Poppy Playtime
Poppy Playtime is an episodic puzzle survival horror video game series first developed and published in October 2021 by American indie developer Mob Entertainment. The game is set in an abandoned factory owned by the fictional toy company Playtime Co. The player controls a former employee who receives a letter inviting them back to the factory years after the company's staff disappeared with no trace.
The first chapter was released for Windows on October 12, 2021, and later ported to Android and iOS on March 11, 2022, the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on December 20, 2023, the Nintendo Switch on December 25, and the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on July 12, 2024. The second chapter was released for Windows, iOS and Android 2022, and the PlayStation 4 and 5, the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on September 20, 2024. The third chapter was released on Windows in January 2024, and the PlayStation 4 and 5, the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on September 20, 2024. The fourth chapter was released on Windows on January 30, 2025. A fifth chapter is in development which is scheduled to release on February 18, 2026 for Windows. All chapters after the first are premium downloadable content.
The initial release of Poppy Playtime garnered a positive reception from players for its atmosphere, story, and character design, although its second chapter was criticized for numerous bugs. The game faced several controversies, including its aesthetics and character design's similarities to that of children-oriented media, resulting in popularity among young demographics. The announcement of in-game non-fungible token content in December 2021 received harsh criticism, resulting in the developers reversing all profits from the tokens to charity.
Gameplay
Poppy Playtime is a first person survival-horror video game where the player plays as an unnamed retired employee of a toy-making company named Playtime Co., who returns to the company's abandoned toy factory after its staff mysteriously disappeared a decade earlier. There, they discover that the factory is filled with monstrous toys who are alive and malicious towards them, and starts looking for a way to escape the premises.The game features multiple puzzles throughout, which the player must solve in order to progress further, with some requiring a gadget named the GrabPack, a backpack that can be equipped with two extendable hands which can be used to pull and reach objects from a far distance, conduct electricity, and access certain doors. In "Chapter 2", it can also be used to swing across gaps and, with a green hand obtained during gameplay, transfer electricity between sources. In "Chapter 3", the player obtains an improved version of the GrabPack, the GrabPack 2.0, that comes with longer wires, jet boosters to enable falling safely from great heights, and the ability to switch the green hand with a purple hand that allows them to jump long distances and an orange finger gun hand that doubles as a flare gun. They also acquire a gas mask to help them navigate areas exposed to the dangerous "Red Smoke". In addition, players can find various VHS tapes throughout the factory that give a more in-depth explanation of the story.
Plot
Chapter 1: "A Tight Squeeze" (2021)
In 2005, 10 years after the shutdown of a toy production company named Playtime Co., an unnamed former employee receives a package containing a VHS tape advertising the company's Poppy Playtime doll and tours of their toy factory before abruptly cutting to spliced-in footage of graffiti depicting a poppy flower and a vague letter requesting them to "find the flower". After watching the tape, the employee complies and returns to the toy factory to do so.Arriving at the long-abandoned factory, the employee acquires a one-handed GrabPack while accessing the lobby. There, they encounter Huggy Wuggy, a seemingly giant statue toy on display in the room's center. While trying to unlock another door, the power goes out. Though the employee restores it, they find that the Huggy statue has disappeared. Upon obtaining a second hand for their GrabPack, they use a conveyor belt to reach the factory's "Make-a-Friend" section, where they manufacture a toy to progress further.
Suddenly, Huggy appears and chases them into the vents before they send him falling to his apparent death at the bottom of the factory. Soon enough, the employee finds the graffiti, which leads to a room containing a Poppy Playtime doll inside a glass case. Upon unlocking it, Poppy acknowledges them before the employee passes out.
Chapter 2: "Fly in a Web" (2022)
Sometime later, the employee awakens to find Poppy gone and the halls leading back to the front of the factory blocked. While exploring the factory's rear halls, the employee eventually locates Playtime founder Elliot Ludwig's office. There, they re-encounter Poppy, who thanks them for freeing her and offers to help them escape by providing the activation code for the factory's train. However, she is grabbed and pulled deeper into the factory.As the employee approaches the Game Station and the train, they encounter a giant spider-like monster called Mommy Long Legs, who steals a hand from their GrabPack, reveals that she is holding Poppy hostage, and challenges the player to win three games in the Game Station in exchange for the train's code, threatening to kill them if they break the rules. After locating and crafting a new hand for their GrabPack, the employee proceeds through the Game Station.
They successfully complete the first two games, obtain two-thirds of the train code, and briefly encounter Huggy's friendly female counterpart, Kissy Missy, before they are forced to escape into subterranean tunnels during the third game upon realizing that Mommy intentionally rigged it to ensure their demise. An enraged Mommy accuses them of cheating and pursues them back into the factory until her arm gets caught in an industrial grinder, which the employee activates, killing her. Immediately after, a needle-fingered hand, later revealed to belong to an extremely intelligent and violent experiment called the "Prototype", collects her body.
