Polygon’s piece this week dug into Deltarune Chapter 5’s hidden Weird-Route scenes, the Noelle and Kris path, and the read was the same one Toby Fox keeps engineering: the most disturbing content in the game is the content you have to do something morally hard to find. The wait until Chapter 6 lands is open-ended. We tested seven Deltarune alternatives on Steam that share the SOUL of the series, bullet-hell turn-based combat, branching morality, pixel-art with a haunted edge, RPGs built around music more than mechanics.
These are not Deltarune clones; the picks below either inspired Toby Fox directly or sit close enough to the Earthbound-via-itch tradition to feel like the same neighbourhood.
Quick comparison
| Game | Best for | Cost | Standout | Where to buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Undertale | The original (same creator) | $9.99 | Bullet-hell turn-based combat | Steam |
| OMORI | Emotional weight + dual world | $19.99 | Headspace vs. Real World duality | Steam |
| LISA: The Painful | Post-apocalyptic moral choices | $9.99 | Permadeath + permanent disfigurement | Steam |
| OneShot | Fourth-wall puzzle adventure | $9.99 | Game reads your file system | Steam |
| Yume Nikki | Dream-exploration silent RPG | Free | Surreal effect collection | Steam |
| Pizza Tower | Adjacent: combo-chasing platformer | $19.99 | Wario Land combo flow | Steam |
Why Deltarune fans look outside the series
The pattern on r/Deltarune and the Hard Drive Discord is consistent:
- Chapter releases land in clusters. The 1-2 wait, the 3-4 wait, and the post-Chapter 5 wait have all stretched beyond a year.
- Toby Fox’s writing voice is hard to substitute. The strongest alternatives are still by other authors who took notes from the same source material (Earthbound, Mother 3, Yume Nikki).
- The bullet-hell turn-based combat is the genre signature. Few games outside Deltarune and Undertale do it that way.
- Weird-Route content split the fanbase the same way Genocide did. Players who want that texture again need games that built morality into the mechanics, not the cutscenes.
The picks below cover the four directions Deltarune fans tend to wander: Toby Fox’s previous work, contemporaries built on shared influences, the obscure source material itself, and one outlier for fans who want the same indie energy in a totally different genre.
The 7 best Deltarune alternatives on PC
Undertale — best for the original (same creator)
Undertale is the natural starting point and the most obvious one to mention last in a list like this. We are putting it first because Deltarune Chapter 1 was originally bundled with Undertale’s first anniversary, and the two share more DNA than any other pair on this list. Same combat. Same musical sensibility. Same trick of making the morality decision the actual game.
For Deltarune fans who started with Chapter 1 and haven’t gone back, this is the deep cut you owe yourself.
Where it falls short: the pixel art and UI feel less refined than current Deltarune chapters. The Genocide route is more disturbing than the Weird Route by a wide margin; some fans never finish it.
Pricing:
- Free: No
- Base: around $9.99
- vs Deltarune: Same creator, smaller scope, finished story
Switching from Deltarune: play Pacifist on the first run. The combat ACT system rewards reading enemies, not just attacking.
Download: Undertale on Steam
Bottom line: pick Undertale when you want the same author’s first crack at the same formula.
OMORI — best for emotional weight + dual world
OMORI is the OMOCAT pixel-art RPG with the deepest emotional punch on this list. The headspace dream world is the safe place; the real world is the one with the actual story. The bullet-hell-adjacent combat is replaced with an emotion-based system (happy beats angry, sad beats happy), and the cast of friends has the same warmth Deltarune builds around Susie and Ralsei.
For Deltarune fans who responded to the Lightner-Darkner duality, OMORI is the strongest emotional companion piece.
Where it falls short: the runtime is around 30 hours, which is long for the genre. The content warnings are real; OMORI handles trauma directly. The pacing in the headspace sections can stall.
Pricing:
- Free: No
- Base: around $19.99
- vs Deltarune: Longer, heavier emotionally, similar pacing peaks
Switching from Deltarune: treat the headspace sections as the warm-up. The story shifts hardest in the real-world segments; let those land.
Download: OMORI on Steam
Bottom line: pick OMORI when emotional weight is the part of Deltarune you came for.
LISA: The Painful — best for post-apocalyptic moral choices
LISA: The Painful is the Dingaling Productions black-comedy RPG where every party member you recruit has a permanent cost. Lose a fight, lose an arm. Drink the wrong drug, become unplayable in encounters that need quick inputs. Save a friend, get jumped by their captor. The morality system is more violent than Deltarune’s but works in the same way: the world responds to what you do, not what you intend.
For Deltarune fans who took the Weird Route to see how dark the game could go, LISA is the next step.
Where it falls short: the tone is bleaker than anything Toby Fox writes. The pixel art is intentionally crude. Combat balance is rough by modern standards.
Pricing:
- Free: No
- Base: around $9.99
- vs Deltarune: Cheaper, harsher, longer
Switching from Deltarune: accept that party members die or get worse permanently. Save scumming is technically possible but undermines the entire point.
