Game Theory - Don't BREATHE! (Poppy Playtime Chapter 3)

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he makes his predictions for Poppy Playtime Chapter 3! Credits: Writers: Matthew Patrick and Tom Robinson Editors: Jerika (NekoOnigiri), Daniel Zemke, Tyler Mascola, JayskiBean and Shannon (Bomb0i) Sound Editor: Yosi Berman

There is nothing more gratifying to my soul than being the reason for a theorist's smile to be the one that inspires creativity and critical thinking. That is why it is with enormous pleasure that I am announcing a new theory, a theory based on the Poppy Playtime Chapter 3 teaser trailer. Because while this trailer may seem vague and unspecific, it reveals even more of the horrific experiments that went on inside Playtime Co. May this theory terrify and disturb every theorist that chooses... Hello, internet.

Welcome to Game Theory. The show that encourages you to wake up and smell the poppies. And I mean that quite literally, friends, because today we're diving nose first back into the world of Poppy Playtime, which has been suspiciously quiet since the release of Chapter 2 back in May. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we got ourselves this little surprise last week. A teaser trailer for Chapter 3 coming out, according to the video,

sometime next year. And let me tell you, friends, if you haven't seen this teaser yet, it gets dark. It starts off with a slow panning shot of the toys that we've already defeated. Huggy-Wuggy lying on the ground. Mommy long legs ripped into. Bron the dinosaur's head for some reason. All while we listen to Elliot Ludwig,

founder of Playtime Co. Giving an announcement about Playcare. The adoption initiative that Playtime Co. is starting. He states that Playtime owes everything to these children. And then the trailer ends as the camera moves up to reveal a creepy-looking gas mask. All while the sounds of audience applause mixed with the horrifying cries of children. Yay! This is a video game that's going to be played by kids. Clearly they went hard for this one.

The Chapter 2 teaser, was creepy, child singing itsy-bitsy spider in a minor key, classic horror trope, but there's something about the sound of screaming children that just hits different. That's coming from a guy who talks about dead kids way more regularly than a person probably should. However, behind those screams is the thing we're really looking for. The lore! For a few episodes now, we've suspected that Playtime Co used children to make these living, breathing, bleeding toys. And now, having the founder of the company outright say, we owe everything to these children, well, I'm thinking he means that literally. But there's a lot more in here than just hints to past theories. I suspect that there's enough in this single minute of content to get a sense of most of what chapter three is going to reveal to us.

From the next big bad toy we're going to face to perhaps the most disturbing lore drop to happen yet. So let's take another slide down into the depths of Elliot Ludwig's monster factory, shall we? Probably the best place to start off is by addressing the severed dinosaur head in the room. In my live reaction to the teaser over on GT Live, in my reaction, see and Bron the dinosaur here immediately set off some theory alarm. Is that the dinosaur? What is that? Braun? Bron the dinosaur? His appearance here seems very intentional. The trailer begins by panning up from the remains of our first two bosses, and then we land on him, implying that he then is going to be our Chapter 3 Big Bad.

This feels especially true when you consider that the rest of the less important characters from past chapters like Pugapiller and Bunzo appear behind the gas mask at the end of the trailer. If we're to believe this motif that they're setting up here, right? It seems to be indicating that Chapter 1 boss, Huggy, Chapter 2, Poppy chapter 3 then is Braun going to be the boss or kind of like the big bad of chapter 3 It's also worth pointing out that the gas mask at the end of the teaser is red and yellow exactly like brawn the dinosaur's color palette No other toy we've been introduced to at this point matches that coloring so it does seem like an odd coincidence Like again it's purposefully trying to hint at Braun's importance in this upcoming chapter and then you have yourself the cardboard cutouts throughout chapter 2 you find these cardboard cutouts of the various characters from Playtime co scattered throughout the map. If you push the buttons multiple times, they say various phrases.

