Ready for a HUGE SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT?
Me, Markiplier, Dawko.
The Kings of Five Nights at Freddy’s, together in one room, against a brand new FNAF game with thousands of dollars at stake.
Live! Do I have your attention?
Great! Because it's happening right here on the channel,  December 3rd.
Mark your calendars! You're not gonna want to miss this. But why are we doing this, you might ask?
Well, every year, Steph and I try to do at least one major charity event for a cause that affects all of us here in the Theorist community,
and last year with your help, we donated over two hundred thousand dollars,
all dedicated to researching better treatments for depression and other mental illnesses.
And this year we're taking on cancer.
Specifically childhood cancer, because I think all of us have at least at some point known or lost someone to cancer,
and it's without a doubt the scariest diagnosis that a family could possibly receive,
and it's especially true now for Steph and I, as we have our own kid.
Which is why we're especially honored to be partnering with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Which, if you haven't heard of this incredible organization,
is a hospital dedicated to treating children from around the world who've all been diagnosed with cancer
and other life-threatening diseases.
I'm going to be 33 years old
And I just learned this word
And to think that like
There's a kid who's
10 years old and wrote this
Heparin
I don't know
Because I don't have to know
It just puts- puts it in perspective about
How lucky you are
You don't have to know that stuff
But what's truly remarkable about St. Jude
is not only are they helping children fight against the scariest diagnosis that you could possibly receive
but no one who's a patient there ever has to pay a single cent for their treatment.
That is hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical treatment all happening for free.
And their good work doesn't just stop at helping individual families either.
They aren't just helping to treat cancer in single patients.
They are the foremost leader in researching new ways to stop cancer,
to kill it dead and then spreading that knowledge for free to the rest of the world so that everyone
can use that information to try and find better more effective cures faster.
Most other organizations would hide that sort of information.
They would guard it and keep it for themselves so that they could make a lot of money off of it.
But here's St. Jude, right, who are all about this idea of working together
to find a way to kill cancer once and for all.
One child treated at St. Jude literally translates to a thousand more that are treated in hospitals around the world.
Long story short, St. Jude is just an incredible organization, which is why throughout the rest of November
we'll be helping to raise money for all the good work that they do with the big event being held on December 3rd.
That's the marathon livestream event in their honor and that's not just us.
That's the Try Guys,  it's Odd1sOut, it's Rosanna Pansino,
it's Vsauce3. It's Miranda Sings and Gerrard and Kyle Hill,
Natewantstobattle, SomeThingElseYT,
And so so many more!
It's crazy! All of these people, united together to help support an organization that's trying to kill cancer.
And that live stream is gonna include giveaways and prizes for all you guys, :D
donation incentives, and get this,
probably the most exciting thing of all: the big reveal of a brand new never-before-seen FNaF game
that Scott Cawthon is making specifically for the event! That's not a joke.
A true story: I actually emailed Scott because I know that he's a fan of St. Jude as a charity,
I'm like "Hey, would you like to donate as a part of our livestream,
or do you have something that we could potentially premiere on the livestream?"
As you know, just an incentive for people to watch.
And he told me that he could do me one better.
That he could create for us a game that apparently will have dollar amounts hidden throughout it,
and that the more we find, the more he ends up donating to St. Jude.
So, knowing that this is the game, I assembled the FNAF dream-team
of Dawko and Markiplier to help me out.
Taking that money out of Scott's pockets and putting it in the hands of people who are working to cure kids and kill cancer.
It's gonna be a crazy event.
So please mark your calendars, December 3rd, 10 o'clock A.M., California time
and going literally all day here on this channel, on the Game Theorist channel.
And if you do want to start donating now to this incredible cause,
the link is right here,
here,
here on the video. Yeah...
What's that series, "How to Make FNAF Not Scary"?
Well, guess what?
You can help make cancer not scary. By helping the campaign and donating either today
or during that big livestream event.
Now, enough with me on the couch. Let's get to the episode.
[speech distorts]
nO onE sUSpeCtS ANytHing.
It wiLL be FuN.
Hello Internet!
Welcome to Game Theory,
where today, it's time to meet a new villain because FNAF's next major killer has a face, a voice,
a motive, and we even know their name.
So today is actually gonna be a big one, my friends.
The official game may not be releasing until 2020,
but we're already well  on our way to understanding where this franchise is headed next,
just as long as Scott doesn't shred it, burn it, and mix in another five monochromatic characters
with frontal lobes bit off dreaming on their deathbeds.
You see over the course of October, we saw the release of
FNAF VR Help Wanted's Halloween DLC, The Curse of Dreadbear
which, at this point is getting close to like the longest game title in history.