The employee rescues Poppy, obtains the rest of the train code, and nearly escapes. However, Poppy diverts the train, refusing to let them leave as she requires their help. Before she can explain further, her communications are cut off and the train runs out of control, derailing near a sign pointing to "Playcare", knocking the employee unconscious.
Chapter 3: "Deep Sleep" (2024)
The employee reawakens as a giant, purple cat-like monster called CatNap throws them into a trash compactor. However, they escape and head to Playtime's on-site orphanage, Playcare. Along the way, they find a toy phone and receive advice from a voice referring to himself as "Ollie", who warns them that CatNap will try to kill them. On Ollie's instructions, the employee attempts to reroute power from Playcare's many facilities to power the Gas Production Zone and divert a hallucinogenic gas called the "Red Smoke", which CatNap can produce.All throughout, they obtain the GrabPack 2.0, re-encounter Kissy, and reunite with Poppy, who explains she needs their help to kill the Prototype and end its control over the factory, and warns them that the Prototype is aware of their presence and will kill them if they try to escape beforehand. After killing a hostile teacher named Miss Delight, the employee eventually encounters the last of the "Smiling Critters", DogDay, who warns them that CatNap worships the Prototype as a god and mutilated him for defying it before he is killed and possessed by several Mini Smiling Critters, who mount a failed attempt at killing the employee. Following an attack by CatNap, the employee experiences a hallucination wherein Poppy asks about their knowledge of Playtime's "Bigger Bodies Initiative", a project that saw the company experiment on orphans and turned them into the monsters they have encountered. The employee eventually defeats CatNap before the Prototype kills him and takes his body.
After successfully redirecting the Red Smoke, Poppy reveals to the employee footage of the "Hour of Joy", wherein the Prototype ordered Playtime's monsters to slaughter the employees indiscriminately ten years prior. Reiterating their mission to kill the Prototype, Poppy leads the employee onto a lift to make their descent towards the Prototype's lair, intending to send it back up for Kissy. On the way down however, Poppy hears something attack Kissy and frantically attempts to send the lift back up, but the hatch closes on her and the employee.
Chapter 4: "Safe Haven" (2025)
Poppy drops off the employee at the bottom of the lift while she goes back up for Kissy. Finding themselves at an underground prison, they make their way inside. However, a computer program called the Doctor learns of their presence and opts to test them. Nonetheless, the employee proceeds further and obtains a flashlight hand. Ollie tries to contact them, but encounters significant interference. The Doctor releases Yarnaby, a leonine monster loyal to him, to hunt the employee, but they receive help in escaping from a clay-like monster and ally of Poppy called Doey the Doughman, who guides them to the "Safe Haven", a repurposed security room sheltering the remaining non-violent toys.Along the way, they reunite with Poppy and an injured Kissy, who all narrowly elude the Prototype. Once they are safe, Poppy reveals that the orphans are still alive and sleeping in the Prototype's lair. Hoping to kill him and save them simultaneously, Poppy intends to detonate the Red Smoke which the employee redirected into the factory's foundation with old mining charges. To facilitate this, the employee works with Doey, who reveals that the Doctor used to be Dr. Harley Sawyer, a Playtime Co. scientist aligned with the Prototype, who was once in charge of creating the company's monsters. Doey tasks the employee to retrieve the Doctor's "Omni-Hand", which allows him to control everything in the factory and prison except for the Safe Haven, to repair the Safe Haven's failing generator and a required tool for Poppy's plans. Before they leave, Doey privately confides to them about his fear that Poppy will sacrifice their friends to achieve her revenge.
While pursuing the employee, Yarnaby is snagged by a chain and falls into a pit of molten slag, killing him. As the employee works to weaken the Doctor, he questions their motives for coming back to Playtime Co. and claims Poppy is no better than the Prototype, revealing she had a hand in the Hour of Joy, before eventually trapping them in his computer core. The employee escapes, acquires the Omni-Hand, and overloads the Doctor's systems, killing him in the process. They make their way back to the Safe Haven, but upon returning, Ollie, now able to contact them, warns them the Prototype has secretly followed them.
Poppy tasks Doey with distracting the Prototype and the employee with fixing the Safe Haven's generator and planting the explosives in the foundation while she protects the Safe Haven's inhabitants. The employee completes their tasks, but the Prototype, having slipped away from Doey, steals the explosives and detonates them in the Safe Haven. Enraged by this and believing it to be the employee's fault, Doey takes on a monstrous form and attacks them. The employee flees to an underground construction site, where they use liquid nitrogen canisters, industrial saws, and a tunnel boring machine to kill Doey, who tearfully apologizes twice for his actions as he succumbs.