Some of them harmless. Do you want to play with P-J? Some of them disturbing. You need to get out of here. Just kidding. Go have fun! And if you keep on pressing, most of them end up as a glitchy mess. Now, I gotta be honest, when I first saw these things, I really wanted to do a theory just on these cardboard cutouts, expecting there to be some sort of hidden lore inside the glitchy audio. Like, it is the perfect place to hide lore. The perfect place to hide some lore.

Mob games. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I tried pitch shifting, reversing the audio, spectrograms, basically everything I could think of. You know what I got? Nothing. Maybe there'll be something that happens in Chapter 3. Who knows, mob games?

But that doesn't necessarily mean that they were totally useless, because Braun does actually give us some interesting information. By pressing his cut-out button once, we get a setup for a joke. What do you call a gyno with one? And then pressing it again, we get the punchline. Uh, do you think he's sore us? Slow clap there, Bron. Slow clap. That is the type of humor that's kept me alive on YouTube for the past decade. However, keep pressing the button and you get this.

What do you call the scariest dinosaur? Me. Braun is outright telling us that he's a scary dinosaur. The other toy cutouts? Even the ones that do try to kill us within this very chapter aren't nearly that overt. Some of them have ominous lines, but none of them are outright. warning us about how scary they can be. In short, all the signs are pointing at Braun being the toy that we're going to face next, which is why I don't believe it.

I suspect that this might be a big misdirect on the part of mob games. I think it's theory bait. It's meant to get little theorist fishies like me interested in the hook, and then I get lured in and served up on a platter. You see, this isn't the first time that we've had Braun shoved into the spotlight only to be relegated as a mere background character when the chapter ultimately comes out. All the way back in the first trailer for Poppy Playtime, there's this wonderful shot of a giant,

boy Braun, whose head suddenly turns around on its own and reveals its cold, dead eyes. And then the chapter came out and he was a poster. Cool, cool, cool, cool. He reappears in chapter 2, but again, he's nothing more than just a prop in a puzzle sequence. And from a business perspective, too, it just doesn't make sense for Braun to star in chapter 3. Mob games have had such success in creating new big scary villains like Huggy and Mommy. The third chapter, just going back to a character that's existed since the beginning, it loses a lot of the hype of a big teaser reveal.

And they not only lose hype, but also a good merchandise. opportunity. People have loved Braun, Catby, and all the other toys since Chapter 1. New Chapters means the opportunity for new characters, which means more new merch. And the last thing about this is that Mob Games' strength really seems to be flexible characters. Things that bend feel softer or rubbery. I mean, Kissy Missy trying to pull this switch in the middle of Chapter 2, not only is it hilarious, but it also just shows the strength of the team's animation of softer stuffed characters. It is a huge and welcome departure from the monster designs of a certain other indie franchise that's Domestic. the scene for the past eight years. Ron is hard, he's heavy, he's robotic. Again, pushing away from the monster aesthetic that's worked so well for Poppy Playtime up to this point. So, call it a hunch from the past decade of doing this, but I don't think Braun is going to be our big bad. I think they're gonna reveal more about our big bad in October or November as they get closer to next year's release.

But hey, that's just a theory. A mini theory that exists within this one larger theory, because I am nowhere near done with this teaser. Well, it would certainly be cool to be able to figure out the next monster that we're going up against in chapter 3, considering they all seem to die by the end of the chapter anyway, the more intriguing part is the underlying lore about Playtime Co and the experiments that they've been running. We got a lot of hints throughout Chapter 2 that the company was trying to revive dead rats using gel made from poppy flowers, and that now they were looking for, quote unquote, larger subjects, aka children.

We also saw paperwork where members of the staff were raiding children's physical abilities in order to best pair them with the appropriate toy. Enter the setting for this newest chapter, Playcare. As the teaser says, I announced, Playcare, our very own on-site orphanage. Having an on-site orphanage would give them plenty of larger subjects to dip into poppy gel. Kids forgotten by a system. Kids that are untraceable. But then what?

