Web Video / A Heist with Markiplier

You do remember the plan... right?

A Heist with Markiplier is a multiple-part YouTube Original feature created by Mark Fischbach, co-produced by Rooster Teeth, and featuring multiple other notable content creators such as Matthew Patrick, Arin Hanson, Rosanna Pansino, Dan Avidan, Wade Barnes, and Gavin Free. It was uploaded on October 30th, 2019.

The production features a widely branching narrative, with the player taking the role of Markiplier's partner in crime.

After the conclusion of his and Ethan Nestor's experimental channel Unus Annus, Mark confirmed that Heist would in fact have a sequel; the title was confirmed on September 3rd, 2021 to be In Space with Markiplier.

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A Heist with Markiplier contains examples of:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The "All Sneaky Like" path features escaping into one that, inexplicably, directly connects to the heavily-guarded room the artifact was in.
• Affectionate Parody: Illinois is one to Indiana Jones.
• Air-Vent Passageway: One's used in order to break into the museum at the beginning.
• All According to Plan: One of the steps in Bob/Wade's master plan to put Mark in jail for life is helping to break him out of jail.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Several paths remove Markiplier himself from the story and replace him with a new character entirely (also played by Mark). This happens by killing Markiplier either directly or implicitly.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Ending 5 at the science lab has Markiplier stuck under rubble and be bitten and turned into a zombie by the protagonist.
• Animate Inanimate Object: When you meet Illinois, he makes reference to a strange rolling boulder that he's just escaped from, which seems to have been hunting him. This is obviously the same boulder that just chased Markiplier offscreen and if you don't trust Illinois, it will hunt you down, too.
• Anti-Frustration Features: CAPITAL and lowercase. These help clarify the secret code capitalization.
• Artifact of Doom: The Box is revealed to be this in Ending 6, causing multiple timelines to split and merge and instantly starting a zombie apocalypse when it was stolen.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Played for Laughs. Wade and Bob both wave their guns around carelessly, with Wade even casually pointing his gun directly at Bob's face for a second.
• Art Shift: Choosing the "Light Tunnel" changes Mark and the setting into models/puppets/animated, albeit temporarily.
• Ash Face: Choosing the "Row Home" path leads to Mark getting struck by lightning, leaving him with this and damaged clothes; he keeps them even after the setting goes back to live action.
• Bad Samaritan: The hermit lures the heroes into his den with Double Entendres like "I haven't had someone in so long", "The table is all ready for you two" and "I didn't realize I would be having some guests for dinner." - This should give any Genre Savvy character pause but Markiplier and the protagonist don't seem to sense the Schmuck Bait even after being placed in the Shackle Seat Trap. Subverted when it turns out that the hermit was genuinely hospitable to his guests.
• Big Red Button: All that the pirate captain finds in the treasure chest is a hand mirror with a red button on its back. When pressed it opens a cave pocket with the real treasure.
• Bittersweet Ending: In a way, the paths that end up having you separated from Mark by killing him, while you end out in a better position.
  • Ending 9 downplays it a bit. You end up turned into a zombie, but the PB&J somehow makes you less aggressive and somewhat sentient. You manage to convince the other zombies to leave you and Mark alone and you end up building a protected community together. The zombie apocalypse is still ongoing though.
  • Ending 29 in particular: Mark sacrifices himself to save you. You end up free and with the Box, but now Mark is dead.
• Blindfolded Trip: Yancy helps you escape from prison, but demands you to wear a blindfold on the escape trip so that you could not rat out the route to other inmates.
• Bug Buzz: Wilford Warfstache in "Open the Box" gets annoyed by a mosquito that he tries to shoot with his revolver. He even tries to shoot it while it sits on your face, though he’s thankfully stopped before he fires.
• Call-Back: Many to A Date with Markiplier:
  • The Explosion of the Military compound causes Ed's skeleton to fly at you and Mark in nearly the exact same manner that the "Mom" skeleton does in A Date with Markiplier.
  • One of many choices you're presented with is to choose between a PB&J or a Tuna sandwich.
  • As stated under Running Gag, splitting up with Mark almost always leads to a bad ending.
  • In Ending 23, you and Mark end up getting abducted by aliens. Mark and the ending lampshade this, saying, "Not Again!"
  • One route involves you and Mark getting thrown into prison and having to dig out of the cell with a spoon. This time, however, Mark digs a tunnel in one go instead of scraping a floor for ten minutes straight.