While searching for survivors, they reconvene with Poppy and Kissy in a ventilation block. Poppy confronts the employee for killing Doey before Ollie contacts the group, revealing himself to having been the Prototype in disguise the entire time, with the real Ollie being dead for years, even before the Hour of Joy. Fearing that the Prototype will put her back in her case, Poppy flees into the air ducts, abandoning Kissy and the employee to the Prototype's mercy. When the ground collapses from a stolen explosive planted by the Prototype, Kissy tries to save the employee, but fails, losing an arm in the process. The employee survives the fall but gets trapped in a greenhouse of poppy flowers just outside the underground labs. After the employee triggers a hidden alarm, Huggy Wuggy, who survived his fall, returns and, recognizing the employee, viciously tries to break in as the Red Smoke fills the room.
Chapter 5: "Broken Things" (2026)
Chapter 5 is the fifth installment in the Poppy Playtime episodic horror game series. According to official information and promotional material, Chapter 5 is scheduled for release on February 18, 2026.Based on the trailers released prior to launch and the Steam page, the chapter continues the story directly from the ending of Chapter 4. The opening sequence begins in the same location where the previous chapter concluded, with the player character being pursued by Huggy Wuggy, indicating an immediate continuation of the narrative like the past chapters.
Characters
- The Employee: An unnamed former employee of Playtime Co. who returns to the abandoned toy factory after the company's staff mysteriously disappeared a decade ago.
- Elliot Ludwig : The late yet mysterious founder of Playtime Co. who sought to make children happy with his toys.
- Leith Pierre : Elliot Ludwig's cold, arrogant and unscrupulous successor who took part in the company's "Bigger Bodies Initiative".
- Stella Greyber : Playtime Co.'s head of Playcare who chose orphans for the company to experiment on.
- Eddie M. N. Ritterman : Playtime Co.'s reclusive and ruthless head of research who ensured the company's illegal experiments remained secret.
- The Warden : Playtime Co.'s head of security and prison warden.
- Poppy Playtime : A sentient doll based on the first toy created by Playtime Co. who seeks to uncover the truth behind the company and defeat the Prototype. In later chapters, she is revealed to be the reincarnated daughter of Elliot Ludwig.
- Experiment 1170 / Huggy Wuggy: A long armed monster based on Playtime Co.'s most successful and memorable toy.
- Experiment 1222 / Mommy Long Legs : A spider-like monster with elastic limbs and an elastic neck that Playtime Co. created from an orphan named Marie Payne.
- Experiment 1172 / Kissy Missy: A friendlier female counterpart to Huggy Wuggy who assists Poppy and the employee in their efforts to stop the Prototype.
- Experiment 1006 / The Prototype : A rogue experiment created by Playtime Co. scientists capable of mimicking others' voices. A decade prior, he took control of the company's monsters and enacted a massacre of their employees in an event that would later be dubbed the "Hour of Joy". Throughout Chapters 3 and 4, he mimics the voice of a boy named Ollie to manipulate Poppy and the employee.
- Experiment 1188 / CatNap: A cat-like monster based on a recalled member of Playtime Co.'s "Smiling Critters" line of scented plush animal dolls. He can produce a hallucinogenic gas called the "Red Smoke". Originally an orphan named Theodore Grambell, he was electrocuted while attempting to escape Playtime Co.'s onsite orphanage, Playcare, but was saved by the Prototype. Ever since, CatNap began to worship him as a god.
- Miss Delight : A humanoid teacher trapped in Playcare's on-site school and the last of a series of Miss Delights, who she cannibalized in order to survive.
- DogDay : A dog-like monster based on a member of Playtime Co.'s "Smiling Critters" line who CatNap mutilated for defying the Prototype.
- Experiment 1160 / Boxy Boo: A jack-in-the-box-like monster and the first successful monster that Playtime Co. created, who serves as the company's executioner and first appears in the spin-off Project: Playtime.
- Experiment 1166 / Yarnaby: A leonine monster loyal to the Doctor created from an orphan named Quinn Navidson. Unlike the other experiments, who despise the Doctor for what he did, Yarnaby admires him due to a father-son bond the pair developed amidst the experimentation.
- Experiment 1354 / The Doctor : Originally a Playtime Co. scientist named Harley Sawyer, who conceived the "Bigger Bodies Initiative", oversaw the creation of the company's monsters, and first appears in Project: Playtime. Following the "Theater Incident" where nearly 70 tourists and 12 factory employees were killed due to his negligence, his superiors forcibly uploaded his mind into Playtime Co.'s computer systems as corporate punishment.
- Experiment 1322 / Doey the Doughman : An amorphous yet mentally unstable clay-like creature who was created from Jack Ayers, a young boy who fell into a vat of clay in an accident while visiting the Playtime factory, and two orphans, the compassionate Matthew Hallard and the impulsive Kevin Barnes.