And despite the game's repeated insistence that this little Fall Fest was purely for fun--
"Keep in mind that this DLC pack is nothing more than a festive holiday themed add-on
which has absolutely no hidden intent or purpose"
We all know that's a complete lie.
One does not simply include casual references to 1983 in a Five Nights at Freddy's game!
And when it comes to Easter eggs, I'm not just talking about one or two things here.
Whether it was the FNAF 4 house perched high on a hill in the background,
trick-or-treating at an animatronic filled mansion, inching your way through FNAF four's haunted hallways,
or just taking a Disney ride that suddenly goes off the rails to revisit a familiar-looking pizzeria,
easter eggs were hidden in every PIXEL of this DLC.
Here's a list of a few that were worth calling out but don't merit a full fledged theory:
First, the masks that you wear for the trick-or-treat minigame are most likely the real-world versions
of the masks that we see the bullies wearing during the Five Nights at Freddy's 4 bite.
This reinforces the idea that in the grand timeline of events,
Freddy Fazbear's pizza was popular enough as a franchise by 1983 to have its own line of Halloween masks.
In other words, It's more evidence to suggest that this location that we see in FNAF 4 isn't the first pizzeria.
It's not the beginning of the timeline.
Point number 2: When you win a minigame
you see posters randomly generated around the walls
The thing is all of these posters have appeared in a previous game: FNAF 6 Pizzeria Simulator
They appear in the alleyways where the salvaged animatronics can be found.
Man-wolf, clown pictures referencing Baby, and Spook-fest
What's particularly interesting though is that Spook-fest one,
which could in fact be referring to the exact fall festival that we're attending.
That poster in particular always felt like a random addition to those alleyway scenes,
and as we know, Scott don't do coincidences.
It's also worth noting that I've seen one playthrough from the channel Johnnyblox that had three clown pictures appear on the walls.
After throwing a dart at each, one the barn suddenly switched over to RAVE MODE,
blacklights on for the party becoming possessed by Golden Freddy.
We can tell that as evidenced by the "It's me" banner hanging over the top of the barn.
Now, I can't confirm whether this is real because he's the only playthrough, I've seen been able to do this
and also spawning three clown pictures randomly is just seemingly impossible odds.
And also, it strikes me as weird because from a lore perspective,
Golden Freddy at this point should be hanging out in the afterlife with our dearly departed William Afton...
But still, it is something that's definitely worth calling out,
and if any of you out there have a means of testing it, go forth and double-check it.
And lastly, during the game over screen,
You see a giant Dreadbear looming over top of the hillside covered in gravestones.
On top of the hill, you can make out what appears to be some sort of purple glitch.
By hacking outside the bounds of the game, Just like the channel KUNOLEO did,
You can see that it's indeed a glitching gravestone
surrounded on all sides by seven normal-looking gravestones.
Now, six gravestones would seem to be a reference to Pizzeria Simulator's gravestone ending,
symbolic of the five murdered children during the missing children's incident
as well as Charlie, the girl who dies and goes on to possess the Puppet. In short, William Afton's six victims.
But then, what's a seventh gravestone doing there?
Well, in my estimation, that one would seem to belong to Michael Afton; His son, and his final and unintentional victim.
Which would suggest that the glitching gravestone is William Afton's grave. It's got the purple color,
It's got itself the glitch, which clearly ties it to Glitchtrap,
but further cementing this is the texture that you see running along the grave
which, while hard to make out, clearly has rabbit ears.
But it's the last and hardest to achieve easter egg that I want to focus on today.
The one that reveals our new killer and start setting up the story that we'll be watching play out over the next few years of games.
You see William Afton has started himself a cult
Let's call it the 'Cult of Glitchtrap.' And it's gonna be our job to rescue the people who’ve fallen under his spell.
Now, if you've been watching over the last few FNAF episodes
I've been talking a lot about how FNAF VR Help Wanted is a passing of the torch;
A sort of reboot for the series, an ushering in of the next generation of stories that this franchise wants to tell.
Stories that, yes, still come from the series's murder-y past, but also move beyond it.
Beyond the timelines. Beyond all its baggage, now with new faces
and new murder to be done. And The Curse of Dreadbear DLC confirms that theory.
:D
Yeah! Ring the bell, my friends!
That's right, I got a FNAF theory correct!
The largest, longest, and quite frankly hardest, minigame of the DLC pack is called Corn Maze,
which has Dayglow Foxy hunting you down as you search for keys in an abandoned maze
filled with what are truly the scariest part of the game:
really loud crows.