What did they do here that led them to becoming the horrifying monsters that we've now come to expect from the franchise? Well, I suspect the answer to that question lies with this teaser. But not in the teaser, rather the thumbnail. You see, the thumbnail obviously puts the gas mask front and center as you'd expect. But there's a detail here that isn't. present in the actual video. Surrounding everything is this red mist. It looks cool and it definitely works nicely with the gas mask theme,

but as someone who spends way too much time in thumbnail design meetings, I can tell you that this detail is more than just a it looks cool moments. This detail is intentional. It reveals way more than anything in the teaser itself. It reveals the usage of poppy gas. I mean, poppies are red flowers after all, so it just seems to make sense. I do think that the poppy gas, I think that's probably where they're headed with this, right? is making the poppy into a gas that then is converting the kids.

Immediately after I filmed this over on GT Live, I jumped on the computer and started looking into the idea of poppy gas. And you know what I found? Nothing. Zilch, nada. Turns out nobody is interested in turning an odorless flower into a gas. But then, I remembered this moment from the opening seconds of the game. Her hair is sturdy and won't come out when you brush it and smells just like a poppy flower.

Her hair smells like poppy flower, but poppies aren't supposed to have a smell, right? Well, they don't. unless you're talking about a specific type of poppy, opium, poppies. This is actually something that I casually tossed out there in our first ever theory on Poppy Playtime. Side note I looked into and it turns out that poppies don't really have that much of a smell, unless of course you're talking about opium poppies, in which case you're opening up a whole lot of messed up there. You see, normal poppies don't have a smell and don't have much of a narcotic effect

because they have low levels of alkaloids, basically just a naturally occurring compound in the plant. Opium poppies, though, have higher alkaloid levels, resulting in a stronger smell and more physiocative biological effects on humans. What do they do? Well, look no further than the Wizard of Oz. Hobbies will put them his sleep. I can't run anymore. I'm so sleepy. You can't rest now. We're nearly there. Opium has been used throughout history as a pain killer and sleep inducer thanks to some of the chemicals found within it, namely morphine and codeine. Drugs that you might be familiar with because they're still used today as pain killers. Now obviously there are more and more regulations on using opiates like these for medical purposes. In fact, my partner Steph, in her former life before YouTube, worked on helping educate doctors about the medical uses and dangers of opiates and opioids. However, that sort of knowledge didn't exist in the early 1900s, and this stuff was totally

unregulated. Opium would commonly be mixed with sugar and water to make syrups, balms, and soups, which would then be given to children that couldn't sleep. These balms could then be applied to women's chests to help babies wean faster, or they would be put on baby's gums to soothe them while they were teething. In fact, they were marketed as soothers and could be purchased in pretty much any grocery store at the time. You know, it was just common practice for perfectly normal kids, be given highly addictive drugs, at least until regulations finally came down in 1912. But as disturbing as that may be, it actually connects directly back to Poppy Playtime.

Playtime Co. using opium poppies and Poppy's hair follows this trend of subduing kids who are in pain, or just a bit restless using a drug. It also means that they were probably able to skirt around regulations. Who would suspect a toy company putting opium in a doll's hair? And considering they weren't a medical center, they probably were even less likely to fall into suspicion. But how does all of this relate back to our creepy gas mess? mask and the red fumes surrounding the toys. A gas mask, to me, implies that the gas is covering a large area, and that the gas is more concentrated.

In my research, I found this, Carfentil, a narcotic gas that's in the same category as opiates and opioids, which is 10,000 times stronger than morphine, which itself is 100 times stronger than opium. And Carfentil has been weaponized as a gas before. In Russia, back in 2002, a group of rebels took a theater of 800 people hostage. Since I already seem to be doing movie references in today's episode, it's basically like this opening scene from tenant. After three long days, the Russian authorities were suddenly faced with a difficult choice of how to possibly end the standoff. They decided to use a carfentanyl-based gas to knock out the rebels, thereby allowing the troops to get into the building safely. Except there was

one problem with the plan. Carfentanyl is too strong. Again, stuff is 10,000 times stronger than morphine. Well, sure, the carfentanyl did indeed knock out the insurgents so the authorities could get in. It also killed 130 of the hostages who are also in the building breathing the stuff The gas fills your lungs, replacing the oxygen that you should be breathing in, meaning that no oxygen is getting into your bloodstream, but instead this deadly chemical, eventually causing your body to shut down. Which then brings us all the way back around to Playtime Coe and their experiments with poppy flowers and rats.

