Hello Internet,
Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's full of hot air. It's that time again, folks.
Mob Games has come out of its hibernation and finally given us
what we've all been clamoring for for over a year now.
The long-awaited chapter three...'s second trailer.
Wait, are you kidding me? Come on. Don't get me wrong.
I love brightening images frame by frame as much as the next guy.
But it's been, what, 15 months since chapter two?
I feel like I need to get my Poppy fix to complete my indie horror
Thanos glove of 2023.
That said, if this trailer is anything to go by,
the newest chapter is gonna be incredible.
Immediately, things feel different here, and it's clear they're leanin' hard
on the horror.
One of the developers was even asked about this in the official Poppy Playtime
Discord server, and he said, quote,
It'll still have the same feel as the first two in a lot of respects,
but the horror is definitely dialed up, which of course got everyone real excited.
And from the creepy images of dead kids to the literal writing on the wall.
This trailer is like a toy box
exploding with clues about what this new chapter is about.
And I think that I figured it all out months before its release.
Not only will we have tortured kids and sinister Poppy gas,
but we're now being shown more
about the monsters they became and the creepy religion
they've created. A religion full of sacrifices, rituals, and the leader
who's manipulating his congregation into serving him.
So strap on your grab packs and hold your breath.
Loyal Theorists, we're heading deep into the cloudy, red fog of Playcare.
The repeated theme for this chapter is the use of red gas.
So let's start there.
In a past theory, I suspected that this gas was made from poppies.
A red flower that we know Playtime
used in their experiments trying to bring dead rats back to life.
It's also in the name of the game.
So, you know, not that big of a logical leap.
I also pointed out that poppies have been used throughout history as a sleep agent,
mainly due to the natural opium that's contained in the plant.
And that is exactly what we see in the trailer on the walls of the Playcare
we find a drawing that shows clouds of red gas with the phrase
"Time For Bed" written underneath.
This is the last thing that the child sees before falling asleep
under the influence of the gas.
Which then leads us to the question
who is our new monster responsible for delivering it?
We see some crude child drawings on the wall of a purple creature with red
clouds around him and text all associated with either sleep or nightmares.
This then seems to be our gas monster.
Sometimes the purple figure is shaped like a bird.
Other times it's got super long limbs and sometimes it's just a purple scribble.
This has gotten many people on the Internet
to think that he's a shape shifter. I disagree.
I suspect that
this is just the result of sleepy kids not having a clear vision
of what this thing actually is as they pass out.
Fortunately for us, though, we get to see a bit more of this creature
by pausing the trailer on one of the final frames,
brightening the image and then color balancing it a bit.
We see that it's got itself a purple paw with four sharp claws.
That, coupled
with the shape of the nose and eye sockets that we see during the final jumpscare
as well as the presence of a muzzle right here reads to me like an old cartoon
cat, almost like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.
Now, that at first might seem weird, this franchise already has itself
two other cats in the form of Cat-Bee and Candy Cat.
So why are they triple-diping? Can't they come up with something new?
I suspect that it's because a cat
that lures kids to their final sleep is actually a common superstitious belief.
One phrase
that you sometimes hear tossed around is that cats will steal a baby's breath.
For centuries, there have been these urban legends circulated about cats
sneaking into cradles at night, causing children to suffocate and die.
It's unclear where that whole urban legend started.
Probably the story of just one parent where it happened to them.
But it's thought that the smell of
the milk on baby's breath or the crib being a nice, warm place to cuddle
or the cat being jealous.
Some combination of those things get them to climb into bed, lay
across the baby and deprive them of oxygen.
There was even a coroner back in 1791 that came to examine a deceased child
and actually stated
this urban legend was indeed the cause of death, which only gave more support
to the superstition.
And that, I suspect, is what our chapter three cat monster is doing.
After a fun day at the Gamestation under the watchful eye of Mommy Longlegs,
this guy would come in to, quote unquote, help the children fall asleep,
stealing the breath of children by replacing their air with his poppy
sleeping gas.
