When a mysterious new YouTube channel titled “Petscop” premiered on March 11, 2017, no one knew what it was. From what people could tell, the channel followed a young man named Paul whose “Let’s Play” series featured a fictional, unfinished PlayStation 1 game called “Petscop.”
Supposedly, Paul found the game lying around one day with a strange note attached. Though he never elaborates on where or how, he does claim to make the videos to prove to a friend that the game is indeed real. The “Petscop” series currently rests at a total of 24 “episodes,” but it doesn’t take a dark and creepy turn until “Petscop 2,” the second episode.
Even to this day, the story of “Petscop” is heavily debated among its fanbase. Even other YouTube channels such as Game Theory and Nightmare Masterclass have taken on the challenge of attempting to explain the mystery of “Petscop.”
Sure, one can instantly recognize the light-hearted Pokemon style of the surface game’s main menu. Beneath its cutesy facade, however, there’s no denying that the true nature of “Petscop” leaves viewers disturbed.
Beginning in a dimension known as “The Gift Plane,” the player character must walk to a building called “Even Care.” While inside, the player’s goal is to capture colorful creatures called “pets” by completing puzzles.
After inputting a strange code in the room of a pet called Roneth, the music cuts out entirely and Paul’s character walks outside to reveal he is in an entirely new dimension dubbed “The Newmaker Plane.”
As “Petscop 2” begins, the dark side of “Petscop” is revealed. With components such as dim lighting, sparse music, random censorship, unsettling dialogue and other spooky nuances, any initial perceptions of the game are forgotten. If that wasn’t creepy enough, one of the first things Paul stumbles upon is the grave of a dead child named Mike.
Over the course of the next 22 videos, Paul and viewers of the channel start to pick up on the subtle, yet ominous themes of the game. That said, there are several speculations as to what the full underlying meaning could be.
Originally, people drew a parallel to the true horrifying story of Candace Newmaker, a young girl who died in 2000 from a therapeutic exercise called “rebirthing.” Candace’s adoptive mother hired an unlicensed therapist to simulate a birth with Candance which caused asphyxiation.
Another related theory is that “Petscop” is an artificial intelligence (AI) training simulator. In the game, there is evidence of a battle between the character Marvin, a cold-blooded murderer and abductor, and the game’s creator, Rainer, who seeks to punish him.
In this sense, AIs are trained to think like Marvin to catch him and think like the other dead children to find out what happened to them.
Although no one knows for sure the real meaning behind “Petscop” or the channel, this series will certainly give you the creeps.
