So, at the end of Chapter 4, the player reaches the Labs. There, a vengeful Huggy Wuggy chases him. And Chapter 5 starts from this very moment.
As Huggy Wuggy breaks the lab door and chases the player, the player hides in an elevator. Trying to pull the player out, Huggy snatches the player's GrabPack with the Omni-Hand and falls down the elevator shaft.
Now the player wakes up in the storage area of these labs. Here, without a backpack, the player navigates this area. But this area was filled with experiments of the "Wrong Side Optimals." The Wrong Side Optimals were a failed toy line from Playtime Co. that children could zip together to make a 2-in-1 toy. But from the commercial of these toys itself, parents described them as disgusting, satanic, and inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer. Because of this, Playtime never officially launched them. But in this storage area, a prototype was conducting its experiments on these Optimals. And now these Optimals live in the depths of this factory and don't like light.
Right here, the player gets "Globby," which was a light device. And Globby's UV light could show hidden routes here. Then, in this Optimal-filled area, the player is saved by "Giblit," who lived with these Optimals in the depths of this factory. Giblit tells the player that the toys here are referring to the player as the "Playtime Butcher." As the player single-handedly put Mommy Long Legs in the grinder and gave CatNap a nap.
But right here, as the Prototype arrives in these depths, Giblit says that the Prototype doesn't usually come here. Meaning he was also going crazy trying to find the player. Right here, Giblit brings the Butcher to his home. From outside here, we can see an underground mansion of Playtime Co. And maybe Chapter 6 will explore this area. And this place could be "The Better Place."
Right here, Giblit tells us that he is not a hero. But he also wants to kill the Prototype to escape from this factory. And to do that, Giblit has a plan. But first, to give the Butcher a new GrabPack, he tells him to go to the boiler room.
Right here, in the boiler room, the Butcher sees a joint Bron toy, which was a BBI version of Bron made from an alternate human. Right here, the Butcher recovers a new GrabPack. Further ahead, the Butcher gets a pressurized hand, with which he can break glass and push objects. Now leaving this place, the Butcher reaches the Biodiversity Labs.
The Secret of Poppy Gel
Here, we learn about a magical substance called "Growth Medium" or "Poppy Gel." This gel is very important. So, I'm going to take my time explaining this. So, this Poppy Gel was created by Playtime Co.'s founder, Elliot Ludwig, who wanted to bring his deceased daughter back to life. And the chemical analysis of this gel is very similar to a real-life glucose called DMEM (Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium). DMEM is a synthetic mixture of salts, amino acids, and vitamin B. And it's used in labs for the rapid growth of mammalian cells, for example, stem cells, transformed cells, etc. But the game's Poppy Gel is a medium made from poppies (opium).
So, what does this Poppy Gel do? Well, this gel regenerates cells and creates tissues, etc. For example, when Playtime Co. started the "Bigger Bodies Initiative" by Dr. Harley Sawyer, Playtime Co. would kill living humans, extract their organs, and put these organs into toy bodies. When they dip this toy into Poppy Gel, within a few weeks, mutated muscles, teeth, veins, etc., grow into the toy from the gel. Basically, with this gel, Playtime Co. was able to create living toys.
But this gel also had side effects. As BBI toys grown from this growth medium would keep growing indefinitely. And they would mutate into something else. And to stop this, a negation formula was also developed. With which, after a certain time, the bio-organic growth in toys could be stopped.
And right here, there is a slight difference in the uses of this Poppy Gel created by Elliot. The formula of both Poppy Gels is exactly the same, which Elliot and the rest of Playtime used. But since Elliot wanted to bring his daughter back to life, this Poppy Doll was a perfect success made from this gel. As Poppy was a one-to-one transfer of Elliot's daughter into toy form. Poppy had all her human memories. She had full control over her mind. And she doesn't have the bloodlust that BBI toys like Huggy Wuggy have. Meaning Elliot Ludwig's procedure was a complete success. Whereas the BBI experiment started by Harley Sawyer, using this gel, was mostly creating monsters. And the majority of them were not perfect toys like Elliot made.
Right here, before making Poppy Doll, Elliot first tested this entire procedure on a test subject, number 106. So, when Elliot created this Poppy Gel, he wasn't sure if this procedure would work or not. That's why he first tested this whole procedure on the Prototype. So, the Prototype was also a sentient and intelligent being. But he was flawed. And I'll talk about the Prototype's story at the end of the video. We've strayed far from the game now. So let's come back to Chapter 5 events.