  • In the prison section, Yancy's knuckle tattoos spell out "DARK MARK", in reference to the "HORROR" path.
  • In Ending 22, the beginning of the narration ("Ah, treasure. The chicken of the sea.") is written practically verbatim to the narration of the "TUNA" ending in A Date with Markiplier, the only change being "Treasure" in place of where the word "Tuna" was.
• Captivity Harmonica: Ending 14 in prison, where you wind up in an isolation chamber strapped into a straight jacket, has a harmonica playing a sad tune on the soundtrack.
• Cartoon Bomb: Markiplier pulls one out for the "Guns Blazing" path, claiming he grabbed it from a pirate exhibit on the way to your target.
• Chained Heat: During the "Don't Split Up" path, your character handcuffs themselves to Mark to prevent them from splitting up.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: In the Sewer Path, Mark changes from infiltration gear to an off-white suit in a single moment while you look away from him.
• Chekhov's Gun: In some endings, the box ends up containing something that resolves a problem... for better or worse.
  • During the zombie apocalypse, after the military base has exploded and with you moments away from turning, Mark reveals that the box contained an ancient picnic basket with sandwiches that are Way Past the Expiration Date. Whichever sandwich you pick actually ends up either mitigating the rabid effects of the zombie virus (Ending 9) or curing it entirely (Ending 8).
  • During the stand-off between you, Mark, and Bob/Wade after escaping prison, you can open the box to reveal a magical Reset Button that sends you back to the beginning with the box still in your possession (Ending 15).
    • Depending on your choices, however, it could also take you onto the set of Wilford Warfstache's next interview (Ending 16).
  • In Ending 24, as Mark is tied to the island hermit's "dining throne" with the "dining hood" over his head and the hermit seemingly prepared to slaughter him, you open the box to reveal a button that activates a Kill Sat and fires a powerful laser into the cave.
  • In Ending 30, as you and Mark are falling from the collapsed escape route, Mark opens the box and reveals that it contains a temporal displacement device that can transport the two of you to a different timeline, away from your oncoming demise.
• Chewing the Scenery: Markiplier has a couple of melodramatic moments where he really lets loose, like his acting during Ending 4 where he says goodbye to you after you revealed yourself to be a Zombie Infectee. Or when he plays Wilford Warfstache.
• Chopper on Standby: Markiplier has a helicopter on standby as a getaway option after the heist.
• *Click* Hello: The soldier at the barricaded Fort Brannagan reveals himself with the click of his gun to the back of Markiplier's head.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives: In "I'm Fine", Markiplier asks you if you are okay, to which you shake your head. He asks you if this means you are not okay, you shake your head again which confuses Markiplier who asks if you are "not not" okay, to which you nod.
• Conversation Cut: Starting in a helicopter and ending in prison.
  Mark: Well, why did you pick a helicopter if you didn't know how to ^note (Smash Cut happens here) fly it!?
• Covers Always Lie: The project's cover design shows red lasers from a Laser Hallway that is not actually in the work.
• Crapsaccharine World: Happy Trails Penitentiary might seem like the perfect prison, but the staff are apathetic at best, The Warden is abusive, and god help you if you want to leave prison...
• Crash in Through the Ceiling: Markiplier crashes into the museum through the glass ceiling.
• Creepy Good: The Hermit is a disheveled, crazy, knife-wielding hermit, implying all kinds of cannibalism but is actually a good guy who offers you and Mark all the food you'll ever need.
• Cutlery Escape Aid: In prison, Markiplier hides a spoon in his hair that he uses to dig out a tunnel into the warden's office.
• Cut the Safety Rope: Refusing to split up in the tunnels ends with you and Markiplier handcuffed and dangling over a chasm. Mark offers to unlock his cuff to let you go free, but the choice is yours.
• Cutting Off the Branches: As detailed under Golden Ending, Ending 6, which ends the time loop. Mark himself called it the canon ending in the livestream.
• Defeat Means Friendship: If you reject Yancy's offer to make a new and possibly happier life in the penitentiary, he'll challenge you to a fistfight. You end up winning, which causes him to change his mind and instead offer you a hand in escaping the penitentiary.
• Delicious Distraction: You manage to snatch the key from the guard dog at the museum by distracting it with a piece of meat.