*CROWS!* "Oh! Woah, woah ,what the heck was that?!"
"Oh my.. Lordy..."
Sure, you can find one key and  escape,
but if you manage to survive to find all four keys,
suddenly a fifth key spawns in the arena. Purple and glitching, which should already cue you in on what's coming.
This fifth key unlocks a cellar located at the middle of maze,
one that resembles our prize barn except now,
it's all torn up, looking like it's been slowly laid to waste with time...
But there's a sinister gift waiting for us on the table: a white bunny mask with a fleshy almost bloody interior.
We put it on and our breathing slows. We calm down. Our character is suddenly at peace.
[heavy breathing, gradually slowing down]
But there's more. Back in the prize counter, we suddenly have the option of wearing the mask again.
Putting just the mask on doesn't do anything except obstruct your vision, because masks suck.
But if you put it on while holding Glitchtrap,  suddenly someone, a woman, starts to speak.
A woman having a sinister one-way conversation with someone, or something.
I don't think I need to spell this one out for you, right?
She is clearly talking to William, Glitchtrap.
The fact that this conversation requires you to be wearing the mask which represents her,
and holding the rabbit, which represents him, seems to be all the proof that we would need.
But now let's look at specifically what they're saying.
Based on her saying things like: "yes, I have it," "I made it myself," "you would like it,"
she seems to be referring to the bunny mask.
That is her creation. The voice, William, clearly dictated to her
that she needed to create some sort of bunny mask to carry on his tradition of lapin themed murder.
The line "No one suspects anything" clearly seems to indicate that she's been hiding in plain sight,
much like a pizzeria's security guard who's planning to kidnap kids, or as I brought up in a previous theory,
a game tester who's suddenly been brainwashed by a rogue piece of malware,
which leads us to the other lines about there being "no miscommunication,"
"Being ready," and "not letting him down."
Those all seem to indicate that William senses hesitation or fear in the woman about fulfilling on his plan.
This is reinforced by the name of this voiced character.
On Scott’s 'voices.com' page where he tends to hire out actors for their various roles in the game,
the listing was named "reluctant follower."
So this woman is clearly a devotee of Afton, but she's hesitant.
I mean going so far as to actually kidnap kids and, y'know, turn 'em into a remnant soup or something is a lot to ask of...
anyone, honestly. It's also important to note here; The word 'reluctant' doesn't necessarily mean unwilling.
I mean, it can, certainly, but in this case it seems like she's trying to please her master William Afton,
saying things like "I think you would like it" and convincing herself that "this will be fun."
It's not that William has control over her body and is forcing her to do things. She's just nervous to take that final leap.
What this all tells us is that William has been successful in what tape girl warned us about.
That FNAF VR is a Trojan horse. It's carrying the virus that is William Afton.
Now whether that's him as code or AI or it's just his spirit being passed along isn't really important.
What matters is that he's suddenly able to enter the minds of its testers.
It's why we hear the story of Jeremy throughout those FNAF VR tapes,
a man who went crazy and ultimately sliced off his own face.
He was probably starting to slip under the control of Glitchtrap, but tried his best to fight back in whatever way he could.
That's also why every ending of that game is a bad one. The fact that we need the green bunny to hear this dialogue
confirms that all those vague cutscenes at the end of the game are of him escaping.
Because without the tapes, Glitchtrap is still disassembled in the game,
and this dialogue of a brainwashed devotee isn't possible
But what we're also learning here is that while Glitchtrap is able to invade the mind of a person,
he can't fully possess their body. He's limited to only being a voice inside their head.
He has to convince them to do his bidding and continue to push them to fulfill their mission.
Mask girl is scared. She's hesitant.
She's reluctant, and must be cajoled into acting on William's wishes.
She's slowly descending into madness and -- wait a minute. Why does that sound so familiar?
Oh, yeah, because it's one of the upcoming projects that Scott's been teasing for the better part of last year.
It's a pretty accurate title for a game where your villain starts as a normal game tester
but then is forced to listen to the voice in her head telling her to kill.
It's also worth noting that there's a similar conversation currently hidden in the source code of Scott's website.
Except here, We actually see both sides of the conversation...
"Stay the course." "I will." "Focus on my voice." "I will." "Don't let anyone lead you astray." "I won't." "Have you selected one?" "I have..."
That line of "don't let anyone lead you astray" really stands out.
Again, reinforcing this idea that the followers aren't fully under Afton's control. That they can be swayed or saved in some way.
Just like people in a real cult.
It looks like we might be able to save these innocents from Afton's grasp before they commit any sorts of crime this time.
