Game Theory - The Hidden Truth of Afton's Experiments Finally REVEALED

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

With the recent release of “Escape the Pizzaplex,” we’ve all been trying to figure out what this story is trying to tell us. However, the details from this novel may be pointing to something much further back in the franchise's history.

Dorco Steel Wool Interview reveals the true purpose of the most recent Fnafbook. Even though it's set in the Pizza Plex and focuses on characters we know like Gregory and Cassie, its biggest reveals are actually based much earlier in the franchise's history. And may reveal something very interesting about our favorite Erpal Killer. Hello, Internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's always gassing up the importance of tiny details in Fnaf Books. And just a little while ago, we got ourselves the third and at this point final, Choose your own adventure-style Fnaffbook.

Escape the Pizzaplex. It promised to be an exciting final adventure where we would take on the role of Cassie, who is playing Hide and Seek alongside our good pal Gregory, as the animatronics go haywire in a prequel to security breach. Needless to say, I and most other FNAF theorists were excited for this one. Maybe now we'd get some of the answers we've been desperately seeking to the very confusing law of that game. But what we actually got was a lot more confounding.

Like, the book is fine, but compared to the week before, returned to the pits, even VIP, it wasn't really giving us anything in the law department. We did get to see Gregory in action in his more G.GY Dr. Rabbit state, hacking the animatronics and generally being a bit of a jerk. And we got to see Cassie's friendship with both Gregory and Roxy present itself a little more. But neither of these things did what we were hoping for. I personally was hoping for answers like, how did Gregory become a slave to glitch trap?

Or why is Cassie seen as so important to this plan? But no, we got nothing of the source, which is why it's taken me this long to come up with a theory. I've been scratching my head for ages trying to figure out what the point of this story was. What was it trying to tell us? And it wasn't really until the other week when I was chatting to Friend of the Channel Rite toast about this book, that suddenly it hit me. I'd been looking at this all wrong. Rather than looking at the characters we know from the franchise, I needed to look at the new character it introduced, a new kind of staff bot called The Reagents, with hoses for arms and a gas canister attached to its back that it uses to incapacitate Cassie in dozens of the book's endings. Eventually, this thing is destroyed by either Cassie or Roxy depending on the ending you get.

Because this guy isn't insecurity breach, so we got to get rid of him so we don't mess up the timeline even more. But then the question Ryan I both had was why? Why introduce him at all if you're just going to have to get rid of him? Why not make it one of the other glamrocks or Gregory or Peck? Make it the first modern appearance of the mimic in some way. But the more I pondered and banged my head against the wall, the more I began to realize that Scott absolutely had a purpose for this character. It just wasn't to do with the current law of the franchise.

It was pointing to something much further back in the franchise's history, Something that we're likely to get a glimpse of in secret of the mimic very soon. The main thing we learn about this guy is that it has mysterious gas powers that it uses to incapacitate Cassie. Who's copying whose homework now, eh, Poppy? And so, just like with Poppy, the first thing I wanted to do to get to the bottom of this new character was to figure out what this mysterious gas actually is. Because when you call your character the reagent that has consequences. A reagent is a real scientific term that refers to a substance or compact.

that is added to a system to cause a chemical reaction. And, you know, if you're going to use scientific terms to name your characters, we're going to science the heck out of those characters. So, what do we learn about this mysterious reagent gas? Well, the most standout parts are what it does to Cassie when she encounters it. Quote, your eyes and throat burn. The moment you move, vertigo seizes you, and you can't seem to make your arms move right. They're too heavy, as if they're made of lead.

You blink, your eyes flooded with tears. Then everything goes dark. Cassie also mentions coughing, fuzzy vision, and dizziness in other parts of the book. So that's a pretty extensive list of symptoms to work with. Immediately my mind went to something like carbon monoxide, the silent killer. It's a very common but very dangerous gas that when breathed in, ticks a number of our symptom boxes. Blurry vision, dizziness, loss of muscle control, and while it isn't often associated with coughing, that is a symptom that can occur in certain individuals.

