Hello, Internet. Welcome to Game Theory!
No Joey, let's be honest. It's my riddle to solve. Always mine to solve.
Today we're diving back into the inky depths with
Joey Drew Studios and their newest game, Bendy and the Dark Revival.
If you're unfamiliar with the franchise, honestly, I can't really blame you. It's
been five long years since the world was last abuzz about Bendy. Oh sure,
there was a mobile game, a short prequel titled called: Boris and the Dark Survival,
and of course, the requisite handful of spin off BOOKS released in the intervening years.
But nothing really captured everyone's attention. It looked like the franchise
was drowning in its own inky grave, which is why the trailer drop for an official sequel,
releasing in just a few weeks, caught everyone off guard, and that wasn't enough.
They then decided to catch everyone off guard again by releasing a game that was really long,
really solid, and most importantly of all, really stable. Which, let's be honest, considering the
quality of game releases these days. *cough* *cough* Pokemon Violet
Is already putting it in contention for Game of the year. It is a low bar. But of course,
you know why I'm interested in this thing: the theories. Sure,
I can go around all day inhaling full cans of bacon soup like an overzealous Kirby.
But if there's no meat on the bone for us to chew on like a cartoonish wolf.
Well then this one's going to get relegated to my ever growing list
of MatPat Personal Time Games. Lucky for us though, Bendy be bringin the Lore.
A lot of lore.
A lot, lot. It just keeps coming. Lore that I
think is a complete lie. A lie that I plan on exposing today.
Let me quickly catch you up with what you need to know. The original game, Bendy and the Ink
Machine, was all about a talented animator named Henry Stein, former partner to the
unscrupulous businessman Joey Drew. Over the course of that first game,
we learn that Joey Drew has used human souls to fuel the titular ink machine,
all in an attempt to create living ink creatures. But eventually the animation studio goes bankrupt.
Joey retires in disgrace, a bitter old man, and is ultimately forced to sell off the rights to
his most famous characters to a new company, Arch Gate Films run by Joey's old friend Nathan Arch.
And that's where this new game picks up in Bendy and the Dark Revival we play as Audrey, a young
animator for Arch Gate who gets brought into the ink world by the clearly evil janitor, Wilson.
Seriously. This man is a walking, talking H.R. violation. They couldn't have made
him any more dastardly if they had given him a black cape and a curly mustache.
Anyway, the rest of the game is then spent with Audrey trying to find her way back home,
all while avoiding both Wilson's army and the demonic Ink-demon himself; A monstrous,
bloodthirsty form of Bendy that kills on contact. Or at least that would have been what the game was
all about had it not been for the surprise cameo of a familiar face in Chapter Three.
At a couple of points throughout the game, we encounter an inky version of Joey Drew himself,
or at least an embodiment of his memories,
who sits us down to take us through a literal slideshow of the game's lore.
All right. Well, it doesn't get much more straightforward than that. As part of the
presentation, he tells us that the Henry we played as in the first game wasn't Henry at all,
but rather an inky recreation that Joey made after the real Henry left the studio.
Why would he do such a weird thing? Well, he wanted to torture Henry,
get his stress out. Kind of like a sepia toned voodoo doll.
He felt betrayed by Henry. So as a totally healthy way of dealing with his anger and jealousy,
he created this inky prison in order to punish anyone who ever crossed him.
The world that we've been playing through in both of these games, simply known as The
Cycle. Eventually Alison Pendle, the second voice of Alice Angel from the first game,
comes into Joey's life and makes him realize that he can be a good person.
So out of kindness, he creates a version of Alice Angel in The
Cycle to help Henry survive. Meanwhile, in the real world,
Joey is also busy creating Audrey out of the ink to become his perfect daughter.
That's right. The character that we've been playing as for the entire game,
is none other than Audrey Drew, a human made out of living ink. Joey finally did what he
set out to do, creating the perfect life from just a pencil and a dream.
It's a nice story and certainly a wholesome character arc for our dear old Joey Drew.
But call me suspicious whenever a game literally sits me down and spells out the
lore for me. I mean, the original game was practically built around theories.
So let's just take a minute to look at who's info dumping this lore on us. The
living embodiment of Joey Drew's memories. Oh, sure, he might seem all nice and folksy,
but remember, this is a guy who has never been trustworthy.
On company records Bendy is listed as his creation, despite the fact that Henry created
him. He also lied to his employees when the company was about to go out of business.
Even his close friend Nathan Arch, said the book, The Illusion of Living, quote: “Joey
is so good at storytelling that even when he tells you it's not real, you can forget a moment later.”
I mean, this is a guy who is so jealous and bitter that he literally creates an endless
torture chamber for his former business partner. And we're expected to trust his
version of events? Events that make him seem like some sort of benevolent family man?
