The LGBT episode was a surprisingly dark and sad episode about how LGBT characters aren't usually treated in a positive light and the ones that do end up either overshadowed by the large amount of those who aren't or censored outright. Not helping is that MatPat said he wanted to do a "fun little episode" before he stumbled upon the portrayals of LGBT characters.
While mostly heartwarming and sweet, MatPat's Draw My Life gets a little depressing when he talks about his failed dream of wanting to be an actor.
His theory that the Super Smash Bros. series is the story of the life of Masahiro Sakurai. Doubles as Heartwarming, given his usual jabs at Nintendo.
One theory suggests that the reason Bowser keeps kidnapping Princess Peach is because Bowser was an orphan, and wants to provide his son and 7 adopted children with a mother so that they won't grow up with his sad life.
The theory of Josh suffering undiagnosed schizophrenia while being treated for depression (and one of the medications is expressly pointed out as being disfavoured as side-effect heavy).
MatPat: In a game that prides itself on choice for its characters, Josh had no choice. Schizophrenia is tied very closely to genetics, so he had no choice to get the disorder in the first place. Josh had no choice when placed in the hands of experts who misjudged and mistreated his condition. He was passed out and had no choice when the rest of the group pulled a prank that would ultimately kill his two younger sisters and even in death he has no choice. You as the player can not save him no matter what you do. There is no happy ending for Josh; he was doomed from the start. In a game all about choice, probably the biggest one that you can have is forgiving Josh, looking beyond his actions, the awful things that he did, and choosing to save his life, recognizing him for the young man in need of help. But you can't do that. Look at it this way; Until Dawn is a big metaphor for the true monster that is psychological disorder. It strikes randomly, has no mercy and gives you no chance of escape. No chance to run and hide. The true villain of the game is Doctor Hill and the system that didn't know enough, or simply didn't care enough, to give Josh the help that he so desperately needed. Now that is truly a horror game.
Before the W.D. Gaster video, MatPat talks about how his previous two Undertale videos (Sans is Ness and giving the Pope Undertale) were simultaneously two of the episodes he was most excited to make...and two of the most hated, leading to sleepless nights over deeply erroneous claims made by critics of the latter video and a fear of making another Undertale video.
And let's face it, MatPat, as someone who does this theory thing for a living, has likely developed a thick skin, enough to ignore these things. So to see him visibly upset over what seems like such a small thing is heartbreaking.
The first Petscop episode. It ends on a heartwarming note, however, with MatPat reminding viewers to tell someone that they love them and how important they are. That being said, the second Petscop episode brings even darker (and sadder) concepts, as it covers several cases of murder and how tragedy can turn someone into a completely broken being inside the game.
While unrelated to Game Theory's YouTube channel, this post on the subreddit asking for a theory regarding Legend of Mana may give you a teary eye.
For people who don't wanna click — The OP's friend passed away due to a brain tumor. She had been a big fan of Gajin Goomba's videos on the channel. Her friend's dying wish is to find out the origins of the player characters, and the male/female sprites.
MatPat: However, in Close Your Eyes, the "Best Ending" is the one in which everyone keeps their eyes closed. As the adage goes, "Ignorance is bliss" and, while it's not an adage I often agree with, when it comes to a hopeless situation and a permanently ruined world, perhaps, it is truly best to remain in the dark, blind to the horrors that exist outside, perhaps the best thing you can do in those sorts of situations is exactly what the game's title tells you: close your eyes and THAT, perhaps, is the scariest part of this whole game."
Mat's proposal to Steph is this in a happy way. Though the video is unlisted, you can still view it using this link
On July 25th, MatPat talking about the unfortunate news regarding Ronnie "Oni" Edwards. As a bit of a warning for those who are sensitive regarding the subject, Matthew reveals that Ronnie committed suicide in his own apartment. You can clearly hear Mat's voice cracking as he talks about it and trying his hardest to not cry in front of the camera.
Austin's research on tuberculosis in his review of Red Dead Redemption 2 ends with a moving message that we should be able to work out as hard as we can to combat against tuberculosis and help each other as best as we can to make "not just a better world for us, but for those who are gonna come after we're gone." The video ends with a clip of the game's protagonist, Arthur Morgan, watching the sunrise on the mountaintopas he breathes his last due to the effects of tuberculosis in one of the High Honor endings, and a total number of deaths by the disease on the counter reaching "36", the same number as Arthur's age at the time of his death.
In what was suppose to be his last Bendy and the Ink Machine theory, he theorized that the game ended up being a story that Joey Drew made up, and all of the things that happened in the game was just Joey's iteration of the rise and fall of his company. Mat saw the letters that Joey wrote to former employees as asking for forgiveness in his actions, including Henry, who brings his daughter over so Joey can feel like he has a family. Everything seemed like it had a happy ending. Then a theorist named Dream Fisher posted their own thoughts and theories, Mat decided to look into this and make one last theory for the game. In the video he talks about how he went into the games files, finding an unused voice line for Henry, confirming that the developers were going to make Joey the ink demon. But the most surprising thing he found was a newspaper article titled "Local Artist Pushed Himself Too Hard, Found Dead At Desk" which you can only see via hacking the game, the only known artist in the game is Henry. What Mat think happened is that Joey Drew reached out to the other employees, some, like Allison and Wally, declined, but others, like Bertrum Piedmont and Henry himself, accepted, and what ultimately happened to everyone who accepted is that they all got sacrificed to the ink machine, and everyone else who declined was lucky enough to survive. But after Henry's soul was sacrificed to the machine his body still remained, Joey couldn't put him in a coffin because unlike the other victims, he had a family, a family who would become worried about Henry just suddenly disappearing. So what Joey did was put Henry's body with his desk, to make it seem like he pushed himself too hard. In the end, Joey won, and due to his line of "you should've pushed a little harder", was still evil, doing anything to revive his company. Meaning that Mat's last theory was completely wrong, Henry never got a happy ending, Joey never became good, and the story was just purgatory for Henry, who had to go through the loop over and over again. The worst part about this is that most of Mat's other theories are for fun, but in this one he LEGITIMATELY thinks that this is what happened and this is how the story ends. Poor Henry...