So, in the Biodiversity Labs, the Butcher also sees that due to the side effects of Poppy Gel, plants also mutate and combine their roots to form massive hives. Also, from some previous chapters, we get an Easter egg of "Limon." And this Limon's story is also connected to Poppy Gel. As scientists put genetically modified lemons in Poppy Gel to create Limon.
Now, after the player solves some puzzles, the player is caught here by "Champ Chomping," who was part of the Prototype's army. But right here, Giblit arrives and tells us that Chomp is a double agent who gives Giblit all the inside info. And as Giblit tells Chomp about us, that we are Poppy's angel and we are the Playtime Butcher... right here, Giblit tells us that the Prototype cannot be killed by normal means because of the growth medium. As the Prototype can regenerate very quickly. So he tells us to find the Prototype's entire catalog data so we can find the Prototype's weakness.
And as the player finds these documents, the player also gets magnetic bracelets. With these, the player could now stick to magnetic panels. And as the player gives these notes to Giblit, these notes mention a "Master Backup" and a "Negation Compound." And this backup will be found in the factory's data centers. So, the Negation Compound, as I said, stops the growth medium. And the job of negation was to stop all tissues from forming and destroy them. So, as the Prototype could regenerate, to kill him, we needed a huge amount of this Negation Compound.
But then, what was this Master Backup? To know this, Giblit tells us to go to the Data Center via Sweet Street. But as the Prototype arrives here, Giblit separates from us. And Chomp quickly hides the Butcher in his belly. On the Prototype's instructions, Chomp goes to guard some area and drops us outside Reanimation. And he also pats our head for good luck.
The Brainwashing of Huggy Wuggy
Right here now, as the player goes towards Sweet Street, we see a mental conditioning area in the labs. In this, an employee named Miss Gracie used to brainwash children here into believing that they are toys and they can be toys. And if anyone refuses that they can't be toys, the children would cut off such people's heads.
Right here in this area, the Butcher gets a conductive hand. With this, the Butcher could freeze and break Poppy Gel and burn ropes. Then the Butcher needed a code to get out of this area. And for this code, the Butcher finds three memory disks here. And inserting these memory sequences into the neural network machine here, the Butcher can see how Huggy Wuggy was trained. Where, by Miss Gracie's instructions, Huggy starts becoming an obedient and murderous toy. But in these brainwashing videos, Huggy revolts and starts killing Playtime Co. employees. And after seeing these three sequences, the machine gives us the code to proceed.
But in these videos, the player also sees the code to Huggy Wuggy's room. And if the player can remember this, we get a VHS tape in that room. From this, we learn that due to Huggy Wuggy's aggression, Playtime Co. created "Kissy" to calm Huggy down. And seeing Kissy, Huggy remembers that she was a human. And Huggy calms down with Kissy's love.
Now, moving towards Sweet Street, Huggy Wuggy chases the Butcher again. And as the Butcher falls through ventilation into some more conditioning rooms, the Butcher calms Huggy down with a video of Kissy. And in the meantime, the Butcher opens the door to Sweet Street with a battery, and just like that, he managed to down Huggy.
The Tragedy of Miss Gracie / Lily Love Breads
Now, navigating Sweet Street in a van here, the Butcher is caught by "Lily Love Breads." So, this Lily Love Breads was Miss Gracie, who was a wellness counselor at Playtime Co. And during the Hour of Joy, the Prototype had Miss Gracie kidnapped via Smiling Critters and Baba Chops. And after that, the Prototype gave Miss Gracie fitting punishment for every kid's brainwashing. In which, first, the Prototype performed surgery on Miss Gracie, extracted her organs, and then gave her a pre-existing toy form. In Experiment 1468, then the Prototype locked Miss Gracie in a room and showed her her own conditioning seminars. Due to which, after 122 days, Gracie completely forgets her old personality. And she adopts the identity of Lily Love Breads. In which, to cope with loneliness, Lily also creates an imaginary friend named "Candy." Right here, after Lily's conditioning, to further punish Lily, the Prototype declares her an outcast and banishes her to a dollhouse.
And right here, the Prototype plays the biggest mind game. Where he gives Miss Gracie's skeleton to Lily Love Breads. He tells Lily to take care of this skeleton. So, with that info, when the Butcher arrives at Lily's dollhouse, Lily first tells him to bring a cake from the basement oven. Where the player sees that Lily had imprisoned Poppy and someone else here. And to free them, the Butcher completes many of Lily's tasks here. And after the Butcher unlocks Poppy, Lily first turns off the lights and plays "Red Light, Green Light" with the player. Then she catches everyone, seats them at her tea party, and says that her special guest is about to arrive. Who was the Prototype here.