Considering that we've been seeing more
and more images of gas masks, this is also something
that we're likely going to have to use to protect ourselves.
Otherwise, we might begin to hallucinate
and have to distinguish between what's real and what isn't,
just like the kids drawings on the wall would suggest.
So what is this gas cat?
Or I suppose if you're following the conventions
of the naming system for this game, it would be Gassy Catty.
Not the most sinister of names, but what is Gassy Catty up to now?
Well, the writing is quite literally on the wall in this trailer.
It's been busy carving phrases like, "I live to serve our angel of salvation",
"I rejoice in him", "wrapped us in garlands" on the walls.
Garlands, by the way, are wreaths of flowers
that are often used for Catholic baptisms.
So you might start to see where all this is going.
Gassy Catty is no longer
taking on the role of a monster, but instead that of a religious leader.
This idea is also exemplified by another carving that we see on the wall.
"My Somniferous Flock"
This isn't referring to a group of birds.
It's been used in the Christian sense.
One of the many roles that Jesus is associated with in Christianity
is that of a shepherd, one who tends to, feeds, and cares for his flock.
The sheep in this scenario are his followers, people
that rely on and follow Jesus in their day to day lives.
Meanwhile, the word somniferous stands out
for a few reasons, mainly because I've never heard
anyone ever use that word in a sentence before.
Turns out that in the years since this factory closed
Gassy's been studying up for his
SAT's. Always be learnin' there Gassy Catty!
Because let me tell you, I am right there with you.
I, too, am a nerd for words.
Turns out I was actually half right in my assessment there.
According to Google, it's not just being sleepy but having sleep induced upon you.
So our Gassy Catty is talking about his flock
of sleepy kids, the orphans in the play care that he's putting to sleep.
But the Playcare has been abandoned for years.
There aren't kids there anymore that can serve as his sleep flock.
Right? Wrong.
The whole point of the Playcare
and the poppy gas was to help convert them into toys.
But rather than them all being giant toys like Huggy Wuggy,
I suspect a lot of these kids turned out much smaller.
When the team and I were playing through Project Playtime's newest update
we noticed this poster,
a poster with three new plush toys walking towards the Playcare.
Now, at the time, I just thought that these toys were there
to represent the children walking to the Playcare,
trying to make things seem wholesome and child friendly.
But now I don't think that these were representations at all.
I've already mentioned the sad looking images
of the children on the walls of the Playcare.
But did you notice
the remains of characters next to their faces on the edges of the frame?
These are the same characters, the dog and the unicorn.
There's also a new character there that wasn't on the poster a green bunny.
And if you look at a later drawing from one of the children in the trailer,
we see a plush with floppy green ears and the words "My New Friend".
This kid became his friendly green bunny and I suspect that the other children
all had similar fates, becoming the very mascots of Playcare.
This is the sleepy flock that Gassy is talking about, a group of converted
children that are lost and scared and see him as their only savior.
But then who is this angel of salvation, that Gassy Catty's talking about here?
Well, the last two wall scratchings
give us that answer pretty explicitly. "The original saved me I rejoice in him"
and "never forget the hour of joy".
In our last theory, we suspected the hour of joy
was the moment that the toys revolted and reclaimed the factory
in one of the analog horror tapes released on the Mob Games YouTube channel
we see the hour of joy is at hand, written on one of the walls right before we hear
screams of the factory workers, screams that matched the ones we hear on
the scientists
VHS tape from chapter one.
It's the prototype 1006, the one we believe was created
from the man who wanted to bring joy to children, Elliot Ludwig.
He was the first successful toy from the Bigger Bodies Initiative.
He was the original that led to the creation of all the others.
And we actually get our very first look at him in these trailers.
This massive robotic amalgamation made from various other toy parts.
You got things like a Huggy head near the top and they're right there,
there's Mummy's top half.
This is what the prototype is working on.
This is what Mommy meant by "make me a part of him".
