Petscop Returns From Hiatus With the 11th Episode

After a curious seven-month hiatus, this year’s creepypasta and alternate reality game sensation Petscop has finally returned with an all new episode.

For those of you who are not familiar with the series, Petscop is a paranormal web series about a Let’s Play video blogger named Paul, the main protagonist and the narrator of the story, playing a mysterious Playstation game that starts out as a seemingly innocent and dull “pet rescue” puzzle game, but quickly spirals into an addictive and genuinely discomforting creepypasta when he uncovers a vast, dark underworld hidden in the game’s files.

Between its premiere in March and May, a total of ten episodes were released on the official Petscop YouTube channel, taking hundreds of thousands of viewers through a rabbit hole of cryptic markers, deeply esoteric puzzles and a creeping sense that Paul was somehow meant to play this game. Then in June, at the height of its suspenseful story arc and buildup of anticipations, the YouTube channel abruptly went on a hiatus. For several months, nary a peep was heard from Paul about the future of the series, keeping the ravenous fans and amateur detectives on the edge of their seats. In early October, Paul broke his silence with a very short update on Twitter, but its terseness was even more maddening:

soon

— Petscop (@PetScop) October 4, 2017

Then yesterday, on the day of Christmas, Paul finally released the long-awaited eleventh episode of the series.

There are a few things immediately noticeable about the latest release. First, the episode is nearly half-hour in run time, almost double the length of the previous longest episode in the season thus far. Secondly, the YouTube description reads:

"Everything we wish to say is below:
The purpose of this YouTube channel is to preserve and display the recordings within the video game "Petscop" while keeping some of their content private.
They were first given to us as a Christmas gift, many years ago. The game had an interesting journey, before and after that day.
Paul created some additional recordings in 2017 as a way to show Petscop gameplay to his friend. He created this account in order to upload those additional recordings in video format. He later passed ownership of the channel to us, but continued to record himself at our strong suggestion. Though he had issues with the arrangement, these have finally been settled.
Please enjoy the recordings in Petscop! We do. :)

Prior to this video, the only Petscop episode which had any description was the first one, which simply read "The game I found." In Petscop lore, this confirms that somebody other than Paul is controlling the channel, a theory which had been hinted to in prior videos when certain items in the game were censored with no explanation. Who is controlling the channel, and for what purpose, are questions still unanswered.

Another question raised by Episode 11 is just who is Paul and is he safe? Episode 11 breaks a few established conventions of the series thus far. Paul had spoken to the “friend” mentioned in the description for Episode 11 prior, but here his narration seems focused solely towards his friend, which is unsettling, particularly in a moment where Paul talks about a girl who is “exactly his age,” “went missing,” of whom he has no recollection. Additionally, the episode breaks the fourth wall a bit when scenes seem to repeat themselves with slight alterations and the series shows long “demo” sequences which are not narrated in which the player-character interacts with as-yet unseen locations.

Not surprisingly, the Petscop fandom is baffled. /r/Petscop has already gotten to work dissecting the details of the episode, analyzing unread text, loading screens, Paul's narration and anything that might proffer a clue as to just where exactly this series is going. A top thread left in the wake of the video discusses the significance of Paul typing in all-lowercase letters.

As with any good mystery series, the latest Petscop installment raises more questions than it answers. As frustrating as the seven-month between episodes has been, the game is afoot, and the mystery of Petscop grows deeper.