Who is Ollie in Poppy Playtime?

Without any real appearance and only a voice to trust, Poppy Playtime‘s Ollie is certainly quite the enigma.

Poppy Playtime often introduces different enemies to face and allies to believe in with every entry, but there’s something odd about Chapter 4. While our eyes have been squinting with suspicion on Ollie since his arrival in the third chapter, Deep Sleep, Mob purposely removed his name from the ally list in their gameplay trailer on Jan. 25. So what does this mean?

If you’re confused about who you can actually trust in Poppy Playtime, here is everything we know about Ollie.

Poppy Playtime: 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 2 and appears in the third, Ollie is actually the “voice” behind the operations throughout Deep Sleep. Help from allies expands in Safe Haven as Doey the Doughman joins the fray, wary of Poppy due to her disappearance during The Hour of Joy and after.

But what remains a constant is Poppy, Kissy Missy, and Ollie’s participation throughout Safe Haven. VHS tapes show the bond between Ollie and Poppy, alongside a clear display of trust between the pair. But can we fully trust this? The narrative continues to point out that Poppy Playtime may not be telling us the complete truth about her role in The Hour of Joy, but is this to switch the narrative onto Poppy and deter us away from The Prototype and Doctor?

First impressions tell us Ollie doesn’t have a physical form. Instead, we only hear his voice calling through the telephone we obtained in Deep Sleep. He clearly has the access to move around the facility with ease, however, similar to Doey. He suggests what is and isn’t safe 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 Playtime, controlling Playcare’s mainframe, making him the most influential character in Poppy Playtime.

Suspicions arise when the power goes out after transferring the red smoke at the beginning of Deep Sleep. Who didn’t warn The Player about the red smoke and who could have tampered with this? Ollie The final hint to his evil nature is that Ollie (by himself) helped us fix the generator, where (shortly following this) The Prototype attacked Safe Haven, killing many innocents. 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 Playcare, knowing it like the back of his hand (if he has one).

Is Ollie the Prototype?

Simply put, yes. Ollie and The Prototype are confirmed to be one and the same. The ending of Safe Haven reveals Ollie was playing us and Poppy all along. His child-like voice shifts and distorts, returning to its rightful owner of The Prototype. We knew Experiment 1006 could learn and mimic voices as he did this with Harley Sawyer (creator of the Bigger Bodies Initiative), who’s still using Sawyer’s “get up” to motivate and control experiments.

The revelation shocks Poppy, showing a side to her we haven’t seen before. Terrified of being put back in the glass container that held her for a decade, The Prototype manipulates her to leave her friends to die once again. She wonders if Ollie was ever real to begin with, being a companion Poppy put her trust in for many years. But The Prototype confirms Ollie did exist many years ago. We theorize the real Ollie was alive before The Hour of Joy, where The Prototype killed and mimicked his voice to get close to Poppy.

While we have confirmation that The Prototype is Ollie, there’s still the question of whether Experiment 1006 is more than this. Capable of mimicking anyone, there’s the added possibility that he’s also stolen Elliot Ludwig’s (founder of Playtime Co.) voice. This would give him power over Poppy and a knowledge of Playtime like no other. “Ollie” can be plucked straight out of “Elliot” just by removing the ‘T’ and rearranging letters and we have proof that Poppy is Ludwig’s deceased daughter (heard in the untitled tape).

My theory remains that 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. With Ollie’s identity revealed in Chapter 4, we will have to wait for the fifth installment to finally uncover the true identity of The Prototype.