The experiment that we read about in chapter 2 shows that Elliot and his team killed a rat and submerged it into a poppy flower gel mixture before trying to revive it. The process didn't work, which they figured was because of the size of the test subject. But what if it was more than that? What if part of the problem was that it was only coated in a poppy gel mixture? I mean, I could go swimming for hours, but I can't then claim that I'm suddenly hydrated. The water's only effective once it's inside of my body. I'm wondering if that's actually what we're seeing here.

Poppy gel didn't work, but what if you breathed in poppy gas? Suddenly, you'd have it in your system immediately as the lungs transfer the gas into the bloodstream. If Playtime Co is trying to activate the elements of the poppy, it being in the body, in the blood that's keeping people alive? Well, it feels like that's going to get you more concerned. consistent results when trying to revive someone. Making it a gas would also make the experimentation process easier. Could you imagine having to submerge one child into a gel mixture and then having to fish them out before putting the next one in?

Putting a child in a room filled with gas, however, is a way easier way to do it, and far less messy. And yes, at this point, I think I need to make the obvious disclaimer here. This is dark. Very dark. I think we can all very easily see the parallels to World War II gas chambers. But the reason that I'm talking about these very disturbing things and these very tragic events is because because it seems like this is where the game's headed to with the upcoming third chapter. This is a toy factory after all. Mass production is their name of the game. Around the factory, we see dozens of broken and bloody cat bees, bronze, boogie bots, and candy cats.

These weren't special one-offs like Mommy Longlegs or a giant huggy. These were everyday toys that were being sold out to the masses. So, there are lots of bloody candy cats laying around the factory, and we've seen children assigned to that specific toy, then it stands to reason that you need a lot of kids ready to be converted. The gas allows you to get a big group of children together in one room, drug them all at once, and then walk in with your colorful gas mask and remove them all ready for mass production. However, I don't think they're just shoving kids into a room to be converted.

They're using the entire playcare facility. And I believe that to be the case because of the main focus of the teaser, the mask. This gas mask is not just the same color as Braun. It's the same color as real-life gas masks that were created during World War II. While most masks were neutral colors like black, brown, gray, or green, those colors made the gas mask. masks look unappealing and scary, especially to children. You can imagine why. I'm my mommy. In walked Walt Disney. Yep, that Walt Disney, believe it or not, he decided to help the issue out by manufacturing the Mickey Mouse mask, which had the face of the iconic mouse to make

it more appealing to kids. In the UK, they also have the Mickey Mouse mask, but it didn't look like anything coming out of the old house a mouse. Instead, these masks were bright red. And that was it, just red. Sometimes they had a flappy nose to make them seem more fun, but overall, it was just about making the colors bright, so they were less scary. And remind me again what color the mask in the teaser is? These masks are bright and colorful because they're being worn around children, all in an effort to make them and the scientists that wear them less scary, which of course they have to do so they don't get high off the fumes that are being pumped into play care.

If these gas masks were only necessary while kids were being shoved into a testing room to be transferred into a toy, then they could have just had them as a standard black color. No kids would be conscious enough to see them being worn. It makes a lot more sense that they're this color though, because the children are seeing them being worn regularly, which you'd have to do if the entire playcare facility was slowly being gassed. And then, all we're left with is a bunch of screaming children. Chapter 3 at Poppy Playtime promises to lean heavy into the twisted backstory of the factory.

I'm just not sure any of us realized how dark they were willing to go with this story. Thanks to this new teaser, I think we have an idea. Now the question is, are we going to be brave enough to keep going? But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.