Escape From Playtime

Poppy Playtime is a first person survival-horror video game where the player plays as an unnamed ex-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. 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 2005, 10 years after the shutdown of a toy production company called 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's lobby, the employee encounters what appears to be a giant statue of a Playtime Co. toy called Huggy Wuggy before the power goes out. Though the employee restores it, they find that the Huggy 'statue' has disappeared. Progressing deeper into the factory, Huggy emerges from a hallway and chases them in the vents before they send him falling to his apparent death at the bottom of the factory.

Originally starting out as a Kickstarter campaign, the idea of Poppy Playtime was originally thought of by game director Isaac Christopherson, stating that people called most indie horror games "walking simulators", giving Mob Entertainment the idea to "create something with gameplay that doesn't feel quite so run-of-the-mill, while still staying exciting, terrifying, and unique". 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. A trailer for the game's first chapter was uploaded in September 2021.

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.

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. It was nominated for the "Most Stream-friendly Game" award at the 2022 Indie Live Expo Awards in Japan.

Poppy Playtime was well-received upon release, with praise for its atmosphere, story, and character design; some considered the game's short length contributed to its popularity. The game has been compared to the Five Nights at Freddy's and Bendy franchises, with Screen Rant's Austin Geiger calling Poppy Playtime "more engaging" than Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach. Chapter 2 received mixed reviews, praised for voice acting and ending, but criticized for bugs and performance issues. Mob Entertainment issued an apology and rolled out patches.