And my suspicion is that
this is what Gassy and his somniferous flock
are helping to build. Any cult needs themselves
a goal, something that helps the leader
to become more powerful and gathering parts of dead toys,
maybe even killing other toys themselves in order to build a monstrous body
yeah, that one seems to fit the bill.
And if any of them die along the way, well,
then they're just martyrs for the cause.
In the opening shot of Huggies headless body,
there's actually a dog plushie similar to the dog that we've seen in the posters
also missing a head.
If you die or fall victim in your mission, you don't die in vain.
You get the privilege of becoming part of the Savior.
But did you notice some missing in this 1006 amalgamation?
His spindly arm and long, thin fingers that we see from the end of Chapter two,
that critical missing piece
in the silhouette makes me think that this isn't his body
or at least I don't think it's his body yet.
Notice how still the silhouette is?
Well, that could certainly be there for dramatic effect.
I actually think it's because this body is a work in progress.
The candles around the Playcare give off a ritualistic vibe, and that,
combined with the missing iconic arm, makes me think that maybe 1006, Gassy,
and his flock are gathering these materials to build him
the perfect body and that they still need to put his soul into that body.
And so chapter three is going to be about us stopping it,
stopping the somniferous flock
from finishing the job so that maybe finally we can be a hero in this game.
Maybe, but I don't think so.
You see, thus far, we've been nothing but the villain.
It's been well-established at this point that we used to work here.
And not only did we work here, we were instrumental in the creation
of some of these toys.
And now look at what we've done since coming back to the factory,
we've killed both Huggy
Wuggy and Mummy Longlegs, two toys that were made from kids.
Not a great track record for our player character, right?
Currently there's a Poppy ARG
taking place in the lead up to chapter three,
and while there isn't enough information yet to fully solve it,
there are aspects that have been discovered
that shine a light on the children involved in the Playcare scheme.
One of the discoveries was this incident report
about one of the orphans in play care, Marie Payne.
Now, if the name Marie Pain sounds familiar, it's
because we found a transfer request in Chapter two about her.
In that request, we were told that she was the child
that would go on to become Mommy Longlegs.
Now, why do I bring that up?
Well, if you remember,
Mommy was fine with the orphans because she never wanted them
to feel alone like she did.
She was protective of the kids.
No, the only people that Mommy Longlegs lashed out at were the staff, the people
who tortured her and transformed her into a giant neon pink toy.
She knew what they were going to be doing to these kids
because it had all been done to her first.
She was trying to be a protector, a comfort.
We also know that she doesn't trust the prototype or any of his religious
rhetoric.
This is especially important if the prototype is indeed Elliot Ludwig,
founder of Playtime,
the man who started the whole toy conversion process in the first place.
She doesn't buy his liberation of toy's schtick one bit.
She knows that he's once again
trying to use the people around him for his own selfish gains.
In fact,
a group of toys building a big body using the parts of other living creatures.
It's the Bigger Bodies Initiative all over again,
but this time for the prototype.
All of these clues
together make me curious about what our motivations are for being here.
Are we actually here to help,
or are we just cleaning up the mess of evidence that we left behind?
Or are we on the side of the orphans unwillingly turned into monsters?
Or are we going to end up siding with Elliot all over again?
A man who created a nightmare for so many. Early signs aren't exactly promising.
We stripped Mommy of her freedom and independence
only to feed her to the prototype.
So what do you think is going to happen next with these kids from Playcare?
It seems like
there is no route where we don't walk away with some blood on our hands, though
something tells me that's something our player character
is more than familiar with.
But hey, that's just a theory, A Game Theory.
Thanks for watching.
If you're enjoying theories
about brightly colored mascots, I highly recommend
you check out our coverage of Welcome Home.
If you like, Poppy,
you are going to love this mystery ARG website or maybe you're in the mood
for a horror game that isn't about dead kids being turned into monsters.
It sounds impossible, but if you check out our theory
on My Friendly Neighborhood, ya might be pleasantly surprised.
As always, my friends, don't forget to subscribe and I will see you all next week.