The Prototype Revealed
And right here, after five chapters, the Prototype's body is revealed to us. His upper body was that of a jester or a clown. Right here, Poppy asks the Prototype, "Where are the orphans?" To which the Prototype says, "The orphans are at a better place." And this "Better Place" is the name of a location, which could be that underground mansion we saw at the start of this chapter.
Right here, the Prototype speaks in many voices. He can speak in female and male voices as well, like a child. And right here, as Poppy wanted to kill the Prototype and leave this factory, the Prototype, in anger or accidentally, breaks Poppy's face. This makes Kissy very angry. But she was tied up in Lily's braids. Right here, as the Prototype calls us an outsider and tells us to also experiment on us with the Wrong Side Optimals, as Lily tries to catch Poppy and the Prototype pushes Lily back, Kissy frees herself. And she leaks the red smoke connectors attached to the Prototype's body. And through this window, Kissy flees with Poppy. And the Butcher chairs Lily. Right here, the Butcher drops a cloud prop on Lily and ends her.
And outside, as the Butcher reunites with Giblit, Giblit also assesses Poppy's damages. Poppy now has only one eye. Right here, to kill the Prototype, Giblit tells us to follow the plan of finding the secret backup mentioned earlier. And now we were heading to the Data Centers in a tram.
So, as the Butcher reaches the tram station, we pass through the surgery observation deck. Right here, in the background, the Prototype was following our movements. And as we approach the tram station, Huggy Wuggy chases us again. But at this station, as Huggy reunites with Kissy and was about to take a sigh of relief, the Prototype, seeing Huggy as useless, stabs him. Then he proceeds to stab Kissy as well. And as these two toys get injured, the Butcher quickly boards the tram. Giblit tells him that Poppy and he are at the front of the tram. And here, avoiding the Prototype, the Butcher crosses the tram's bogies. In which the Butcher first electrifies the Prototype. Then, even when the Butcher freezes Poppy Gel and sets him on fire, nothing happens to the Prototype.
Right here, nearing the Data Centers, Giblit tells us to jump from the tram. And as the Butcher freezes the Prototype again and we all jump from the tram, the Prototype survives the tram's blast as well. And then he stabs the Butcher. Right here, before fainting, the Butcher sees the Prototype catching Poppy. Then, for some unknown reason, the Prototype throws the player into Poppy Gel. I'll talk about this in a moment. But as the player's wounds heal from this gel, the player, when he was a Playtime Co. employee, remembers Poppy's words from that time. And as the player is fully healed, Giblit pulls the player out of the container and wakes him with a shock.
Right here now, Giblit and the player activate that backup from the Data Center. In which it is revealed that this backup was the brain of Harley Sawyer or "The Doctor," which has now been revived. And on this note, this chapter ends.
The Prototype's True Identity
So now, let's talk about the Prototype first.
So, from the cassette tape found in this chapter, we learn that the Prototype was not the first experiment of the Bigger Bodies Initiative, but rather the Prototype was created by his adoptive father, Elliot Ludwig, before creating Poppy. So technically, the Prototype was the first living toy experiment that happened at Playtime Co., whose architect was Elliot Ludwig.
Also, in this chapter, we found out who the Prototype was. So, the Prototype here was Elliot Ludwig's adopted son, Oliver Ludwig. In short, "Ollie." And yes, the Ollie who was guiding us in Chapters 3 and 4 – well, that's the human name of the Prototype himself.
So, Elliot Ludwig created Ollie as the Prototype because Elliot wanted to bring his daughter back to life as Poppy Doll. For that, he created a growth medium like Poppy Gel. And did a lot of scientific research. And he first tested all these experiments on his son, Ollie, to check if his research could correctly resurrect someone from the dead or make them immortal. And thus, the Prototype was born.
But Ollie, or the Prototype, after becoming a toy, was angry that the value of his life was always for giving a new life to his stepsister, Poppy. That he was a test subject for the Poppy experiment. And because of this, he holds so much anger against Poppy. And maybe because of this, the Prototype killed Elliot Ludwig himself.
