Poppy Playtime Chapter 5: Broken Things review

Welcome back to the factory, friends. Returning to Mob Entertainment’s iconic episodic horror game has, in a way, become its own annual holiday, with a new chapter arriving each year and dragging us deeper into the depths of Playtime Co.’s depravity. After the climactic ending to Chapter 4 and the recent release of the Restricted Tapes ARG, the hype for the next entry is greater than ever. Luckily, Poppy Playtime Chapter 5: Broken Things does not disappoint.

As usual, Chapter 5 begins with a retro commercial for a new Playtime Co. toy – this time, it’s the Wrongside Outimals, which are odd little plush toys that change form when you turn them inside out. However, the trailer quickly begins to warp, as the footage flickers between bright, colorful shots of children and dark, grim clips of an unknown figure dissecting and dismembering a variety of other plush toys.

Soon, we begin to see blood and flesh-like matter mixed in with the fabric and stuffing, before the trailer ends with a still shot of two haunting, Frankenstein-esque toys sitting amongst an array of medical tools.

Before you even get the chance to digest what you just saw, you’re back in the factory, picking up from the exact spot where the last chapter left off – staring down a very angry and, apparently, very alive Huggy Wuggy. It doesn’t take long for his relentless bashing to break through the metal and glass of the door that separates you. It’s time to run.

What follows is one of those iconic, tight chase sequences that Poppy Playtime has come to be known for. It’s relatively short, but it definitely has a few ‘make one mistake and you’re doomed’ moments, and, having taken nearly a year-long break following my Poppy Playtime Chapter 4 review, it took me a moment to get into the swing of things again. It’s perhaps the most intense introductory sequence out of all of the chapters so far, and certainly sets the scene for what’s to come.

Broken Things sees you delve deeper into the Poppy Playtime factory, predominantly taking place through a series of labs and experimentation rooms where Playtime Co. created, conditioned, and experimented on the living toys. Shortly after you enter this area, Huggy makes another appearance, stripping you of your GrabPack and leaving you (quite literally) unarmed.

Luckily, you quickly pair up with a friendly Wrongside Outimal called Giblet and his mumbling companion Chum Chompkins, who help you locate a new GrabPack and get your plans back on track. However, it’s not just the twisted, feral Wrongside Outimals and Huggy Wuggy you need to worry about. The Prototype is still closing in on you, and, if you want to make it through Sweet Street (and, hopefully, reunite with Poppy), you need to face the morbidly maniacal Lily Lovebraids first.

I won’t delve into the story too much for fear of spoiling any big surprises, but I have to say that the narrative and overall direction of this chapter feel better than ever. Rather than spreading itself too thin like the previous chapter, Broken Things is relatively sparing with its new character and toy introductions. This gives it the space to explore Lily’s lore in a more thorough and satisfying way while also leaving plenty of room for progressing other characters’ stories, before building up to a jaw-dropping climax.

Speaking of which, yes, there’s definitely going to be a Chapter 6. Chapter 5 certainly has some huge reveals and ties together some threads and theories we’ve been pondering for years, but it also ends on another highly gripping cliffhanger, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Now, onto the gameplay. As I mentioned above, pretty early on in the chapter you lose your GrabPack. Before you get a new one, you manage to pick up a neat little tool called Glowby to tide you over. This adorable, star-shaped companion has multiple uses, acting as a flashlight, a blacklight that reveals hidden UV messages and doodles, and more.

Glowby also appears to be sentient, as the cute little face on its screen changes depending on your current situation, notifying you of those aforementioned hidden messages, grinning at you when you pick up a collectible, grimacing in fear when a threat is nearby, and even reacting to certain conversations you have with other characters.

While all of this is very cool, with the blacklight in particular opening up some fun puzzles and mechanics, I’d say that Glowby’s best feature is its ability to play audio tapes on the go. Tapes have always played an important role in Poppy Playtime’s story, but one of my biggest frustrations with this system in the previous chapter is how they negatively affect the game’s flow.

Where they used to focus on video footage, a lot of Chapter 4’s tapes were audio only, featuring nothing but a static image on the screen. This, combined with the fact that a lot of those tapes are quite long, brought the game to a grinding halt, forcing you to stand near the TV and VHS player and wait around in order to remain within listening range. As such, Glowby acting as a portable cassette player is a small but very welcome quality of life upgrade that really helps the flow and overall feel of the gameplay.

Of course, Glowby’s not the only new addition to the game’s mechanics, either. After hunting down a new GrabPack, you also pick up two new hand attachments. The first is the steam hand, which you can hold to charge up a meter, building steam pressure in the process. You can use this to break or launch specific items, or to power up several new mechanisms. The second new addition to your arsenal is the conductive hand, which you can charge by grabbing conductive panels, allowing you to pick up fire, ice, or electricity, then apply that charge to other objects. On top of that, you get a pair of magnetic cuffs that allow you to grapple onto certain surfaces without the need for bars.