Download: LISA: The Painful on Steam
Bottom line: pick LISA when the Weird Route felt like the game finally being honest with you.
OneShot — best for fourth-wall puzzle adventure
OneShot is the Future Cat puzzle-adventure RPG that breaks the fourth wall in ways Undertale only hinted at. The game reads your file system, leaves you notes outside the game window, and gives you a single playthrough where every choice locks in. The story (a cat-headed child carrying a sun-bulb across a dying world) sits in the same melancholy register as Undertale’s pacifist ending.
For Deltarune fans who liked the small fourth-wall jokes Spamton makes about save files, OneShot leans into that entire mechanic.
Where it falls short: the puzzle difficulty curve is steep; some sequences require lateral leaps that frustrate. The fourth-wall mechanics depend on the game having filesystem permissions; sandboxing can break them.
Pricing:
- Free: No
- Base: around $9.99
- vs Deltarune: Comparable cost, lighter combat, denser puzzles
Switching from Deltarune: read every note. The game communicates outside the window as much as inside it.
Download: OneShot on Steam
Bottom line: pick OneShot when the fourth-wall breaks were your favourite Deltarune moments.
Yume Nikki — best dream-exploration silent RPG
Yume Nikki is the Kikiyama-developed surreal-RPG that influenced more of this list than any single source. There is no combat, no real story, no dialogue. You wander a dream space, collect effects, and let the atmosphere do everything narrative work usually does. Toby Fox has talked about Yume Nikki’s influence on his own work in interviews; the Dark World vibe in Deltarune owes Yume Nikki a real debt.
For Deltarune fans who want to see the source material that informed the series’ weirder corners, Yume Nikki is the place to start. It is also free on Steam.
Where it falls short: the game is intentionally obscure; you can spend hours not finding new content. The art style is deliberately primitive. There is no closure.
Pricing:
- Free: Yes, on Steam
- vs Deltarune: Free, no combat, pure atmosphere
Switching from Deltarune: stop looking for a quest log. The exploration loop is the game.
Download: Yume Nikki on Steam
Bottom line: pick Yume Nikki when you want to understand where Deltarune’s Dark World came from.
Pizza Tower — best adjacent indie energy
Pizza Tower is the Tour de Pizza combo-chasing platformer that has nothing to do with Deltarune mechanically and everything to do with the same indie spirit. The art direction (intentionally crude, intentionally loud), the music (an electric mess that resolves into earworms), and the pacing (a level-by-level escalation that feels handcrafted) all sit close to the Deltarune feeling without trying to copy it.
For Deltarune fans who want the same indie energy in a totally different genre, Pizza Tower is the recommendation that comes up most on r/Deltarune.
Where it falls short: zero RPG content; this is a platformer through and through. The combo-and-chase loop frustrates players who prefer breathing room. Speedrunners dominate the late-game leaderboards.
Pricing:
- Free: No
- Base: around $19.99
- vs Deltarune: Comparable cost, totally different genre
Switching from Deltarune: play the first three levels to learn the combo system, then commit to one chase before judging.
Download: Pizza Tower on Steam
Bottom line: pick Pizza Tower when you want the same indie energy outside the RPG genre.
How to choose
- Pick Undertale if you have somehow skipped it.
- Pick OMORI if the emotional weight of the Lightner-Darkner story is what you came for.
- Pick LISA: The Painful if the Weird Route’s permanence is the part you want more of.
- Pick OneShot if the fourth-wall jokes are your favourite Deltarune texture.
- Pick Yume Nikki if you want to see Toby Fox’s reference library.
- Pick Pizza Tower if you want the same indie spirit in a genre Deltarune doesn’t cover.
- Stay on Deltarune if you specifically want Toby Fox’s bullet-hell-combat-plus-morality formula. Nothing else on this list does both at the same time.
FAQ
Is Undertale by the same person as Deltarune? Yes. Both are written and largely directed by Toby Fox. Deltarune started life as an Undertale anniversary mini-game and grew into the full chapter-release project it is now.
Are any Deltarune alternatives free on Steam? Yes. Yume Nikki is free on Steam. Dark Deception Chapter 1 is free if a horror-leaning Deltarune adjacent is also fine.
Which game on this list is closest to Deltarune Chapter 5’s Weird Route? LISA: The Painful. Both make the disturbing-route content a permanent state of the world rather than a cutscene.
Can I play Deltarune and these alternatives on a Steam Deck? Yes. Deltarune, Undertale, OMORI, LISA: The Painful, OneShot, Yume Nikki, and Pizza Tower all run well on the Deck. OneShot’s fourth-wall mechanics work in Deck mode but some depend on filesystem access, so a few sequences require Desktop Mode.
What was Toby Fox’s biggest influence on Deltarune? Earthbound, Mother 3, and Yume Nikki are the most-cited. Mother 3 isn’t on Steam, but Yume Nikki is and it is free.
