Without any real appearance and only a voice to trust, Poppy Playtime: Chapter 3‘s new character Ollie is certainly quite the enigma.
Poppy Playtime often introduces loads of different enemies to face and allies to believe in with every entry, but Chapter 3 of the mascot horror series takes the cake. With a ton of new characters and monsters to get to know, it can get rather confusing who you’re actually meant to trust. The lore is getting quite interesting and there may be more truths to uncover surrounding the Ollie and Prototype mystery.
Poppy Playtime: Chapter 3: Who is Ollie?
Players are led down a path through each Poppy Playtime chapter. Objectives are often given by a supposed ally. These “allies” are often voiced by an innocent child. While Poppy guided you through Chapter Two and appears in Chapter 3, Ollie is actually the “voice” behind the operations this time around.
Because Poppy is busy helping Kissy Missy in this chapter, Ollie guides you around the facility instead. We can confirm Ollie and Poppy have an allegiance and from there, we can assume that Poppy is a good character… right?
So who exactly is Ollie? Without a face to match his voice, Ollie appears as an observer, guiding the protagonist to each point of interest inside the Playcare. He suggests what is and isn’t safe in the endeavor and can aid the protagonist by dropping in resources like keys and battery packs via the pipework. This would imply Ollie is at the heart of the Playcare, controlling the Playcare’s core mainframe.
So when the power suddenly goes out after transferring the red smoke at the beginning of Chapter 3, who could have possibly been the one to tamper with this? Ollie is a suspect as he has power that dictates he can not only observe the protagonist via the camera system but is also capable of sending things down to the player to help him. Ollie doesn’t warn the protagonist about the red smoke either, even though the tape recordings and opening cutscene point towards the nefarious side effects when inhaling the mass.
The question comes down to whether Poppy and Ollie are the good guys. Perhaps Poppy only knows Ollie through his voice, much like the protagonist. But we can confirm Ollie has yet to show his physical appearance. We can also confirm Ollie isn’t a Smiling Critter as DogDay was the last one alive before he was overrun by small Smiling Critters that seem to do CatNap’s bidding.
Poppy Playtime: Our theories on Ollie’s identity
The tapes identify Theo as CatNap, one of the Orphanage experimentations. While the Prototype has a separate voice actor in Chapter 3, perhaps the Prototype’s voice is adjusted to a friendlier, more trustworthy pitch.
The Prototype has also watched the protagonist since Chapter One, gathering parts of Huggy Wuggy, Mommy Long Legs, and CatNap (all Playcare experiments). We guess the Prototype will eventually become an amalgamation of Playcare monsters you’ve defeated across the chapters, alongside the presumably killed Smiling Critters.
Poppy states the Prototype must be stopped for torturing the toys and the protagonist. A personal theory is the Prototype is both Ollie (altered voice to keep his identity hidden and to trick the protagonist) and Elliot Ludwig, the founder of Playtime Co. In fact, “Ollie” can be plucked straight out of “Elliot” just by removing the ‘T’ and rearranging letters.
My theory is Ollie is the voice, the Prototype is the body, and Elliot Ludwig is the mind. I believe that either the protagonist is Elliot Ludwig and the Prototype is acting like him, or Ludwig gave his mind to live forever.
Both the Prototype and Ludwig have a caring nature towards the Orphanage children, including the twisted experiments. With the radio recording in the nightmare section of Chapter 3 revealing that a child was killed at Ludwig’s home (with organs and bones missing) maybe Ludwig’s collection of parts even began earlier than the creation of Prototype.