• Demoted to Extra: In A Date With Markiplier, Darkiplier had a full route, while here he only appears in one ending.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Picking the helicopter over the car means that you both get captured almost immediately. Neither of you knows how to fly one, as Mark lampshades.
  • Even after being shot, the explosives at the museum don't blow up. At this point, they're so old that they've been rendered inert. Mark lampshades this.
• Dirty Coward: Choosing to hide your zombie bite all the way to the end leads to the "Cowards Way Out" ending.
• Downer Ending: With 31 endings, some of these end up on a sad note. In particular:
  • Ending 5 You turn into a zombie and eat Mark.
  • Endings 17 and 18 has Mark shot by either Bob or Wade, and you are revealed to be one of them
  • Endings 27 and 28all end with both you and Mark dying to the monster in the sewer.
• Emergency Broadcast: While hiding in the shed from the Zombie Apocalypse, Markiplier finds a radio that broadcasts a public warning to stay indoors.
• Fade to White: Ending 19 has you going down a passageway behind the prison wall where the scene ends up fading into a white nothingness.
• Fake-Out Twist: Ending 17 and 19 set up the reveal that Wade was Bob pretending to be Wade (or visa versa) using Latex Perfection but then immediately adds another twist of actual Wade showing up and shooting Markiplier In the Back, announcing himself to be the mastermind. Then there is another twist via Mirror Reveal showing that you were Bob (or Wade) all along.
• Featureless Protagonist: Combined with Heroic Mime. Justified by the fact that the whole audience is intended to be the pawn in Markiplier's game. They also count as a scapegoat for the different timelines.
• First Rule of the Yard: Mark tries to assert his dominance to the prisoners in the "Rally the Prisoners" path, but ends up getting sucker-punched through the wall not even two sentences into his speech.
• French Maid Outfit: Markiplier wears one in jail with prison stripes on it.
• Gamebooks: Pretty much the premise.
• Genre Shift: AHWM starts as a heist, but depending on the choices, turns into a zombie apocalypse, a pirate adventure, an Indiana Jones-style adventure, a prison break/musical, or a monster chase.
• Golden Ending: Ending 6: the Box is destroyed, erasing all the diverging realities and timelines, i.e the other endings, and resetting the universe to its rightful timeline. Mark and you abandon the heist and decide to go on that date. Cementing that this is considered to be the canonical ending, it is the only one with a credit sequence, and is aptly titled The End.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Markiplier uses a grappling hook to enter the museum.
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: In the "Light Tunnel" section, you hear Mark scream as he falls and then you look down to see nothing below you, blink a couple times, and then start falling.
• Growling Gut: Markiplier makes a rumbling sound while holding his tummy in order to show the hermit how hungry he is.
• HA HA HA—No: When Markiplier asks the warden in his office if he could get the MacGuffin back because it's a family heirloom, the warden smiles at him for some time and then suddenly shouts "ABSOLUTELY NOT!".
• Hassle-Free Hotwire: Markiplier hotwires the escape car within seconds.
• Hollywood Economics: Justified by the fact that Markiplier is just a digital entertainer with no recognition from popular masses. A low-budget production is parodied with this trope being taken advantage of.
• Hollywood Glass Cutter: Markiplier gains access to the MacGuffin by using a glass cutter on the protective cover.
• Human Cannonball: In Ending 20, you get stuffed into a cannon and shot off when the pirate captain learns that you know too much.
• Idea Bulb: During the Art Shift sequence on the raft, Markiplier is having an idea about the Box which is symbolized by a light bulb turning on above his head.
• Indy Escape: Illinois manages to evade a dangerous boulder coming after him. In Ending 1, you end up getting killed by said boulder.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: In the sewers, Markiplier tries to calm you down saying that whatever the security guard was running from could not be that bad. Cue the guard screaming in agony off-screen while apparently being ripped apart by some monster.
• Institutional Apparel: The stylized black-and-white striped prison suits.
• Interface Spoiler: You can usually tell which option leads to a bad end by the episode length. Most are less than a minute-thirty.
• Inventional Wisdom: The museum vault has a sewer running beneath it with an exit directly into the room. Lampshaded by one of the security guards going after you into the sewer:
  "I told them. When they built it. Putting a sewer entrance underneath what was supposed to be the most secure vault in the museum is just grossly irresponsible."
• It Belongs in a Museum: Mentioned by Illinois when he finds the Monkey Figure in your possession. He takes it from you and proceeds to return it to the monkey temple.