Eventually, all of this leads to a loss. of consciousness and death. Plus, it is used scientifically as a reagent. So we're off to a pretty good start. But it's not quite a perfect match. Carbon monoxide doesn't cause your eyes or throat to burn, hence it's called the silent killer. Because you often can breathe it in and not know it's affecting you until it's too late. It's also called the silent killer for another big reason that doesn't work with our mysterious gas.

It's odor. Or more specifically, it's lack of odor. You cannot smell carbon monoxide when it's leaking. which is why you should always have a carbon monoxide alarm installing your home to sense it for you. Now, I wouldn't put it past Fasberra Entertainment to ignore this crucial safety step, but Cassie does have something to say about the smell of this particular gas. Quote again, a noxious cloud follows in its wake. The thick, sharp scent of chemicals fills your nostrils.

It actually repeats that point about it smelling like chemicals a few times throughout the book, which means it cannot be carbon monoxide. With the smell being associated with chemicals and the reagent being responsive, for quote, cleaning the pizzaplex of organic matter, I wondered if this could be something like chlorine gas. Chlorine is generally used as a disinfectant for things like swimming pools. But in gas form, while it can be used as a reagent, it's also incredibly dangerous. Just like carbon monoxide, it can cause lightheadedness, dizziness, blurry vision and muscle weakness. But it also has the added effects we're looking for like the burning sensation

in the eyes and throat, which leads to coughing and watering eyes, and it has a strong chemical smell, typically reminding people of cleaning products like bleach. It also has another quality that carbon monoxide lacks. You can see it. In that previous quote from Cassie, we learned that she's not only able to smell the gas, but see it. Quote again, a noxious cloud follows in its wake. Sadly, we don't get any descriptors in the book about its color or anything.

That would be way too helpful. But the fact that it's visible at all is important for us to bear in mind. And chlorine gas is visible, usually a yellowish green color. So why is this? not the end of the video. Chlorine gas seems to be a perfect solution. The problem is that I can't get this clip from Rytost's stream out of my head. The tanks in the scuba room, they are labeled nitrogen. But these gas canisters aren't just anywhere. They're in the basement of the Pizzaplex. This nitrogen is being used somewhere in the Pizzaplex. And the only thing we've really seen using gas in this building is the re-agents. That means that the most likely suspect for the gas being used within Fasbear is a nitrogen-based gas,

which, as you can tell by the name, chlorine is not. So, we gotta try again. We need a gas that is visible, smells of chemicals, burns the eyes and throat, causes dizziness, heavy limbs, passing out, be nitrogen-based and be some kind of reagent. Ugh, this is becoming way more complicated than I intended. Who would have thought that a game about a possessed animatronic murder bear wouldn't follow the logical rules of the real world, but I'm nothing if not determined. And so, I did what any logical sane person would do in this situation.

I looked up every single nitrogen-based gas that has ever existed and compared it to our symptoms. I'd like to say it was fun, but even the nerd in me was screaming. But now, where did all that research take me? Well, as I crossed off options from the list, I was left with only one possibility. Something I'd never heard of. Dynitrogen tetroxide. It has a sharp and pungent smell of chemicals. breathed in, it can lead to every symptom we've mentioned, as the name suggests, it's nitrogen

base, and while it is by default colourless, dye nitrogen tetroxide has a fun little quirk that solves that problem. It exists in a permanent state of equilibrium with another guess. Nitrogen dioxide. Dynitrogen tetroxide literally cannot exist without nitrogen dioxide, because both chemicals share a reversible chemical reaction. Dynitrogen tetroxide breaks apart into nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen dioxide molecules combine to create dinitrogen tetroxide. And this reaction is happening constantly, not only creating a weird chemical concoction, which is exactly how the book describes this substance by the way, but it also changes the colour to a reddish brown. And if that wasn't enough of a clincher,

dinitrogen tetroxide has one other very interesting effect. Much like the other gases we've mentioned, it is a reagent. It helps create chemical reactions between a number of different compounds. But the type of reaction that caught my attention was that dinitrogen tetroxide can react with a number of different metals to form what are called metal nitrates. And these can then be used in future reactions to combine the metal compounds with carbon-based organic compounds. Now, where have I heard of that kind of combination before? Oh, that's right. Remnant. Remnant? Yes. In this universe, the soul is a tangible thing that exists. It's not just some ethereal thing. It physically is attached to the metal and when you melt down that metal,

it remains attached, which led to the creation of the fun times. The soul is a real thing. And if it's a real thing for us organic, carbon-based life forms, then it too could be considered organic matter, meaning that this gas, the reagent, it's all part of turning these kids into remnant. Just like Rye theorized about in a recent video. It's also worth considering that Rye found these canisters in the scooping room of ruin. And the scoop blueprints we got from FNAF 6 revealed to us that the scoop was designed to inject remnant into animatronics. Or people.

