Complete Timeline
as of 6/5/2023This is a complete timeline of every event leading up to Poppy Playtime, including earliest known or clearest citations and images. In cases of the ARG, this will link back to my Internet Archive page including ARG items.
* = Used in the case of the Digital Collectible series, as this information may be retconned due to the series' discontinuation and controversy. The webmaster does not support NFT's and understands the creation of them by MOB Entertainment came from a place of unknowing, not of ignorance.Canon Timeline
1930s
1930
- Playtime Co. is founded by Elliot Ludwig
- Elliot is divorced by his wife, Molly Ludwig, for his intense work ethic.
1940s
- Nothing of interest happens around this time.
1950s
1950
- Playtime Co. releases its first (known) product, Poppy Playtime. Poppy became the most popular toy of her time.
- Earliest known period of the factory being open to the public.
1955
- Thomas Clark joins the Playtime Co. team
1960s
No Specific Year
- Elliot Ludwig suffers a death in his family, but pushes through in spite of it. It is unknown exactly which family member died or the exact year in which this occurred.
1960
- At the start of the Swinging Sixties, the Make-A-Friend machine was constructed within the factory.
- April 11th - Rowan Stoll is born.
1961
- Bron is released.
1966
- Boxy Boo is released.
1967
- November 27th - Mentioned in the ARG with the word "BIRTHPLACE". Construction date of the factory?
1970s
1979
- Candy Cat is released.
1980s
1984
- Huggy Wuggy is released, and subsequently outsells Poppy.
1985
- Kissy Missy, the female counterpart to Huggy Wuggy, is released.
1986
- October 20th - Rowan Stoll is brought onto the Playtime Co. team as Head of IT. He signs an NDA stating he will tell no one of what he sees in the factory.
1987
- March 3rd - Madison Tally earns a Certificate of Completion.
- October 25th - Cinderella Garfield earns a Certificate of Completion.
- December 9th - Clifford Lang earns a Certificate of Completion.
1988
- May 9th - A Puzzle Pillar in an unknown location breaks, and Rowan is sent in to repair it, much to his irritation.
1990s
1990
- Railroads linking between the Playtime Co. offices, Theater, and Factory are established. These trains proudly state "60 years" on the sides, indicating they were built in 1990.
- July 24th - Rowan Stoll brings the phone lines back online, adding a holding tune at the end. (In the ARG, the tune has the chords "D#EAD F#ACE A# F#ACADE", the password to unlock the Private Documents folder.)
1991
Strap in, this is gonna be a big one. Cited images will be inline links.- January - A spider-like monster, Mommy Long Legs, is created. She proves to be a psychotic murderer -- aggressive to the staff, but has motherly instincts and is protective towards the other monsters. (Unknown if this is an act of gaslighting, as she menaces Poppy and kills Bunzo and smaller Huggies with no remorse.) She is sent to High Security Maintenance for conditioning and later sent to the Game Station, where she proves to be popular with the children. Toys of her are prototyped throughout the month, going through at least 2 redesigns.
- January 2nd - Patty Hall sabotages a paint machine in an act of defiance against Playtime Co. This causes an entire shipment of toys to be unusable and sent to the Rejected Toys room.
- January 4th - Patty recieves a Notice of Disciplinary Action and is demoted from Toy Designer. She is sent to Storage B and never heard from again, having been killed by the giants in storage.
- February 2nd - A toy based on Mommy Long Legs is put out to market.
- March 20th - Marcas Brickley discovers a mophandle lodged under the Innovation Wing gate. When he goes to remove it, it moves, and on closer inspection, he discovers PJ Pugapillar "doddering about" the room.
- March 21st - Marcas reports the incident to Laith Pierre, who dismisses the incident, stating 'we make toys, not monsters', and tells Marcas that he is out of line.
- March 30th - Rowan Stoll reports an account of a 'creep' hiding nanny cams in Huggy's eyes. Earliest known account of Huggy being present in the podium room.
- May 28th - Rowan follows up with a statement (to cover himself) admitting there may have not been a creep, and that the maintenance person hadn't been taking care of the "statue" Huggy. He states that the statue's eye must have been dangling out the socket. The password that unlocked this section of the ARG was Latin for "They found it from Hell."
- June 20th - A barbecue is planned to be held at 1440 Pitstiper Boulevard (not a real address!). This is the deadline to RSVP for this barbecue.
- July 11th - Rowan's car is tampered with, causing one of his tires to fly out into the interstate. He is under the impression that Laith is trying to kill him, because he knows too much.
- July 15th - Rowan records his final account, at 2:04 AM. Since presumably March 30th, he has had his pension taken away, written up repeatedly. He states that the company has been using its money "to experiment on people", and that he will release all of his evidence (the data from the ARG) a week(?) from then during maintenance. He states that he is going to try to run away afterwards and disappear, but he will probably be killed first, by 'a monster that eats people alive', referring to Boxy. This account contains a password to the next step of the ARG - when translated, it reads "Wait for death."
- Rowan then sends out the letter for help that multiple content creators recieved to kick off the ARG. The letter is addressed to "mama", and gives us the RTP address used to connect.
