When I started playing the first installment of episodic first-person horror game Poppy Playtime back in 2021, I thought it might be just yet another Five Nights At Freddy's-alike.
I was quickly proven wrong thanks to some top-notch voice acting, inventive puzzle-solving systems, and excellent character design.
It may have a lot in common with many of the jump scare-fueled streamer-bait games that Steam is bursting at the seams with, but Poppy Playtime is pretty successful at doing its own thing.
Its fourth chapter, Safe Haven, launches today, and takes you deeper into the Playtime factory than ever before. Call it Hell, call it Toy Prison, call it whatever you like: it's a place «where the devil never sleeps,» as some graffiti scrawled on the wall informed me when I played a bit of Chapter 4 this week.
It's a deeply unsettling sub-sub-sub basement of the factory, where discarded toys are piled so high they seem to form mountain ranges and it feels like tiny button eyes are watching you everywhere you go.