For these tanks to be here in that same room, it feels like they have to be connected. And so the remnant for the scoop and these nitrogen-based canisters are also connected. And when you think about it, it actually helps explain a lot about what the mimic is trying to do. In security breach during the bad ending, we learnt of nine missing kids. But we've had no idea what happened to them. Now, thanks to ruin in the books, we know that the mimic has been copying Afton and his murderous tendencies.

Like in VIP, we see the Mimic program present itself as a pig mascot and lead kids into the back room to be killed, which is pretty familiar. But what we're talking about today allows us to take it one step further. The Mimic isn't just copying Afton's killings, he's trying to recreate the missing children's incident

in its entirety, converting their souls into remnant, just like Afton, did in the games that the mimic was partially trained on. Now, listen, I get that all of this might seem like a stretch. Believe me, I do. Referring to the soul as organic matter feels weird. And even then, there's no way di-nitrogen tetroxide would work as a reagent for that specific compound.

At the end of the day, Scott isn't a scientist. He's a fiction writer. But at this point, he knows that we theorists will look at the real-life comparisons to find our answers. And as time goes on, it's become clear that he's trying to work with that and make the series feel more grounded. We've moved away from spiritually possessed animatronics to an AI villain. He got rid of sound illusion discs and swapped them for hallucinogenic gas. And that is what I think this mysterious gas is really about. It's him trying to find a way to more

believably ground the series, retroactively explaining part of Afton's scientific process. So that when the grounded AI villain tries to mimic him, it's not having to suddenly go back to the old sci-fi and paranormal tricks. doing all of that progress. It's not a perfect one-to-one because the kind of thing he needs just doesn't exist. But what does exist is close enough to make his point. However, even with the answer to this gas question somewhat solved, as I sat there staring into the void that is my FNAF whiteboard,

I remembered that that was only part of what I set out to solve. Sure, this has been a fun experiment trying to identify the gas, and it's even more fun to find its connections to Remnant. But that in and of itself hasn't really changed how we look at this France. Outside of the idea that the mimic is now creating Remnant, not just killing kids, which is fine, but it's not exactly mind-blowing. It doesn't help us understand where this franchise is going. And despite all of this effort, I didn't feel any closer to actually solving the mystery I set out to. Why did Scott introduce us to a brand new character who, in the end, suffers from the classic prequel issue of having to be done before the end of the book because he wasn't in security breach?

Legitimately, at this point, I was at a loss. I was ready to throw this entire theory out and just act like the book didn't even exist. That was until Dorko's interview with Evan Lampy, the creative director of Secret of the Mimic. How carefully are you putting the books in consideration of Secret of the Mimic? We've actually been talking about making this game for a long time, and we were developing the game kind of while these books are coming out. It's interesting to work kind of in dual mediums. Secret of the Mimic was being developed alongside the books.

They are directly influencing each other. Once again, I'd been looking at this all wrong. Escape the Pizzaplex appeared to be about security breach. But in actuality, its story is supposed to tie into Secret of the Mimic. So, I went back and watched the trailer over and over again, looking for something that connected this game to the weird reagent we've been analyzing. And guys, I think I found something big. In this trailer, there is a new character.

Dolly the Nerve. Well, I say new, we've actually heard from Dolly before. During the first aid minigame in Help One or two, there's a voice that speaks to us over the intercom that in the game files is referred to as Carnival Nurse, as in Fall Fest, which takes place in the 1970s, just like Secret of the Mimic. And now we get to see her first hand in all of a creepy doll-like glory. But tell me, do you notice anything familiar about her? The thing on her back might just look like a normal backpack. but coming from the backpack are a pair of hoses. Hoses that then connect to Dolly's hands, just like the re-agent.

