Nightmare Fuel / Poppy Playtime Chapter Four: Safe Haven

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When toys were undisciplined, they went down to the Prison area of the factory, where staff tried to calm them down or force them to obey. This area may be home to Safe Haven, guarded under Doey’s watchful care, but it’s also where a sinister threat lurks: the Doctor. You’re familiar with him back when he was Harley Sawyer by name, but he has since been wired up to the factory’s surveillance. And with the aid of Yarnaby, his loyal feline minion, he’s going to make certain your time down here is one of sheer panic…

Chapter Proper:

• The beginning commercial for the Doey toys starts off fine. It shows a family opening presents for their son, Jack, where they get an invitation to the factory, but with unsettling glitches here and there. But then we get to the family going to the Playtime Co. factory. Jack, curious about the stirring chemical vats, peers over the edge of the railing... only to fall over and into the molten mixture. His screams are disturbingly realistic, and the gurgling he makes in the background even more so. The panicking yells of his parents and the other tourists fill the air as the camera falls onto Jack's Doey toy before someone shut it off.
  • Worse, there's some Freeze-Frame Bonus horror: a close-up of Jack's trembling hand, half melted and covered in colorful slime as he reaches out for help.
  • The worst part? Playtime Co. didn't plan for this to happen. It was a genuine accident. The few glimpses we see of the factory show it as a rundown, rusty mess in the background. There's stains on the walls resembling mold or decay, and the way Jack is dangling from the catwalk implies the railing gave way when he leaned on it too hard. This was simply bad workplace safety practices coming to their logical conclusion.
  • Even worse? An old version of the intro leaked where Jack falling into the vat was meant to be shown, sparing no details on the boy's gruesome end. If one were to hazard a guess, the black censor bar was likely added due to the old material potentially upgrading the ESRB rating from T to M.
• Poppy goes back to help Kissy and make sure she’s safe, leaving us to venture forward into the Sub-Levels. Before she does she gives us this warning, and it’s enough to send a chill down your spine:
  Poppy: Just… be careful. Down here, it’s… It’s not like anything you’ve seen above. It’s not trying to hide what it is. It’s Hell, and Playtime wanted it to be.
• The Prison, also known as the Shelf, is essentially a Hell Hole Prison that showcases just how depraved and messed up Playtime Co. truly were. There are many nightmarish cells where the living experiments were locked up and the interrogation rooms were used for torture. Before this chapter, locations such as the Game Station and Playcare were at least given a fun whimsical appearance as a way to appease innocent people and hide the sinister truth. Apart from the multicolored cells, there are barely any whimsical aesthetics to the Shelf because when new test subjects are brought here, this is where the fake innocence comes off for them as the new subjects are prepped against their will so that they can be brought to the labs to become new experiments while the Shelf is also where the company keep the active experiments locked up when not in use. Every monster Playtime Co. have made, including some of the deadliest^note  Except for the Prototype, who was mainly locked up in the Laboratory., were all caged here, and after the factory shut down, some of those monsters still reside in the Prison. When Poppy said the Prison was Hell... She meant it.
  • Just outside of the Prison's entrance is a massive graveyard of fallen experiments. Mountain piles upon piles of dead toys litter the place and the Player has to move through it to get into the Prison. Creepy noises can be heard as the Player moves along, meaning there are some living experiments hiding among the corpses just watching the Player, likely excited that they have a human prey in their turf. After the Player walks through the graveyard and reach the entrance, search lights and a siren suddenly turn on. The gate seemingly closes on its own before the Player could get inside, and hostile Huggy toys come out to fight. Whoever is in charge of the Prison now has definitely noticed the Player's presence.
  • There are various corpses of rotting Playtime Co security personnel found scattered around the decaying complex, undoubtedly an aftermath from the 'Hour of Joy'. There's even a section where the Player has to squeeze through a gap filled with dozens of rotting corpses of dead Playtime Co security personnel impaled on metallic rods and sharp wires to progress at one point.