No, I don't think so. So I started to dig around in Joey's story. And let me tell you. There's
evidence hidden all around the cycle proving that Joey's version of events is a lie. A lie
that throws into question everything that we know about the main character, Audrey.
The true story of Bendy in the Dark Revival is one that Joey doesn't want you to know
about. So grab yourself a pencil, a dream, and probably something to write on too…just
try not to get any corrupted ink on the carpets. All right. Just got them all washed.
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they're custom made, it's not like I can just go over to the ink machine and print up a new batch.
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the last thing you want is to live with the regrets of actions you didn't take.
Because then you're going to fund yourself an ink machine to create a cyclical torture chamber where
you live out the regrets of all those past actions. And the next thing you know, you're
starring in an indie horror game that's spinning off into a series of books, and no one is going
to appreciate those books. Just saying. So, save yourself the trouble. Order if you're interested.
All right, back to Bendy. Let's start by disproving what Joey Drew tells us,
starting with the timeline of events. Joey claims that Alison Pendle walked into his life and
changed everything, giving him a new lease on life and in turn prompting him to help Henry within the
cycle. Except we know that that can't be true. The dates don't line up. Allison
joined Joey Drew Studio sometime in the 1930s. That means that the
cycle would have been created prior to that date. Why is that a problem?
Well, it's because we have evidence that shows Henry begins his cycle in 1963. This is thanks to
a letter that we get right at the start of Bendy and the Ink Machine inviting Henry back to the
studio 30 years after he left the company, which, thanks to the employee handbook we know was 1930.
There's also a calendar in Joey’s apartment at the end of chapter five in Bendy and the Ink Machine
that shows the exact date to be August 31st, 1963. Now, there's speculation out there about whether
Joey's apartment in Old Joey here in the ending of the game are meant to be part of Henry's cycle,
aka part of the fake world that was made by Joey. But even if it is fake, why would you
include a calendar from some random date in the future? Just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Speaking of things that don't add up. What about Allison Angel? Joey is pretty
vague about her creation, but he leads us to believe that she was created purely from Ink,
inspired by Allison Pendle, but not made from Allison Pendle. Except here's the thing. Joey and
Alison break off their relationship in 1946, he fires her after she sides with her future husband
and GENT engineer Thomas. Joey does keep in touch with Allison, as we see from the letter in his
apartment. But he burned that bridge. She is no longer an angel to him or even really a friend.
So why would he then make an angel to help Henry in the 1960s that was just inspired
by her. It doesn't make sense based on the timeline. I suspect that Allison Angel's
creation was meant to punish her as well, that instead of her being just an Ink creation,
he took the original Allison Pendle and used her soul to create Allison Angel.
Now he's able to torture her for all eternity, just like he did with Henry.
Joey is no hero. He never was a hero. He didn't have a change of heart. It's
all about public image, just like we saw in one of the tapes from the first game.
Of course, a living version of his memories is going to paint him as the good guy. He
never sees himself as wrong, but in reality, Joey is just putting a new
spin on the chain of events in order to come out looking like the good guy to his daughter.
His daughter. The one part of Joey's story that I haven't addressed yet. Who or what
is Audrey? According to Joey, she's also a child of the Ink; perfect, practically human,
made to fill the void in Joey's life. Now, I think part of what Joey's saying here is true.
She is an ink person. It's hard to deny that based on her bendy
finger at the end of the game, the fact that she respawns out
of the ink. But what I don't believe is that she's made purely out of ink.
On the contrary, I think that she was made using human souls just like every
other ink character in the series. And better yet, I know exactly who
was used to make her. It's all thanks to ten secret memories hidden throughout the game.
One of the main collectibles that you can find on your adventure are memories. Ten
items that we’re told are special but don't really seem to be. A baseball, a hat, a duck,
a hotdog, some crayons, stuff like that. Audrey never says anything about them,
and their descriptions tend to be super generic.
“ A rubber duck. It still has soap on it.” Wow. We are really
lighting the lore on fire with that one guys. Or so I thought. You see,
these items are the key to solving the mystery of who Audrey really is.
So hold onto your hats, because the first memory I want to talk about is,
well, the hat. One of the memories is listed as a men's fashionable hat. So that makes it
clear that the hat didn't belong to Audrey, but rather someone she spent a lot of time with.
Now, this type of hat is called a boater hat with a flat top,
thin circular rim and ribbon around the middle. Boater hats were seen throughout the late 19th
century and early 20th century, even being part of the FBI's unofficial uniform back in the day.
But we mostly see these hats being worn among the upper classes in the summers after World
War One. There was also a bit of a revival for them back in the late 1930s. Notice a problem
with that? Well, as we've established, Audrey was created sometime in the 1960s.