The reason we were being shown the reagent now is because we were being prepped for the new character that was about to be introduced. Dolly, who has a similar design feature and therefore a similar function. And that connection has some wild implications. Because if the reagent is using a gas that helps prepare human kids for Remnant creation like we suspect, that would mean that Dolly is doing the same thing. In 1979. What? How?

Remnant came about as the result of Afton's experimenting with the animatronics after his son died and he committed the missing children's incident. Now I'm saying it exists four years before his son even died? That can't possibly be the case, right? And honestly, at first, I thought so too. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this change actually lines up with a number of other predictions we've made recently about the start of the FNAF timeline. In my first secret of the mimic theory, I spoke a lot about Fallfest, Fasbear's circus that ran throughout the 70s and 80s. Thanks to some tweets from the developers and my love of Shakespearean theatre, I was able to infer that Charlie's death and the missing children's incident were not after his first rodeo. he'd actually been killing kids for a long time.

But what if it wasn't just the killing that had been going on for a long time, but the experimentation as well? In earlier parts of the franchise, it felt like Afton was always the businessman, while Henry was the animatronic genius. But as time went on, we were shown that actually William was also a bit of scientific genius himself. However, in the fourth closet, he tells us that there is a crucial difference between him and Henry's design,

something he called the spark of life. Henry was able to make his anatronics feel alive, something Afton was unable to achieve on his own, but he was desperate to figure it out. So why wouldn't he begin experimenting, trying to figure out how to get life into his animatronic creations? Back in my initial theory, I didn't really have much of an explanation as to why Afton was killing all those years ago,

other than he was just a bad man. But this would actually give it some level of purpose. He's not killing aimlessly or for fun. He's doing it because he needs to beat Henry. I also theorised recently that Afton always had an accomplice in his murders. Based on the inclusion of a plush baby luring us to be killed by a yellow rabbit in return to the pit, which takes place in 1985, I concluded that we were being shown that baby has always been there to assist Afton, even as far back as Foolfest. I wondered if maybe Secret of the Mimic would reveal what that looked like.

And well, Dolly could be the one I've been. was looking for. She does have some very similar design features to Baby, from the fun time split face to the arm joints being almost identical to babies. Even the medical symbol in the middle of her midsection looks similar to the fan that Baby has in her midsection. Plus, they're both voiced by Heather Masters. It's a small thing that we can't put too much weight on, but I figured it was worth mentioning. Dolly would also be the perfect accomplice for Afton during the Fallfest Carnival era. He'd be able to hide all his murders in a medical tent out of sight where regular people aren't able to go, he'd have all the medical tools he could possibly need, and in

1979, no one's going to question the nitrogen gas canisters, because nitrous oxide, i.e. laughing gas, was still used in medical practices until the mid-80s. And the cherry on top of all of this, is that if I'm right, it massively changes Afton's entire motivation during the original series of games, and the oh-so-famous line that he gives his son before he dies. I will put you back together. This line has often been used as Afton's main driving force. From here, he would go on to kill some kids and learn about the secrets of Remnant. But I remember when we were writing our ultimate timeline, we kind of had to fudge the evidence a bit when it came to how he knew that killing kids would be the solution. The best we could come up with is that

he'd seen it in characters like Baby or The Puppets, all of which makes that line more of a hope, a desperate father just trying to save his son. But now, if the Remnant experiments have been going on since the 70s, this line becomes a certainty. The reason after knew he'd have to kill the missing children and put them into suits is because by this point, he'd have some pretty solid understanding of how it worked. He'd been experimenting with souls and possession and remnant for the last four years. When he sees his dying son, he tells him it's going to be okay and that he'll put him back together because he knows it's possible.

He just needed some more test subjects like he'd had all the way back in 1979. But in just over a month, the day of reckoning is coming. Secret of the Mimic is finally going to release, and the past two years of theorising is going to be put to the test. And I have something special plan for when that happens. So, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss that announcement. But until then, guys, remember, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.