And where will those crimes be happening?
Well a few weeks ago, this was the image on Scott's website.
Just more cool 80s-tastic FNaF teasers for the new game that's coming out in 2020.
But when the full Dreadbear DLC was released, the image got altered slightly to this.
Notice those floppy ears? Looks like our new killer might be on the hunt in the mall.
Looks like 2020 found itself a new female FNAF killer.
And if she's truly working undercover with no one suspecting anything,
clearly she must be a MALL COP!
Segwaying to a murder scene near Spencer's Gifts.
And I would end it there, except we can also figure out her name.
Brightening images, digging through source code? That is so FNAF 1.0. At this point, the series is 5 years old!
It's matured, and the fanbase is matured.
And the way that we're able and perhaps even expected to dig for clues
has gotten significantly more advanced. It's like an arms race.
Scott finds a new way to hide clues, one person in the community breaks the code and suddenly it's in our toolbelt.
Next time he releases something, BOOM. We immediately whip that tool out!
That sounded wrong... Maybe let's not whip out our tools
and instead, smartly and respectfully remove that tool from our toolbelt and apply it to the problem at hand.
Let me give you an example of this.
Brightening images. The first one or two times Scott did this it was completely unique.
No developer had ever really done anything like that before
and as a result, it took a little while to discover his hidden messages,
but after one or two times now we know it's a trick he can use so no one even bothers to look at the image itself
It's just straight into those contrast sliders
The same thing was looking at source code, the same thing with digging through game files and on and on
with each one slightly more complicated than the last.
And now we've unlocked ourselves a brand new clue finding technique
In the source code for Scott's site, the shadow image and its previous form were both named the same thing:
"7_1.FNAF 7, TEASER 1",
nothing too exciting there. But that's only the name that Scott wants us to see
You see, I learned a lot from making an ARG over the last year,
and one of the biggest tricks was that images can be opened as text files
using a program like notepad,
and that the text often reveals a lot of secrets about the history of a given image
Like here, if I open up a JPEG of one of our Minecraft thumbnails,
you can see that it was saved using Adobe Photoshop, even down to the specific version.
You can even see that there are some text layers here and what those text layers are called.
Labeled "Title" "Hard Wood" and "Ouchy Tree". We're very creative with our layer titles.
Anyway, if you open up the first of these two Scott Games image files on the site,
you see that, even though it's called 7_1 in the source code,
its original file name was Glamrock_Fred_Poster. Very cool.
Eat your heart out Stranger Things and American Horror Story,
it's FNAF’s turn to revisit the era of big hair and even bigger shoulder pads
So we know in 2020 in this new game,
we're gonna be introduced to the glam rock animatronics very cool, gnarly, totally tubular?
No that was a 90s thing, wicked? "Wicked" I think was an 80s thing.
Anyway, if you open up the new version of the image, the one with the rabbit shadow,
we see that the true name of the file has been changed
It's no longer "Glamrock Fred Poster"; it now reads "Shadow of Vanny"
So it would seem that Vanny is the new name of our killer?
It's an odd one to be sure but I honestly don't think that's it.
I actually think it's probably a combination of her real name, Vanessa, and her mask, the White Rabbit or "bunny"
Vanessa bunny, Vanny. Just like Willtrap and Mikebot and all the other weird ship names we have in this franchise.
Everytime
So there you have it, my friends. Preview of the coming events in the FNAF Franchise.
It's the story of Vanny, "Vanessa bunny", a normal person driven into madness by the voice of William Afton
talking to her in her head to go out and kill people.
She might be the only one right now
but there could be hundreds out there. A cult of Glitchtrap if you will
following in his bunny toed footsteps and we know
That this is the case based on the fact that glitch trap is still seen dancing in the background of that DLC
He is now apparently able to copy
Himself, it's worth noting that that's an easter egg that was left in, actually overriding an oversized an Dread-Bear.
So, you know that this one's intentional, right?
it says that Glitchtrap is a copy, and that he's able to copy himself over and
over and over again. The Cult of Glitchtrap spreads...
Now we just have to wait. Wait for the next sign of that killer to strike.
Maybe it's in the new book series that starts coming out in December.
Maybe it's in that new game that Scott's sending us on December 3rd for our big St. Jude charity livestream. Who knows?
But in meantime, stay vigilant my friends and remember, it's all just a Theory,
A GAME THEORY
Thanks for watching!
Done, just done.
No more FNAF, it's over!
Done until December 3rd. I'm gonna rip my microphone if I jump off this couch. I'm just gonna lower myself slowly...
Bye...
I’m done...