- Later on in the day, the barbecue from earlier occurs.
- July 20th - Maintenance occurs, and in the 60 minutes where the servers are down, Rowan opens the RTP connection. He is caught and fed to Boxy, dying at 31 and leaving his mother the last known surviving member of his family.
1992
- May 5th - Heyday illustration.
- June 18th to 19th - Huggy escapes the facility. Attempts to sedate him result in 5 killed. 6 others have disappeared.
1995
- August 8th - Kissy is slated to be transported to Playcare from Storage B in the morning. A rogue employee compelled by an unknown force loosens the straps before the train starts. The train loses control and careens towards Playcare, and at 11:00 AM, the train is stopped. The rogue employee undoes the straps and frees Kissy, who proceeds to kill both operating the train.
1997
- Unknown event.
Speculative Timeline or Unclear Events
Playcare's Opening
The year in which Playcare was opened to the public is unknown at the time. Its placement in the factory indicates that it came after the Game Station, and the voice in Chapter 3's teaser trailer indicates that Elliot Ludwig was alive at the time. The earliest that the Game Station is canonically open is 1991, but potentially, it could have been open as far back as 1985 -- Kissy's release date -- as evidenced by the usage of small Huggies in Wack-A-Wuggy (possibly her offspring), as well as Kissy's close connection to trains in general.
Boogie Bot's Release
Boogie Bot's release date is an enigma. In the Digital Collectibles Series, his release date is stated to be 1993*. However, he has appeared in in-universe media that is dated as far back as 1991. It's possible that his release (along with the release of other toys) has been retconned.
The Incident
This is the event that starts off everything that happens in Poppy Playtime. Experiment 1006 escapes from containment and is unable to be found. Afterwards, the rest of the experiments escape and kill a great amount of people, and the Prototype is to blame. The experiments are slated to be taken to a secure location and disposed of, but supposedly, this never ends up happening, as they still live in the factory. Everyone inside the factory is either killed, corralled further down below, or vanished without explanation. 10 years later, the events of Poppy Playtime happen -- us setting off an alarm when Huggy appears, freeing Poppy, killing Mommy, etc. There are no clues as to when this occurs in the timeline, aside from the "10 years ago" on the note accompanying the Poppy VHS tape.
Project Playtime
Project Playtime likely sits within 1991, as shown by the barbecue posters in the Factory map. These posters have an RSVP due date of June 20th and an event date of July 15th.
Toys with Unknown Release Dates
Bunzo and PJ can be assumed to have been made somewhere during or after 1985, as that is when the Game Station (appears to be) established. However, the reject toys have no known creation date.
Bigger Bodies Initiative
It is unknown when the creation of the giants began. The earliest anything related has appeared is 1988 with the Puzzle Pillars, while "Birthplace" is listed with 1967. In addition, the second PJPT VHS refers to Rowan Stoll, as the leader of the project plans to feed him to the box, and it's only around 1988 when Rowan begins doing things. Playtime Co. appears to have an extensive system of railways within and around the factory, used for transporting guests, employees, RES-toys, and giants, and the earliest that a train has been in use may have been back in 1985 -- perhaps even earlier, if the recent RESTRICTED video is of any indication. Even further muddling the timeline, the creation date of the living Poppy (distinctly not very big at all!) is not known.
Elliot's Lifespan
Personally, one of the biggest mysteries of the series is just how old Elliot is, or if he's even alive at certain points of the story. He appears to go silent after a specific point, and Laith calls all the shots afterwards -- perhaps he had died at some point, either by old age/natural causes or killed by one of the experiments, and the factory kept it secret, similar to myths of Walt Disney secretly being cryopreserved. It's even possible that he never died at all -- his body may be preserved in the same fashion as the giants, but he is unable to speak for one reason or another. The latest known date he is known to be alive is linked to Playcare's opening date, as we can hear his voice announcing in the Chapter 3 teaser trailer.
Bunzo Subplot
The Bunzo sideplot has no date, only timespans -- this particular Bunzo is trapped in the hole for 30 days. Based on the factory appearing abandoned, it's likely this comic series was penned (by the Bunzo who stars in it) in the time span between Playtime Co.'s closure and the original Poppy Playtime's events.
Bron's Restoration
The date on which RESTRICTED_Restoration takes place is also in flux. However the presence and absence of specific toys as well as certain sounds may help to pin down specifically when this occurs. The latest toy to appear in the room with Bron is PJ Pugapillar (two of them!), the latest known experiment in the room is the Huggies, and there are the sounds of a train running as the research team member runs in to retrieve the wounded dinosaur toy. Bunzo is absent from the room, but there is a Bunzo in the process of being "stuffed" in the background, and Mommy Long Legs is completely absent from the video. This indicates the video must have been created around the time the Game Station and railways were established, but before Mommy's creation - which was right at the start of 1991. This puts the video's date between 1985 and 1990. The only other mentions of time include "six months ago" which was when Thomas Clarke, the test subject, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and had his body "stuffed" into Bron, and 12 hours, which is about how long it took to stabilize Bron's vitals after the attack. The camera in his room has been running for 6 hours.