Styles had changed and the boater hat wasn't really fashionable anymore,
especially not out and about for daily use like the memories description states. It's
more likely the memory of this hat belonged to someone who was around in the 1930s.
So are there any other memories that could help us narrow down the search for who this hat could
belong to? Yes. One memory that really caught my attention was this one. The Cracked Mug, quote:
“A Cracked mug lovingly repurposed into a plaything. It may be sad,
but it still has life in it yet.” This broken mug was turned into a toy, which feels like a
weird gift to give your kid, but whatever. Here you go, Audrey. Love you so much.
Take this sharp piece of porcelain and have at it. But this isn't the
only time in the game that we see a cracked mug when we're shown to our room in Chapter
five Creepy Janitor Wilson has left a very specific book on our pillow.
It's a story called The Mug and the Maiden. And it stands out because it is a looong I mean,
like long, long. Some of the lore drops in this game are long. But here we're talking multi-page,
long. And if you manage to read the whole thing, do you want to guess
who the hero of the story is? A cracked mug. This is a story not connected to us,
but Wilson. This is his storybook. This is his childhood toy. And that's
not the only connection to Wilson either. Another memory we get is a set of crayons,
most notably a colored crayons, quote: “Arrays of colors could spark a world all your own.”
There are only a handful of times that we see color in this game, and all of them come from
Wilson. Wilson is the one with a colored drawing of Shipahoy Dudley in a sepia world. During
Wilson's boss fight; we see colored ink coming from him and the other enemies when we hit him.
And finally, there's the towers that help to subdue demon Bendy towers covered with
colorful rainbow sparkles, just like the crayons description. Right now, all signs
seem to be pointing to these memories being connected to our antagonist Wilson, in some way.
Could he potentially be our sole donor? No, that would be impossible. When Audrey was created,
Wilson was still alive, so it physically can't be him. But then who? Well, for an answer,
look no further than this memory. A carton of milk for growing up strong
and healthy.Add some chocolate for a snack enjoyed by both young and old.
The use of the word old here suddenly opened my eyes to new possibilities. Just because Audrey
was a child, it didn't mean that the soul that she was born from had to be. What if,
instead it was coming from a grown up? a parent? someone who would have shared
memories with their child? They would have seen a man wearing a boater hat. They would have given
their child a toy based on their favorite book, Crayons for their child to play with.
Audrey wasn't made with Wilson's soul, but rather the soul of one of Wilson's parents.
And when you look into it, it becomes very clear which one it is. It's revealed in the game's final
minutes that Nathan Arch, owner of Arch Gate Pictures and the Bendy IP is Wilson's father.
This acquisition, according to an article on the Joey Drew studio archives, took place in 1972,
only a year before the events of the Dark Revival. So the timeline for Nathan being the sole donor
doesn't add up. He was still alive at the time, but you know who wasn't? Wilson's mother. In the
spinoff titled Boris and the Dark Survival, we get this clip from Joey Drew to Nathan Arch.
Tessa Archer, wife to Nathan and mother to Wilson. She looked after Wilson. She
would have seen her husband Nathan wearing that boater hat out and about in the 1930s or earlier,
she would have given her son a cracked mug and a set of crayons.
These are her memories. And one that puts it all together is this,
the final memory that you collect, a simple hot dog. Seems like nothing much, right? Wrong. In
that same area of Wilson's lab, you can find an audio recording from Nathan that says this.
He brought a hot dog home for Tessa. That was a memory that they shared, a memory that Audrey
now shares. In short, when Wilson’s trying to kill you at the end of the game, what he's really doing
unintentionally is trying to kill his own mother. Talk about your awkward Oedipus complex. Right?
In the end, Joey Drew turned to Nathan, his close friend,
during the financial collapse of his company.
But inevitably, this never came to pass. Nathan didn't help. Joey Drew Studios fell
into bankruptcy, and Nathan picked the company's bones dry .Betrayed once again
by someone that he thought was his friend, Joey, in true Joey fashion did like he did
with Henry and Alison before. He threw Tessa Arch into the machine. He turned
her into ink. He would tear the Arch family apart in order to create a family of his own.
He used Tessa's soul to create Audrey, and then he created a cover story to
hide all of his misdeeds, a story that framed him as the good guy. Except now
we know the truth. Once a shyster, always a shyster, whether you're made of ink or flesh.
And see, guys, this is why you can't have friends in the entertainment business. But,
hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! Thanks for watching.
And once again, this is your last reminder to order your holiday theory merch now so it
can arrive in time for the holidays. Jackets, hoodies, plasma balls, candles, weird analog
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before it all fades away. As always, my friends, thanks for watching and I'll see you next week.