The steam and conductive hands add a new dimension to the puzzles you face throughout the chapter, resulting in some fun moments. One second, you’re juggling your regular hand and your steam hand to move platforms and power up pressure machines, the next you’re using your conductive hand to burn through fabric and restore power to door panels. You can even use your conductive hand to freeze oozing piles of mystery goo, then switch to your conductive hand to blow them up.

While most aren’t particularly complex, I really enjoyed the puzzles in Chapter 5 and found them much more satisfying than the past two chapters. I didn’t find myself stuck for too long at any point, but there are a few sequences with some pretty tricky timings that took me a couple of attempts to pull off, and I often found myself reflecting on puzzles I’d just completed with a fond “that was clever” or “oh, I really like how that system worked!”

While Broken Things remains quite linear, it does have a lot more hidden areas and secrets than previous chapters, often tucked away behind optional puzzles. In addition to the notes, cassettes, and a handful of VHS tapes, the novelty collectibles also make their return, feeling more robust than in previous entries. Alongside a few of those familiar golden statues, you can also collect various (mercifully, not blood-thirsty) Wrongside Outimals, along with some other surprises. You can even examine them to reveal ‘hidden information’, giving you a little more insight into the stories surrounding these odd little critters.

I really love these extra bits, as they’re mostly unnecessary when it comes to your understanding of the chapter, but they reward you for taking the time to explore every corner of each location. And, believe me, these locations are worth exploring. While a lot of the lab areas feel quite clinical and stripped back, there’s so much visual storytelling here, as well as some truly horrifying secrets that really highlight the cruelty of the experiments and brainwashing that Playtime Co. was carrying out.

Then, before you can get too tired of the sterile hallways and horrifying machines, you find yourself passing through a twisted play park and arriving at what feels like a giant doll’s house full of fake walls and manic laughter. The vibes and visuals are on point throughout, and Lily’s house just might be my favorite Poppy Playtime location to date.

Of course, this wouldn’t be Poppy Playtime if there weren’t any chilling chases and gruesome games. In addition to the initial Huggy chase, you get a few more tense moments with him, as well as a particularly tricky segment where you must avoid him as you charge three door panels. It feels like a more polished (and slightly more difficult) version of the Yarnaby sequence in Chapter 4, as you sneak around a pretty tight room with very few hiding spots, locating and dragging these massive batteries back to the door while avoiding Huggy’s line of sight or using projectors to distract him.

Beyond that, Lily also forces you to play along with her games for a while, including a very twitchy game of ‘Red Light, Green Light’, and a few very unforgiving chases. The chapter also culminates in a pretty intense, multi-phase chase sequence shortly before its end, which really gets your blood pumping. Sometimes, each of these chases and games can feel a little unfair with their failstates, but the familiarly robust autosave system ensures that you don’t lose too much progress when you die, so it’s not all bad.

As always, the audio here is an absolute treat, with a brilliant balance of atmospheric sounds and subtle backing tracks to heighten the atmosphere. The voice acting is brilliant across the board, though Lily Lovebraids really steals the show here. She artfully switches between that bright, sanitized, children’s show voice, manic, unhinged laughter, and primal screeches, all of which really push her character to the next level.

Performance-wise, I can easily say that this is the most polished chapter to date. As much as I hate to admit it, previous chapters have all come with a plethora of bugs and performance issues on launch, with some even rendering the game unplayable prior to fixes, but I was truly impressed with just how smooth everything was this time around. Throughout my entire playthrough, I didn’t encounter any noticeable bugs, glitches, stuttering, or any of the familiar hiccups I’ve come to expect. With such a short turnaround between chapters, it’s really impressive to see Chapter 5 launch in such a brilliant state, and the devs should be very proud of the work they put in here.

For the purpose of this review, I played on PC via Steam, so I can’t speak to the performance on Nintendo Switch or handheld platforms at the moment. But, as far as the Steam version goes, everything runs like a dream. Of course, we’ll be sure to update this review with comments on the portable version as soon as the Poppy Playtime Chapter 5 Switch release date rolls around, so be sure to check back then.

Overall, Poppy Playtime Chapter 5 is the most polished entry yet, introducing some fresh and enjoyable mechanics, several welcome quality of life improvements, a more focused, finely tuned narrative, and the best performance to date. It encapsulates everything that makes Poppy Playtime one of the best horror games of recent years, and, if Mob Entertainment can keep up this momentum, I’ve got great expectations for Chapter 6.