• Riley: During the start of the chapter, five notes can be found, part of a journal from an orphan girl named Riley. On the third entry, she's put through the Bigger Bodies conversion process. Her description of how the process went is pretty horrible. Her last entry has her taking the key to the prison train with the intent to hide it so nobody else will see the horrible things in the prison, not caring if she dies. When you climb up to a hanging container while looking for the key yourself, you find a horrific sight: what appears to be remains of a human-sized Kissy Missy, with visible bones including a full skull, sitting on a toilet with the word "key" written in blood on the wall and the train key itself sticking out of her ribcage. Based on the corpse's appearance and the journal's description in the later entries, this is Riley. And since the other experiments technically grew up and she refused to eat the dead bodies, she was still a child when she died. Seriously doubles as Tear Jerker.
• The true nature of Poppy's plan. She doesn't just want you to kill the Prototype — she wants you to kill everyone. As in, everyone. Her enemies. Her allies. And herself. Doey is understandably disturbed and repeatedly begs her to reconsider, but she's apparently roped all the Safe Haven residents into it as well, and Doey seems to feel almost guilty about questioning it. Where did this doll get that charisma to talk them into such an awful thing?
  • The way this is revealed is also chilling. At first, when she talks to you about it in Safe Haven, she conveniently glosses over the part where everyone will die, simply saying that the Safe Haven dwellers will "blow the place sky high" after rescuing the orphans. Doey talks to you about it in private, seeming almost reluctant and ashamed of himself for bringing it up, but when he and Poppy argue when the player isn't supposed to be hearing them, the ambiguity is stripped away:
    Doey: I think you might be wrong, Poppy. What you want...
    Poppy: It's the best for everyone, Doey. That no trace of this place is left. We agreed to that.
    Doey: I know... But us, everyone in there, we're not just things gone wrong. We're people...Can't you see that?
    Poppy: I can... And I'm sorry...
    Doey: They look up to me, Poppy. And I've looked after them the best I could. You disappeared. You left us...We looked and we looked. And there was just nothing. No sign of you...Can you even tell me why?
    Poppy: ...I had to leave. I had no choice.
    Doey: That's not good enough. We've starved down here. We've been hunted. And now you're asking us to burn everything? ALL of us?
• Within Playtime's Prison are not one, but five Arc Villains, and they are some of Playtime Co.'s most dangerous experiments.
  • Yarnaby:
    • Out of all the experiments, Yarnaby comes across as one of the most feral creatures. At least with the other experiments, they still show some sense of humanity (CatNap for example still clings to a religious belief, albeit in the form of a cult). Any trace that Yarnaby was a civilized human being is completely gone. All that's left is a wild beast following the orders of his cruel master.
    • Don't let the goofy face fool you, Yarnaby isn't to be messed with. Not only does his head split open pretty wide when he notices you, but when you hear him emit a loud shriek, run, hide, and pray he doesn't find you.
    • You're not supposed to run during his segments, as he is drawn to sound. You're only allowed to walk and use your GrabPack to ensure that you don't draw yourself to him.
    • How Yarnaby dies. In one of his chases, the Player crosses over an active incinerator by jumping over it and grabbing onto a chained hook dangling just above the incinerator to safely get to the other side. When Yarnaby tries to keep up, he leaps over the incinerator... only to accidentally snare himself onto the hook by his mouth. As Yarnaby tries to free himself, the intense heat from the incinerator causes his yarn fur to catch fire, making the creature burn alive. Yarnaby manages to get free and grabs on a ledge but the fire on his body overwhelms him with so much pain until he loses grip and falls straight down into the incinerator itself. Even if Yarnaby survives the fall, all that fire and heat would definitely give the creature a very painful end.
    • Yarnaby's death lost any ambiguity in the chapter update. At the end of the new chase, as the player swings across the incinerator (now a molten slag pit), the game enters a cutscene to show Yarnaby lunging at the player and just inches from them before getting snagged on the hook. He struggles for a few seconds while the player is made to watch, but he doesn't catch fire. Not until he gets free and catches the edge of the pit. That accidentally puts him close enough to the slag to ignite him, and he flails around desperately trying to get free before sinking into the pit.
  • Baba Chops: This isn't referring to the Mini Nightmare Critter. It turns out, after Yarnaby is put out of commission, Sawyer tells the player that he wasn't "his only pet", and sics on them a bigger Baba Chops plush. While trying to get out of the claustrophobic room, Baba will leap toward the player at great speeds, ensuring an element of strategy and quick reflexes to ensure that she doesn't kill you. And she also emits distorted bleats when she wants to make her presence known.
