YouTube darling – and indie filmmaker – Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach is over the Poppy’s Playtime series. After a five hour playthrough of Poppy Playtime: Chapter 5, Markiplier ended his stream with a brutal review of the game, expressing his disappointment with the series and stating that he’s unlikely to play the next chapter.
In most playthroughs, Markiplier will round off the video with his thoughts on the game, which are generally positive with a sprinkling of constructive criticism. For the fifth chapter of Poppy Playtime, he held nothing back in his negative opinions (though he admitted that may have been fueled by hunger).
Markiplier is done with Poppy Playtime
Starting off by complimenting the art design, Markiplier (who recently released his film based on the game Iron Lung) quickly launched into his issues with the game, beginning with, “this was a f**king mess”. He continued, explaining that he “can be more forgiving of things finding its footing” when it’s the first game in a series, but that issues with cohesion in plot and character in chapter five is too much.
The main issues for Markiplier in Poppy Playtime Chapter 5 was the lack of a cohesive plot and the constant chase sequences throughout the gameplay. Starting with the plot, he explained that at this point in the story, it should be clear, “when you’re playing a game, you should know why A is connected to B and then C”.
“This is chapter f**king five, right? I should know the motivation very clearly, I should know where I’m going, I should know why I’m going to it, I should know exactly what the character motivations are.”
Endless chase sequences
Chase sequences were Markiplier’s biggest point of contention in Poppy Playtime Chapter 5, as he complained “holy f**k, half the entire game was chase sequences”.
“I do not like my gameplay to be trial and error. Every time it did it, the stakes were lower, right? That’s really the issue I have… because it’s doing it again and again, it suddenly has to introduce ‘oh there’s a new thing in here’. A chase sequence is not the time to introduce a new mechanic!”
“In a chase sequence, as soon as you die, it loses all its value”.
Community reactions
Despite Poppy Playtime Chapter 5’s ‘very positive’ review status on Steam, fellow streamers and fans of the series have been receptive to Markiplier’s criticism.
CaseOh reacted to Markiplier’s video, saying “I could not agree more, the worst part of Poppy Playtime is the gameplay by far”, especially when it comes to the chases. “When you die eighteen times to a chase sequence in a video game, at that point, it’s just making you mad, and you lost the anticipation of the chase”.
Social media has been mixed on their own reactions to Chapter 5, but plenty of users have joined Markiplier in his take on the game.
Markiplier has received tens of millions of views on his playthroughs of Poppy Playtime (his video of the first game currently sits at 23 million views), which gives his statement to stop playing the games some weight. While he could always change his mind in the future, the mounting frustration Markiplier has had over the years with Poppy Playtime makes this decision feel very final.
