FRIEND

FRIEND, referred to as DEVICE_FRIEND and IMAGE_FRIEND and by blank underscores in the game files, is a mysterious entity that appears multiple times during Deltarune, watching Kris as they continue throughout their adventures.

Profile[]

Appearance[]

Friend appears as a smiling face with pink and yellow eyes, similar to Spamton's glasses but swapped in order of placement. In Chapter 3, FRIEND can be seen during Ralsei's monologue about Dark Worlds, resembling Endogeny from Undertale, as they have a wide body with an abnormal number of legs, with the empty space between its legs forming additional cat-like silhouettes. However, unlike Endogeny, FRIEND has a face, and their ears look like the ones of a cat. It also has only five legs to Endogeny's six.

FRIEND also appears during the Eram fight as a blob with cat ears. FRIEND is heavily implied to be a cat, both through its appearances in the game and its presence in the Spamton Sweepstakes.

Personality[]

Friend's personality is unknown. It is always depicted with a smiling face. Friend laughs when jumpscaring the player during Ralsei's monologue in Chapter 3 and also on Spamton Sweepstakes.

History[]

The origins of FRIEND are unknown.

Chapter 2[]

FRIEND can be found in the basement of Queen's Mansion while doing the Spamton NEO quest. After going into the far left room of the basement, the player walks to the edge and sees nothing. Upon returning, the door has vanished. Moving back to the left side of the room reveals FRIEND staring at Kris through the darkness before quickly vanishing.

In the game files, Friend's object is named "DEVICE_FRIEND", while the sprite corresponding the object is named "IMAGE_FRIEND".

Spamton Sweepstakes[]

Friend makes a few appearances on the Spamton Sweepstakes charity website. They can appear when clicking on a chair on Deltarune.com/chair multiple times, which prompts a jump scare revealing FRIEND's eyes. The second appearance is on the secret Cat Petters (/rarecats/) minigame where they appear either when 100 cats have been clicked without reloading, or if the player tries to cheat in an unobtainable amount of points, resetting the player's points in both cases.

Chapter 3[]

FRIEND appears during Ralsei's monologue. It shows up in the shape of Endogeny and laughs before rushing towards the screen.

FRIEND can also be found in the first and third secret games. In the first secret game, its eyes can be found in the far left side of the pyramid, and going to the far right side briefly shows its mouth laughing. In the third secret game, FRIEND shows up in the Eram fight, where it appears as a blob with cat ears and randomly moves around the room, damaging Kris upon contact. It also has a chance to drop healing items when defeated.

FRIEND's sprites in Ralsei's cutscene are titled "spr_nondescript_room___", "spr_nondescript_room___face", and "spr_nondescript_room___laugh". This is also the case for the sprites used in the boss that gives the Shadow Mantle.

Chapter 4[]

FRIEND can show up in the Battat mini game as the highest rarity cat, granting a large amount of points but setting the player's fuel to a very low value instead of charging it.

FRIEND also appears in the Third Sanctuary in a room that requires stepping on a switch to briefly illuminate the area with sound waves. It can be seen in an inaccessible part of the room.

Speculation[]

IMAGE_FRIEND is listed in the DEVICE category of the files of the game. This had led many fan theories that FRIEND is connected to Gaster and the meta side of the game.
FRIEND was popularly thought to be the identity of "Mike" when first discovered in Chapter 2; their appearance in the /rarecats/ section of Spamton Sweepstakes led to a conclusion that Friend was also a cat.
- In Chapter 3, this is referenced in the Secret Mike fight through cat Mike (Pluey). Battat's theorizing on the identity of Mike is popularly believed to be a parody, or further proof on the identities of Mike and Friend.
In the two blog posts by Noelle Holiday discovered during the Spamton Sweepstakes event, on the pages /catpetterz/ and /egg/, Noelle describes her experiences of playing a video game Cat Petterz 2 and attempts to find a rare cat pet; Friend is popularly believed to be connected to this video game. The latter is supported by Friend appearing on the /rarecats/ page mentioned above.
- This led to Friend becoming often associated with the "tail of hell" prophecy from Chapter 4, since the image of the tail consists of circles, similarly to how the pets in Cat Petterz 2 are described as consisting of spheres.
Fans theorize that FRIEND is the identity of the "strange someone" mentioned by Seam, responsible for Spamton and Jevil's descent into madness.
- This is supported by the fact that, leading up to the fight against Eram, there is a dialogue scene where Tenna rambles about a "big shot he was working with getting a call, but nobody was on the other end." (to paraphrase), followed by a scene of the player walking to the Bunker, where FRIEND is then featured.
FRIEND may have been inspired by the Cheshire Cat from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, as they are both mysterious cat-like entities with large smiles that seem to be able to appear and disappear across different locations in time and space at will, or by the SOMETHING from OMORI, since it also follows Kris everywhere.