  • Dr. Harley Sawyer:
    • The Mad Doctor himself has made his physical appearance, and it's every bit of terrifying as expected of a character like him. Out of all the characters in the entire game, Harley is the evilest one as his cruelty is unmatched. His repeated taunts, the fact he makes his presence known with a single eye on a monitor, and his complete control over the Prison make him a pretty terrifying Non-Action Big Bad.
    • Even though Harley is a type of person who doesn't deserve any sympathy, what Playtime Co. transformed him into is undeniably horrific. Wanting to exploit the Doctor more efficiently, Leith Pierre had him surgically stripped down until he's only a few organs hooked up to machines. Keep in mind, Harley is still alive, but he's now an inhuman creature forced to serve the company, just like the many experiments Harley helped make.
    • He introduces himself to the Player when they enter the train; the lone monitor in the corner of the room turns on, showing that familiar eye. Then, it gets turbulent, and as you lose consciousness, the gravity of the situation crashes on you as the madman behind the Bigger Bodies is now on your case, ready to tie up your loose end.
      Harley Sawyer/The Doctor: Not even the ground beneath your feet is yours. There are no places you can hide. Not from me. [Evil Laugh]
    • That stunt of siccing the Mini Nightmare Critters and Mini Huggies on the Player not only demonstrates his technopath abilities, but also the revelation that you're at the true mercy of this madman.
  • Doey the Doughman:
    • In spite of him being a good-natured ally, Doey still undoubtedly has a creepy element to him. He's actually the second most powerful experiment, with only The Prototype being tougher than him. When he properly introduces himself, he does so by brutally killing Pianosaurus and devouring him. Doey tries to act innocent and goofy immediately afterwards, but that still doesn't take away the fact that he just committed murder and cannibalism. There are also his constant mood swings, an element that's meant to instill uncertainty in the player, and succeed. There are just a lot of factors about him that don't fit the mold of him being an "ally" to us...
    • His mood swings in general, his voice, switching to a joyful tone into the utmost intimidating voice ever.
      Doey: So... have you seen Poppy anywhere? Ollie said she was around... somewhere. He also said we can trust you. I Really hope that's true...
    • The Reveal about him; Doey is a Bigger Body (Exp. 1322), but he's made up of not one, but three children. Jack Ayers (the kid who fell in the dough vats; is curious and innocent), Kevin Barnes (Joseph's friend from Chapter 3; is impulsive and mean) and Matthew Hallard (a kid respected by some Playtime Co. staff for his intelligence; is kind and helpful). These three personalities clash with each other, and it was this factor that made Playtime Co. deduce that Doey ranks among their more terrifying Bigger Bodies.
    • Jack is later used to silence his own parents. The scientists lock them in a room with Doey, who's barely conscious or stable and doesn't recognize his parents. If the other two kids were already mixed into Doey's body with him, one of them could have taken over when his mother came in the room. His mood swings turn violent, and despite his mother's pleas, he kills both of them. His father's horrified screams and Doey's anguished sobs after the deed is done mixes the terror with a healthy dose of pathos.
    • When Doey finally loses it in the chapter's climax and transforms into his One-Winged Angel form, he becomes a six-armed lizard-like monster with a Lamprey Mouth and three heads sticking out of said mouth with six more arms reaching out of it. The six red eyes are all glaring at you and their faces represent the three boys fused together to make Doey. If he catches you, all those arms are used to eat the protagonist alive.
    • And his cries of wanting to go home, wanting to play longer, not wanting to be here anymore, all allude to the distress Jack and Matthew feel, trying to regain physical control. But Kevin's hate is so strong that all resistance is futile, and he will stop at nothing to kill you, despite Jack and Matthew recognizing that they did all they could, but Kevin won't listen to reason.
  • The Prototype:
    • The Doctor and later Doey may be the biggest threats in this chapter, but the Prototype showing up is a solid reminder that he's still the ultimate menace of the entire game. Seeing the Prototype's spider legs while the Player hides with Poppy and Kissy. Ollie certainly wasn't kidding when he said that the "real deal" was more terrifying than the statue made by CatNap.
