#tobyworld

[potabo]

Deltarune's Ending

So as we have basically all of Deltarune released, it obviously seems reasonable - as many have done- to speculate on the ending of the game.

Now I can't- with a straight face- argue that I have any idea on how deltarune will actually end. What I can do is share a few observations that I haven't seen made elsewhere.

Now evidently the first place to look for any theory of this nature is, of course, the the first thing you see when booting up the game. Not the very nice one with our three protagonists standing very impressively before a dark fountain, but the one that looks like a DOS menu with spooky text. what I'm talking about is, of course,

1. The Title Screen

Now, as many have no doubt seen and/or heard, there are a number of unique quirks exclusive to this screen that fuel the theory community, but theres always been one thing about this screen in particular that always seemed.... More Important.

As you may know, for a variety of reasons, this screen is frequently taken to be narrated by the G man himself, Goofy nosurname.

What makes this relevant is that this, in conjunction with:

A. The Twitter announcement for Deltarune

B. The Game Over Screen

And of course C. The gonermaker segment at the start of a new run:

We can reasonably* assume that this character has some amount of influence over the game, if not straight up responsible for its existence.

All of which is to say, of course, that anything that we can glean from this character has the potential to be massively important to the rest of the game- which brings us to the prompter for this particular theory:

(What's interesting to note here is that, you don't actually need to have 3 identical files for this particular gaster text to appear, you simply need to overwrite any that are different)

2. The Evidence

Now what does this actually tell us about the ending of deltarune? Let's gather what else we know about the ending of deltarune:

the ever present, ever looming promise (threat) of a single ending, of an inexorable ending to the events of deltarune.

And if that was all, then it would be open and shut, case closed- however there is also... ambiguity as to the finality of these statements:

Note the question mark and the statement of a "new" future.

There's one final piece of the puzzle we need to make this into a proper, regular, unhinged deltarune theory tm: a bit of a insiders look at the development process.

Specifically:

deltarune, going forward, needs the capability to act as multiple separate games

3. The Actual Theory Finally

Now we have all the components, so here's the theory:

Deltarune will, in fact, have One ending- but it is the ending we choose. If anything I'm saying here is remotely right, we will need to choose the savefile that we want to be the real ending: hence the somewhat ominous "PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE" upon converting all of your savefiles to be the same.

We know there are slight differences between the save files:

File 1

File 2

File 3

And we additionally know that theres some overlap between save files (I'm on to you seem the cat)

so deciding the One Ending is the decision you make to choose where your file goes. if that makes any sense

In other words, you have to play a different game (or rather the game again) to see a different outcome. This, in my mind, is the ultimate reconciliation of these two contradictory statements: the inevitability of the one ending and the potential to change the future.

Extra bonus mini theory

The second most interesting observation I've had while making this post (beyond the "preparations" what prompted this) is the multiple game instances for deltarune. If I'm anywhere near the realm of correct at this point, it could be that these other instances wouldn't strictly be, you know, deltarune, instead being... I don't know... gastertale and tobyworld or something