- Experiment 1163 / Pianosaurus : A green dinosaur toy with piano keys for teeth who was deemed a failure for his increased aggression and low intelligence.
Development and release
In an interview with The New York Times, Zach Belanger stated that his idea behind Huggy Wuggy was to "create something entirely new", and that his technique of making him terrifying was by making him larger than everything on screen.
The first chapter was released for Windows on October 12, and later for Android and iOS on March 11, 2022. After the first chapter's release, official merchandise of the game began being released, including T-shirts, posters and plush toys, as well as official collectibles produced by Youtooz. The first chapter would later be released for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on December 20, 2023, and for the Nintendo Switch on December 25. It was released onto Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X on July 12, 2024.
All chapters after the first will be released as premium downloadable content. A trailer for Chapter 2, named Fly in a Web, was released on February 22, 2022, with several teasers later being posted to Twitter, including a teaser trailer on April 9. In preparation of the second chapter's release, the first chapter was made free. The second chapter was then released on May 5, for Microsoft Windows and then on August 15, for iOS and Android and is estimated to be three times as long as the first chapter. Two teaser trailers for Chapter 3 were released on July 26, 2022, and August 6, 2022, respectively, with a slated release date of winter 2023. However, due to several developers being laid off due to "creative differences", the chapter was delayed "several additional weeks into 2024". Chapter 3 released on January 30, 2024, on Steam. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 were released to the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and the Xbox Series X/S on September 20, 2024. Mob Entertainment announced Chapter 4 on their YouTube channel with a slated release date of January 30, 2025.
Reception
Critical response
Poppy Playtime was well-received from players upon its initial release, receiving praise for its atmosphere, story, and character design; some considered that the game's short length contributed to its popularity. The game has been compared to the Five Nights at Freddy's and Bendy franchise, with Screen Rant Austin Geiger calling Poppy Playtime "more engaging" than that series' installment Security Breach. The second chapter received a mixed reception, receiving praise for its voice acting and ending, but also being criticized for its number of bugs and performance issues. Mob Entertainment responded with an apology and began rolling out patches for the aforementioned issues.Poppy Playtime also quickly gained exposure on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, with videos on the former reaching millions of views, as well as games based on Poppy Playtime appearing on Roblox. The game is considered part of the so-called "mascot horror" subgenre, which rose in popularity during 2014 with the initial release of Five Nights at Freddy's.
Poppy Playtime was nominated for the "Most Stream-friendly Game" award at the 2022 in Japan.
Controversies
In December 2021, on Twitter, the developers announced non-fungible tokens of the in-game posters, which was quickly met with backlash and negative reviews from the community, as well as some users requesting refunds, arguing that the developers put lore of the game behind a paywall. In response, the developers deleted the announcement but were unable to remove the NFTs as well due to a contract they had signed, stating that they have to wait for it to expire. On May 3, 2022, Mob Entertainment's CEO Zach Belanger posted a statement on Twitter where he confirms that all profits earned from the NFTs would be going to the Clean Air Task Force organization.Around Poppy Playtime release, developer Ekrcoaster claimed that Mob Entertainment plagiarized his game Venge. In the aforementioned statement, Belanger denied the allegations, stating that there was no intent to plagiarize.
Dorset Police in England and the Lafayette County, Wisconsin Sheriff's Department both released a statement to parents regarding the character Huggy Wuggy on March 22, 2022, and April 7, respectively, claiming that due to the character's name, various videos were not being blocked by "firewalls" and filtered by parental filters on various platforms, including TikTok and YouTube Kids. The former also claimed that various schools in the United Kingdom reported children recreating a game where one child hugs another and then whispers sinister things into the recipient's ear. It was also reported that a child had attempted to jump out of a window to mimic the character, and that Luxemburg-Casco School District had received complaints from students claiming they could not sleep due to the character. Similarly, a primary school in Adelaide also warned parents about the game, specifically adaptations of it and violent songs featuring the character. Fact-checking website Snopes confirmed that while there had been reports from parents within the United Kingdom, the police had incorrectly claimed that the character sang songs, despite said songs being fan-made and not appearing in-game. Snopes had also said that inappropriate videos involving the character were not available for younger users on TikTok and YouTube Kids, with spokespersons for each platform confirming so. Belanger also commented on the situation, calling the warnings "completely untrue and/or grossly exaggerated".
In September 2022, El Observador reported that seven children at a school in Uruguay played a game based on Poppy Playtime that instructed them to commit self-harm using pencil sharpeners, with two being hospitalized as a result. The president of the Institute of Children and Adolescents of Uruguay, Pablo Abdala, states that the incident "confirms that technological development entails a very severe risk".