    • Towards the end, Poppy finds out the Awful Truth: Ollie is the Prototype, who's strung her and her allies along for the past two chapters. The Prototype even admits there was an Ollie, but he's long gone. What sells it is the Prototype/"Ollie" rattling off her exact location before gloating about the truth, and threatening to put Poppy back in the case, just to rub salt on the wound.
    • Up until this point, the Prototype has only been in your presence, not attacking you. But in this chapter, The Gloves Come Off, as he uses the bombs to destroy the Safe Haven, properly deduces where the survivors are, and even reveals to Poppy the "Ollie" charade just to break her spirits. Now he's ready to directly interfere in your and Poppy's efforts. Fun times!
    • While we were given an idea as to just how intelligent the Prototype can be in earlier chapters, this one shows his manipulative tendencies in full force. With an impressive gambit that not only destroys the Safe Haven (the location where the toys are against his agenda), but also reveals the "Ollie" deception when Poppy and Kissy are in a moment of despair, completely crushing Poppy's morale.
• How about that ending? After killing Doey and being separated from Poppy and Kissy, the Player finds a pathway to Playtime's main laboratory. They enter a room and find a VHS recording of Leith Pierre jokingly explaining that there's no harm in wandering around the lab... until he gives a slightly Evil Laugh and firmly states that anyone without the proper clearance will be shot. And just your luck, Leith says that when the tape is played, it triggers an alarm, alerting someone to the intruder. Sure enough, a Playtime Co. resident does show up, but not just any resident: it's our old friend, Huggy Wuggy. Sure, he's pretty banged up from his fall from Chapter One, but once he recognizes the Player from their last encounter, his slow and limping stride out of the darkness turns into a frenzied charge and he swiftly begins pounding on the lab's door, bellowing in animalistic fury. That's right. Huggy's back, and this time, he's out for blood.
  Leith: If I were you, I'd start running.
  Huggy: [angrily bangs on the door] RAAAAAAR! [continues banging furiously] REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
  • As Leith tauntingly warns the Player that they've wandered too far into the factory's depths, familiar alarm bells ominously sound off. That's a horrifying indicator of who's returning to menace the Player after being MIA for the past two chapters.
  • The buildup to his reveal is quite horrifying. The game keeps pulling a Bait-and-Switch once a chapter where we think we see the silhouette of Huggy preparing to make his grand, horrifying return, only to be met with our companion Kissy, giving us a needed breath of relief. During the final cutscene, you're looking back out the porthole of the door you came through, the other end of the hall shrouded in darkness and only slightly lit up by the red of the alarms, when a figure slowly walks out of the shadows. At first you're relieved that Kissy survived the explosion... until you notice that she somehow got her recently ripped off arm reattached. And then "she" walks forward a bit more, you see the fur is being discolored by the red of the alarm lights, and just as you realize who you're dealing with, the figure suddenly bolts forward, revealing his blue fur just before he's banging on the door in a rage, the game's signature mascot is back and ready to rip you to shreds.
  • The damaged state Huggy's in. His head has a nasty gash from where he hit it during his fall, his body is covered in bandages and duct tape, and his stomach looks like it's been stitched together by rope, with a bloodied stuffing-like substance barely held in. Additionally, his left hand is severed, the hole stitched shut using his bow. Whatever patch job was done to him, it was just above the bare minimum to keep him alive.
    • Also, the presence of the bandages, duct tape, and rope. Meaning, stitched back together. Huggy certainly didn't do that himself (think of Kissy, she got help from Poppy when she went up to Playcare while you started your journey in the Prison, explaining the arm sling and the rope keeping her together.) Someone fixed Huggy all up when he fell to the Laboratory. Whether this was the machinations of the Prototype, an employee, or another toy remains to be seen.
    • In an older version of this scene, the bandages were absent entirely, meaning graphic wounds were visible but held together by the rope. Much like the fate of Jack, the bandages may have been added to keep the game rated T.
• If you're not worrying about yourself at the end, you might be worrying about Kissy, whose arm got ripped off trying to save the player. It's unknown what happened after we saw her last, and with The Prototype nearby, looking pretty dire for our friend, with the threat of death, or worse, assimilation.