Another case of Harsher in Hindsight is his The Binding of Isaac theory on the fate of the title character. He speculated that the entire game is really an elaborate fantasy Isaac has constructed for himself to escape his abusive home life. Matt speculates that, among the game's multiple endings, Isaac either dies and manages to find peace in death, or manages to overcome the religious guilt he's been brought up with, accepts his flaws, and escapes from his abusive household, finally breaking free. With the release of Afterbirth+, however, we've learned that the truth is much sadder: the game is an elaborate fantasy, but it's not an escape; it's the result of Isaac going insane and hallucinating as he slowly suffocates inside his toy chest. Rather than accepting that he's sinful and overcoming that religious guilt, Isaac sees himself as a demon responsible for his family breaking up and so locked himself inside his chest to commit suicide. He didn't run away, he locked himself away to die. And The Forgotten, a character released in Booster Pack 5, also discredit's Matt's theory. Isaac died in that chest and was in there for so long that, by the time his mother found him, all there was were desiccated bones. The Forgotten is Isaac's soul bound to his reanimated skeleton. And since he's still running through the same fantasy world over and over again, it's proof that poor Isaac will never find peace, not even in death.
"The Tragedy of Minecraft's Sunken Tomb (The Drowned)" theorises that the Drowned were part of an ancient civilisation collapsed in a flood, and describes their fruitless attempts to find the Heart of the Sea:
MatPat: This was their hope! To find the mysterious and super-rare Heart of the Sea object. The one thing they believed could save them. And with the waters quickly rising into their homes, there was no place left to turn. No other solution. They had to find this object, myth or otherwise! So they sent out their ships by the hundreds, carrying their maps and fishing gear. Desperately searching the waves. Knowing that the lives of their loved ones hang in the balance! As you can imagine, many aren't able to survive the journey.
You'll notice that there are many shipwrecks sprinkled around the bottom of the ocean. Broken husks of boats that contain those treasure maps. Ships wrecked upon the rocks or sucked down by whirlpools in the sea. Meanwhile, those left at home collect nautilus shells, the other ingredient necessary needed to build those conduits. Ready to make the conduit once one person, one sailor, finds that elusive Heart of the Sea. But it never comes. No one ever discovers it. Help never arrives back home. That's why we never find a naturally existing conduit in the world.
And so this fishing society sinks, their buildings and monuments get swallowed by the waves, their fishermen cast out and buried in the sea. They become, literally, the Drowned, as without the conduit's power they choked on the waters of the ocean. They become the undead that continue haunt and fish in bodies of water to this day. That's why they swim at our speed, they don't have the power of haste. That's why they still carry their nautilus shells, waiting and ready for whens someone finally finds that long lost item that could have saved them.
It's also why when YOU, as the player, are finally able to find that Heart of the Sea and construct a conduit, the name of the achievement is an odd one: Moskstraumen. The name of one of the world's strongest tidal currents that's located in Norway. It's odd right? But in English, it's translated as the Maelstrom, a body of water so violent, so tubulent, that it inspired countless fictional authors. It's the raging currents that swallowed up Captain Nemo in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, it's mentioned by Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, and it's here in Minecraft as an achievement for doing what the Drowned could never do, survive the maelstrom of the rising waters, the waves that could rip apart a society, and finally conquer the waves.
But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.
The sad piano music continues to play for the rest of the video, though on a more uplifting note, as it oversees the St Jude Charity donors, including Scott Cawthon and Markiplier.
The 10th anniversary video is heartwarming for spotlighting all the usually unseen members of the team who help make videos, but there are a couple of sad moments. The first is when Steph mentions having to sign MatPat's name instead of her own to make her job running the business side of Game Theory easier - either because clients consider MatPat the face of the franchise or don't take her seriously because she's a woman. The second is the homage to Ronnie's flash animation style partway through the video, given that Ronnie had passed away due to suicide and didn't live to see the 10th anniversary.
In Goodbye Internet, MatPat announces that he is retiring in an emotional, unscripted video. He's visibly crying the entire time, and so were everyone in the comments.
Stephanie says that the final version that was uploaded was the version Matthew cried the least
Matthews final theory, though mainly heartwarming it's a Bittersweet Ending. He's crying during some of it and can't help but thank the fans for completly changing his life.
Tom and Lee (The new Game Theory and Film Theory Hosts) especially are saddened because as they both state, Matthew was the only person who took a chance on them during rough patches of their life.
that the Super Smash Bros. series is the story of the life of Masahiro Sakurai. Doubles as Heartwarming, given his usual jabs at Nintendo.