• It's the Journey That Counts: The gist of Ending 22: A Pirate's Life for Me. It's also clearly a summation for the video series as a whole.
• "I Want" Song: Inverted, as Yancy and the prisoners have a song, titled "I Don't Wanna be Free"
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Markiplier makes it clear at the beginning if the Player screws up, he'll abandon them. However, as the story goes on and the two's adventure continues, he constantly shows himself to be a loyal friend to the Player. Unless you decide to go down the Dark Tunnel, in which case he takes a sudden and vibrant interest in splitting up with you.
• Juggling Loaded Guns:
  • In the "All Sneaky Like" path, two guards played by Bob and Wade repeatedly point their guns casually at each other.
  • Also the soldier at Fort Brannagan weaves his gun dangerously in front of Mark who acts terrified.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: On the raft, Mark gets killed by a giant anchor landing on his head while he ponders aloud what "Prepare to be boarded!" means.
• Kill Sat: Ending 24 has you killing Mark and yourself by activating one that had its trigger in the box.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: The "Once More, With Feeling" ending, where you and Markiplier are warped back to the beginning of the series. What does Mark do with his newfound foresight? He goes home and takes a nap.
• Knuckle Tattoos: Yancy is a Tattooed Crook with knuckle tattoos spelling out "Dark Mark".
• Latex Perfection: The prison endings to follow Mark's plan have alternately Bob and Wade as Federal Marshals out to get you and Mark and you are either Bob or Wade under a perfect disguise, depending on the ending.
• Laughing Mad: The hermit has an unsettling laughter.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: In the Dark Tunnel section of the "All Sneaky Like" path, Mark advocates splitting up at every opportunity. It never ends well when you split up.
  • The security guards in "All Sneaky Like" (played by Bob and Wade) also decide to split up. When Bob suggests it, Wade responds, with complete sincerity, "That's a great idea! I love that idea!"
• Luxury Prison Suite: Happy Trails Penitentiary. There's even a musical number sung by the prisoners about how they don't want to leave.
• The Many Deaths of You: There are a lot of ways that the protagonist and/or Mark can die depending on your choices: falling into a bottomless pit, crushed by a sentient boulder, brainwashed by a cursed monkey statue, turned into and/or eaten by a zombie, shot In the Back by The Mole, punched through a brick wall, eaten by a shark/crocodile/Sand Worm, etc.
• The Maze: When you get lost in the cave after you decide not to join Illinois.
• Mexican Stand Off: After you get broken out of prison, the scene ends with a three-way standoff between you, Markiplier and Wade or Bob. It ends with you killing Wade or Bob respectively.
• Mirror Reveal: Endings 17 and 18 reveal that you were Bob/Wade all along, much to your horror.
• Mobile Shrubbery: In the opening scene, Markiplier creeps up on the guard from behind while hiding behind a huge plant pot.
• Multiple Endings: There are 31 in total, and each one ends with a clue that's part of Darkiplier's code.
• Musical Episode: "Rally the Prisoners" surprises with the prisoners performing a musical including a Busby Berkeley Number choreography.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The warden, Mr. Murderslaughter.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The trailer ends with a large emphasis on Darkiplier and the aesthetic around him, causing many to assume he has a route similar to Date. In the series itself, he only appears in one ending.
  • The trailer has The Scientist clearly calling the player a traitor. In the series itself, she never calls anyone that. Mark admitted in the livestream that he used Manipulative Editing to change raider to traitor because it sounded cool.
• Noodle Incident:
  Gavin the Museum Guard: Not the old steak trick. I'm not falling for that twice.
• No Prison Segregation: The prison Mark and you are thrown into has male and female inmates in the same block.
• Not Helping Your Case: The Scientist's efforts to convince you and Mark that she knows what she's talking about and needs to shoot you to stop the disaster aren't helped by the fact she sounds like she's just spouting technobabble and she previously shot an unarmed man asking for food on the assumption he was a raider.
• Obvious Stunt Double: When Markiplier does the stealthy flips at the museum, it's clearly a stunt double performing.
• Ominous Cube: The box you and Mark steal from the museum. Since the contents of the box change route by route, with some endings having it contain things like a device for traveling timelines or a record of alien knowledge, the origin and nature of the box is questionable and may even be an Artifact of Doom. The silhouettes the box makes when Mark first grabs it is an early indication, and the fact that Darkiplier is all too knowledgeable of the contents just throws it into further suspicion.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: When Darkiplier delivers his monologue in Ending 31, visual and auditory glitches create an unsettling atmosphere.