• How Leith just mirthlessly chuckles in the final tape, dropping all sense of professionalism he had in the first tape warning that you were trespassing. Disregarding his shoulder-tap advice, he just says that if you're caught, you'll just be shot instead. You know too much. Way, way, way too much. Welcome to Playtime's Laboratory; you're in the area where the sausage is made, where all the magic happens with the Bigger Bodies. Already Chapter 5 seems to be shaping itself to be the darkest yet...
• Just the general atmosphere of the ending. Poppy flees the ventilation block out of fear of being put back in the case, Kissy valiantly tries to save you from falling in the chasm (and it costs her her arm), Safe Haven is completely destroyed, killing all the benevolent toys, Doey is dead, you're plunged even deeper into the factory than ever before, and Huggy is out for your blood. The elaboration? All of your allies either fled, are in danger, or are already dead. At least in Deep Sleep's ending, you had Poppy by your side. But now? You're traversing the Laboratory alone. No one will guide you. No one will save you. You truly are, alone.

VHS Tapes:

• One VHS tape has a group of Resource Extraction Specialists discussing the mess that is the Theater Incident, that saw nearly 80 people dead, 66 of which were tourists and 12 Resource Extraction members. It was a disaster and the members admit they don't even know how Playtime will sweep it under the rug.
  • It's not at all hard to speculate what went down based on the clues provided and no answer is a pleasant one: Harley set up some kind of a performance in a theatre, involving Bigger Body Toys, in order to study something or display them in some fashion. The bulk of the audience were just curious innocents, who were killed when something either went wrong or was intentionally triggered by Sawyer. Extraction Specialists were then sent in to handle the rampaging Mascots, and 12 of them ended up killed as well as they got things under control. Any survivors were then also killed to prevent the situation from going public.
  • The way the Specialists talk about what happened so casually, as though it's just a worse than usual day, is disturbing enough on its own. When they begin talking about Sawyer though, it morphs into venom-filled contempt wherein they speculate he will be fed to one of the Toys for what he did, and that it's what he deserves for being a "Rotten Chicken."
• A VHS tape featuring a phone call between Ollie and Poppy has the latter ranting about the experiments she's been put through, and it's a serious look at just how dehumanizing Playtime's experiments truly were.
  Poppy: Talk? Talk?! You want me to talk?!
  Ollie: Yes, yes I—
  Poppy: And what will talking do, huh?! Will talking to you make them stop?!
  Ollie: N-No, it—
  Poppy: I'm scared, Ollie. Is that what you want to hear? I'm scared, and I'm angry, and...and I really don't know what to do...The bad men don't say what they want. They don't listen. They don't care how much anything hurts... It's been weeks and weeks of taking things out and putting them back in and taking things out and putting them back in! Over and over and over. Nothing's EVER gotten better. And it'll never GET better. But you know what scares me more than anything, Ollie? It scares me that every time they do it... Every time they peel me open...I feel it less! LESS! I hate them. And I hate him. And I hate... I'm nothing now, Ollie. No one. I'm a thing... And nothing they can do to me hurts more than that.
  • The VHS Tape is made all the more terrifying with The Reveal that "Ollie" is actually the Prototype. Ollie being a shoulder for Poppy to cry on was just the Prototype trying to manipulate her to his side by acting as a friend and confidant. It not only shows how absolutely cruel the Prototype is, but also serves as a frighteningly realistic example of a predator taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable young girl to get her on their side, something that's all too common in real life. Even if Ollie was real at some point, the Prototype pulling a Kill and Replace has its own brand of creepy that happens with possessive stalkers.
• Playtime's go-to contractor, Silva Warrenbach, begs Eddie Ritterman for reassurance that he hasn't been contracted to build an underground prison, and that this is still the company Elliot Ludwig founded. Ritterman does no such thing, and instead coldly reminds him of/threatening him with his contract terms, slowly walking towards Warrenbach until his back is to the ledge.
  Warrenbach: M-Mr. Ritterman w-we're near the—
  Ritterman: Yes. Yes we are. ALL of us are. On a ledge. Great things are coming. Great things that will someday make a lot of people very happy. But to do so, to make that dream real, we need [the prison]. Otherwise, there's a place we'll all fall. Together.