Also, the Prototype's appearance, as he looked like a jester toy with only his upper body being toy-like, suggests that Elliot might have designed Ollie in a "Jack-in-the-box" toy. But since the Prototype and Poppy are special toys that were highly intelligent, the Prototype gave his jester form mechanical spider-like legs. He himself made his body so menacing. In which the Prototype has Mommy Long Legs' arms, CatNap's red gas emitters, and Huggy & Kissy's arms are also in the Prototype's lower body. Plus, the Prototype has also attached a solar flare-like flash on his waist, with which he can blind enemies that come near him for a few seconds. Then, the Prototype carries two cylinders on his back. One is probably for red Poppy gas, and the second for Poppy Gel for his regeneration.
After this, the Prototype's motive is that he doesn't want any toy to leave Playtime Co. As during the Hour of Joy, 23 toys had escaped from this factory. And from that day on, the Prototype became the dictator of this factory and has been covering up these escapes, making every toy believe that no one can leave this factory. And everyone has to obey the Prototype.
After this, we learn from "Leith Pierre's General Entry" that after Elliot Ludwig's death, Playtime Co. did not know that the Prototype as well as Poppy Doll existed. And Playtime Co. only found out about Elliot Ludwig's death when the CatNap or Theodore Grambell incident happened. So, as you know from Chapter 3, the Prototype was about to leave this factory with the help of an orphan child, Theodore Grambell, when Theodore, while opening the escape route for the Prototype, gets electrocuted. And to save Theodore, the Prototype surrenders himself to the Playtime staff. And right here, when the Prototype was discovered, Playtime Co. launched an investigation into Playcare. And only then did Playtime Co. find the dead body of Elliot Ludwig along with Poppy Doll. And after this investigation, the company found all the research by Elliot Ludwig, that people could be revived using Poppy Gel and put into toys. And it was only after this that Harley Sawyer started the BBI experiments at Playtime Co.
The Player's True Identity Theory
So now, coming back to the ending of Chapter 5...
As the player, or the Playtime Butcher, is completely fine even after being stabbed by the Prototype, this suggests that the player is not a normal human being. And the game is pulling a "Resident Evil Village" or "Ethan Winters" move here. Where in RE7, after Ethan's hand is cut off, Zoe staples it back on. And we didn't pay much attention to this plot point. I thought it was just the game's goofiness. But as we know from RE8's ending, Ethan was not normal. He was infected with Mold powers. And maybe, similarly, the player's wound healing so quickly with Poppy Gel suggests that maybe the player has found some new powers from all of Playtime Co.'s research. And maybe he also has regenerative powers like the Prototype.
Also, info on which Playtime Co. executive the player could be is found from the game's cassette tapes, "Pierre" and "Re-Term." So, the player here could be a Playtime Co. employee, "Rich Lovitz." As in Chapter 5, we learn that Rich was the "people's man" at the Playtime Co. factory, like Rocky Bhai in the KGF mines. If anyone mistreated Rich, all the workers would protest. As Rich took care of all the workers. And as a company couldn't fire Rich without any reason, the higher-ups here plan to promote Rich to the executive level. And they deliberately give Rich a car and a parking space with their higher-ups. With this, they wanted to show other employees that Rich Lovitz has betrayed everyone, that he used everyone to climb the corporate ladder and has now sold them out.
Then this tape also confirms that Rich Lovitz was still human until the time of the Hour of Joy. He had submitted his resignation to Playtime Co. just a few days before the Hour of Joy. Maybe Rich knew about all the illegal experiments. And as he wasn't able to stop Playtime Co., he decided to leave the company. But after the Hour of Joy, when Rich got this info that everyone at Playtime Co. was killed, he returns to this factory in 2005 to atone for his guilt. And this seems like the best theory so far about who the player is.
Other Lore Discoveries
Then, here from "Eddie's Retirement" letter, we learn that Playtime Co. had become so big that their factory was also in Tokyo. And due to his illness, Eddie oversaw Playtime Co.'s research from the Tokyo facility.
Then, in this chapter, there is a new hidden Easter egg. As you go to Bron to get your backpack back, in the underground tunnel of this facility, you randomly see a blue hand switch in a hidden place. At first, I thought, what kind of level design are Mob Studios doing? But then when I Googled this switch, I found out that there are seven hidden switches around the chapter. And finding all of them gives you an Easter egg of "Piano Soras" at the end of the game.
Now, finally, Chapter 6 will explore "The Better Place" here. But what exactly is "The Better Place"? That remains to be seen.
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