Poppy Playtime is an episodic horror game that has you taking on the role of a former employee of Playtime Co who returns to the facilities to discover that the toys aren’t quite as docile as they remember. As you venture around the now abandoned factory and other questionable locations to discover the truth behind the creation of some of their most popular toys throughout Poppy’s Playtime: Chapter 5.
In Poppy’s Playtime Chapter 5 you are thrown straight back into the action from the ending of Chapter 4, with a brief tutorial and an encounter with Huggy Wuggy — the large blue gangly creature that most people will have likely seen, even if they haven’t played Poppy Playtime as it appears to be showing up in more mainstream media by the day.
This is most likely a good time to point out that I am new to this series and Chapter 5 is my starting point (an odd choice, I’m sure, as most people start at the beginning of the story) so it was quite nice that I was offered a tutorial to get brought up to speed with the controls. Especially as I had no idea what was going on with the Grabpack device at first.
After getting a bit too intimate with Huggy Wuggy I was dropped into the depths of the facility and into the sights of new creatures lurking in the depths. As a primarily horror driven experience it definitely sets an interesting tone, there is clearly a lot of lore and story building being delivered that, admittedly, may have gone over my head but for those following the story closely it makes sure to give you a clear explanation of everything that’s happening around you.
The Grabpack that is featured throughout the various chapters of Poppy’s Playtime is definitely an interesting item letting you interact with a number of objects in a surprisingly varied number of ways. There’s multiple hands that all lend to solving some of the many puzzles throughout Poppy’s Playtime making each interaction unique and focused around your current upgrades.
There’s also a lot of verticality with the puzzles, meaning that you might have to wrap objects around other objects while maintaining the correct height or distance, making you actually use your brain rather than just handing you the answers, which was a welcome challenge at times.
Each chapter seems to have a villain that is featured in the trailers and Chapter 5 is no different although admittedly there is a split focus in my opinion across two different characters. Lily Lovebraids and The Prototype each share the spotlight as prominent characters throughout Chapter 5 with The Prototype being the overall big threat but Lily Lovebraids being the most memorable.
Lily’s level is definitely one to remember with you venturing around her castle and gathering her friends and items to have the ultimate tea party, under the threat of being strangled to death by her incredibly lively luscious locks. It also features an extremely dangerous game of cat and mouse at one point which was both the best and worst part of the chapter as it lays out some specific rules but gets a bit confusing at the same time leading to the most deaths of the entire chapter for me.
The environments that you explore really do tell a tale all on their own with dark hallways, nefarious facilities and much much worse all wrapped together with corporate Playtime Co. charm. You do also get to witness some of your time in the facility from a whole new perspective as well as finding a number of secrets and context clues to help unravel the bigger picture of what’s going on, which is enjoyable and rewards those who venture out of their way.
If you’re looking for something else that’s fun with physics be sure to check out our preview of Ragdoll Physics Simulator that was featured at Pocket Gamer Connects London, which features more physics based puzzles but with a few different less horror themed twists.
I will mention that I was a little surprised that there was a puzzle that features this horrific looking tree that is featured in some of the promotional material in the chapter which looked pretty horrific at first but didn’t really do much in the end other than serve as a prop for a puzzle. With the nature of what I’d experienced I was waiting for a tense coming-to-life section with it but just wandered past when the puzzle was completed which surprised me a lot.
I think that Poppy Playtime Chapter 5 was an enjoyable and memorable experience which actually has left me wanting to fill in the blanks and get the bigger picture from the other chapters. With lots of horror, memorable characters and a dark narrative that twists and turns in many ways there’s something for all flavours of horror fan here.
If you’d like to give Poppy Playtime: Chapter 5 a go then you can find it yourself on Steam.
