of what’s happened and what it could mean, I would have to spoil all four chapters of Deltarune, probably some bits of Undertale, and dive into a deep, deep, deep pit of Deltarune fan theories. So I’m going to try to keep the explanation as high level as is possible while still making sense. But as a warning ahead of time: this will contain spoilers for Chapters 1 and 2 of Deltarune, especially the “Weird Route”, and some very light allusions to characters and events in Chapters 3 and 4. Read on at your own risk:
The Deltarune ARG actually began in September 2022, during an event called the Spamton Sweepstakes celebrating Undertale’s seventh anniversary, which raised money for the charity Child’s Play. Most of the event was fun, silly, and non-ARG-related, themed around the eccentric Chapter 2 character Spamton and including a lot of fun new merchandise courtesy of Fangamer.
However, at the time, the ever-vigilant Deltarune community stumbled upon some unusual hidden content within the pages on the Deltarune website dedicated to the sweepstakes. At the time, most of it consisted of fun Easter Eggs, and I don’t want to get into it all, but it was the first major sign that something was up. It wasn’t until May of 2025 (two and a half years later) that things really kicked off. Fans suddenly noticed that there were even more secrets on the Deltarune website dedicated to the sweepstakes. There were a number of new hidden pages, all of which made reference to the game’s deeply eerie and hidden “Weird Route”, but the one that matters most to the ARG was deltarune.com/chapter4/thankyou. At the time, the website consisted of two very small blanks where users could input text, and a blank button that allowed them to submit it. There were no clues as to what needed to go into the blanks, save for a single question:
“How long did it take her to smile?”
Deltarune fans very quickly guessed that the “her” being referenced was Noelle, a beloved character and the childhood best friend of Deltarune protagonist Kris. She’s also the focal point of the aforementioned Weird Route, in which the player (a separate character from Kris) manipulates Noelle into doing something terrible in the interest of becoming stronger. Fans also figured out that the first blank was looking for an email address, with the second blank being for the actual “answer” to the question. Unfortunately, the form was only open for a day, before being replaced with text that just said “Thank You.” Those who had submitted their email in the form began receiving effectively a confirmation email that just contained “You answered [THEIR ANSWER].” No further explanation. Nothing. For three years.
Notably, when all this happened, Chapters 3 and 4 weren’t out yet. Those released earlier this year, and with them, more Weird Route content and a couple of horrifying, hidden scenes focused on Noelle in particular. Then two weeks ago, those who had received the confirmation email the first time received a new email that just said, “Second chance,” and found that the form had been reopened. The community efforts were more coordinated this time, with people experimenting with different combinations of time amounts in days, seconds, years, as well as other textual responses they felt made sense. A number of community members tried to document submissions to avoid duplications, though given the short notice and short time period the form was open, this was once again difficult to do.
The form closed again, and once again, participants received emails. But this time, they were different. Individuals were getting one of a collection of different responses that seemed to be based on what they submitted. For instance, those who said “1 Day” received back “Then, ‘The next day you’ll see her smile.'” People who inputted very small numbers, such as 4 seconds, got back, “So, ‘she never stopped smiling'”. There are a bunch of other creepy answers, like “Do you think that means she still can?” and “Then, ‘It was the first time she ever smiled in her life.'”
Many emails ended with another sentence: “Move forward with this answer,” seemingly indicating the submission was on the right track.
That was two weeks ago, and the form has been closed ever since. There’s no indication of whether anyone got the right answer, what the next step is, or if the form will ever open up again. In preparation for a third attempt, a number of content creators have been rallying fans into communities to track what answers garnered what responses, and piece those responses together to try and figure out a “correct” answer if the form reopens. There are multiple massive spreadsheets out there cataloging confirmed responses, as well as others assigning different answers to each participant ahead of time, so no one wastes an answer on a duplicate.
But what does it all mean? We’re…not exactly sure. The general consensus is that all this has something to do with where Chapter 4’s “Weird Route” leaves Noelle, and speculation about what’s to come in Chapter 5 at the “festival” event we know is going to take place during it. But even though that’s the most likely context, it’s a pretty unusual one: the Weird Route is extremely hard to figure out without assistance from the internet, and its dark consequences make it unlikely that the vast majority of players would ever see it or understand what any of this is about. If this ARG is going to reveal some deep lore, or even impact the game somehow, it’s likely that very few people will understand or even care about the result.
That may be by design, though. Critically, the second time the form opened, only people who participated and received feedback from it the first time were able to use it again. If you’re just learning about this (as I am), you may be entirely too late to participate at all. It’s also possible there’s no progress on whatever this is for months, even years. It was already three years between the first two events in this ARG. How long will we need to wait for the third?
I’m really just scratching the surface here, and probably sound like I’m completely crazy. If you’ve played Deltarune and didn’t know about any of this, you probably had a pleasant time with a cool, well-written RPG with funny, lovable characters, and left it at that. That’s an extremely normal way to enjoy this game, and probably will be most people’s experience! But since Deltarune’s Chapter 1 release, there’s been a whole ecosystem of secrets, fan theories, and conspiracies surrounding the question of what this game actually is, how it relates to Undertale, and what the implications of its hidden, darker narrative might be for the game’s lighter side. It’s complex, weird, and fun as hell to dig into, and we probably won’t know the full scope of it for years to come.
Which is all to say, good luck to the secret hunters, and I’m genuinely sorry I can’t help. I’ve inadvertently gotten invested in this mystery even though I will not personally touch the Weird Route with a ten-foot holiday pencil. Deltarune chapters 1-4 are out now and combined make a very good place to jump in if you’ve been holding off thus far. Chapter 5 is expected to come out this year, likely in the second half.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