• When the scientists bring in the parents of Jack (AKA, the kid who fell into the stirring vats, and is one of the three that makes up Doey), the mom is somewhat hopeful that she can reach her kid, while the dad is downright convinced Doey isn't human. It only gets worse when at the end of the tape, Doey killed both of them, then breaks down into tears in the end.
  • Let's be honest: Playtime Co. never intended to give Jack back to his parents. The accident may not have had anything malicious behind it, but the effects of the dough on Jack, not to mention a lawsuit from the Ayers for the factory's safety issues, could have definitely risked the exposure of their horrific experiments. They promised to bring back Jack, brought the parents back to the factory, and made them disappear. It's like Rowan Stoll all over again, only they used their victims' own son (to an extent) to silence them. What really gives this away is that Jack's parents were locked in the room with Doey. His father's banging on the door trying to escape after Doey's already killed Jack's mother. There's no explanation for this other than Playtime wanting to cut off loose ends.
• Stella Greyber, one of the higher-ups at Playtime Co. who seemed like she was the Token Good Teammate of the company, who was either oblivious to or disapproved of what Sawyer was doing, appears to now be finally converted to some of her colleagues' twisted belief that the horrific experiments performed on the orphans under their care is for the benefit of mankind. While she admits to Leith that she cried for days when she discovered what the Bigger Bodies Initiative entailed, Stella unfortunately has been corrupted into the same deluded mindset as Sawyer, albeit with a warped sense of compassion for the children.
  • There's a caveat to this. If you listen closely to the tape, there's some seriously heavy, inhuman breathing going on in the background during her conversation with Leith. It's loud enough that there's no way she isn't aware of it, implying she and Leith aren't the only things in the room when this tape was recorded. Leith almost certainly had Boxy Boo present, out of reach, in case Stella's confession went a way he didn't like and he had to silence her. She may have merely been saying what he wanted to hear, in a way that wouldn't get her killed... which is its own brand of terrifying.
• There's a well hidden VHS tape ("Time," in Chapter 4) that exposes chilling lore. An access card can be grabbed while evading Dr. Sawyer's robots in the server room, and after he's dead, it can be used to open a room behind his mainframe. The contents of the room? An office with medical curtains, a tv, and a VHS tape with a conversation between Harley Sawyer and the Prototype. And in contrast to their Chapter 3 tape, the power dynamic has clearly shifted, as the Prototype has Sawyer confined and clearly only kept him alive for a reason. They've been working on something. It's not clear what, but from Sawyer's dialogue, it's something that the Playtime scientists were working on when the factory was operational, and even then they were struggling. Now, it sounds like Sawyer and the Prototype have a rapidly approaching deadline to figure it out, and 1006 is not happy. What are they working on?
  Prototype: Your suggestions HAVE FAILED to produce the results I'm a f t e r. Have I made an error in allowing your survival?
  Sawyer: Of course not. We just need more time to perfect the-
  Prototype: T i m e? Time is precisely what we DO NOT haaave.
  Sawyer: Then I suggest you find some more. That, or give me labs access. At least with the two of us-
  Prototype: That is out of the QUESTION. You will stay p u t.
  Sawyer: Fine, but you have no staff, virtually no test subjects; it's hardly ideal conditions. Even when this place was fully operational, we were beating our heads against this. You can't expect to do it on your own so quickly.
  Prototype: The situation necessitates it be 'done' QUICKLY.
  Sawyer: I'm just giving you the facts, and the fact is we need more time or this isn't going to work. I can only be reactive up here.
  Prototype: Then of what uuuuse ARE YOU?
  Sawyer : Hehehehe. You know I'm still your best shot at cracking that secret. If I weren't, you would have already killed me. 
  Prototype: A *sound observation*. Yes, you have made yourself useful. Provide me MORE OPTIONS; I will try again.
  Sawyer: Of course.
  Prototype: Buuuut... if you are stalling or worse... Remember, your usefulness    IS THE ONLY REASON YOU WERE NOT STRIPPED FOR MEAT AND SPARE PARTS.