• On Three: Mark and the player try to synchronize their watches "On three...three!". The player doesn't even have a chance to touch theirs.
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: A skeleton pops out of the hidden passage behind your prison cell.
• Pet Gets the Keys: You get one of the keys to the vault off of a friendly guard dog.
• Religion of Evil: The members of the Sewer Cult are extremely up-front about the fact that they are evil and they will kill you.
• Running Gag: Endings where you split up are almost always bad endings, which is a Call-Back to A Date with Markiplier.
• Scavenger Hunt: In one of the endings, Darkiplier reveals he's hidden codes all throughout the heist, and that if the audience wants to know the contents of the box, they'll have to find them all.
• Schrödinger's Gun: The contents of the box change route-by-route. This is because it's a time-and-space-distorting Artifact of Doom. Darkiplier even mocks you for wondering what's really inside it.
• Senseless Sacrifice: While Mark Taking the Bullet for you in Ending 6 is noble and all, the Scientist points out that you're still gonna turn into a zombie in like an hour anyway. It does end up leading to the Golden Ending where the timeline resets, though, so it works out in the end.
• Sensor Suspense: The Scientist has a scanner that can track the anomaly. It leads to a tense moment when she points the device at you and it starts beeping rapidly. Later it turns out, the anomaly wasn't you but the Box in your possession.
• Serial Escalation: A Date with Markiplier, Mark's first interactive series, had only ten endings. A Heist with Markiplier, in comparison, has thirty-one.
• Shout-Out:
  • Illinois is very obviously a Captain Ersatz of Indiana Jones. Markiplier also said that he was doing a Patrick Warburton impression for the Illinois voice.
  • Many of the endings have some sort of reference in them:
    • 1 is titled "Clever Girl".
    • 3: When you and Illinois go to monkey heaven and you get a golden banana, all Illinois gets is a rock, that actually turns out to be a diamond.
    • 13 & 14: The item in the box is an annoying fairy in a bottle
    • 17 & 18: Looking into a hand mirror and screaming at the reveal of seeing a different character's face is the same twist ending as in Identity.
    • 19: This ending is a direct reference to Junji Ito's The Enigma of Amigara Fault.
    • 20: You get shot out of a cannon to die.
    • 21: "The hardest choices require the strongest wills!"
    • 23: The aliens make Crabsquid sounds from time to time.
• Sick Captive Scam: While locked up in prison, Markiplier pulls this ploy on a Genre Blind guard. He pretends to be dying, wishes to talk to his mother as a Last Request, and when the guards hand him his phone, Markiplier requests to be left alone. Then he places a call to Bob/Wade to break him out.
• Skeleton Key: In Ending 12, you open the Box after escaping the prison and discover it contains a master key that can unlock any door ever made.
• Slow-Motion Fall: In Ending 29, Markiplier falls to his death in slow motion to dramatic music after he unlocks the handcuffs binding you together.
• Spy Speak: When Markiplier talks to Bob/Wade on the phone while in prison, they communicate in code:
  "This is Eagle Claw 14. The beer is cold."
• Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly: The museum heist starts stealthily with you sneaking in via an Airvent Passageway but ends "guns blazing" if you choose so.
• Strolling Through the Chaos: Illinois dodges pretty much all the traps in the underground monkey temple just by casually walking through, completely unfazed. He even lampshades this as he does it:
  "They always seem perfectly timed to miss you if you're going at a casual walk. I think they count on people panicking and jumping around."
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: If you pick the car, everything goes off without a hitch and you wake up to Markiplier making you breakfast while music's playing... and said music stops once he realizes that the car's not starting.
• Sudden Video-Game Moment: Turning down Yancy's offer will lead to a fistfight that is portrayed with faux 16-bit graphics, chiptune music and health bars. Shortly after this, Yancy offers to "let bygones by bygones". Turning him down again leads to a parody of DanceDanceRevolution.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: You and Mark are eaten by some kind of giant worm in ending 28.
• Taking the Bullet: When the scientist is about to shoot you in Ending 6, Markiplier jumps in the way of the laser gun and takes the blow. He survives the blast though.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When the scientist exhausts her plasma gun trying to shoot you, it eventually overloads with her noting "This can't be good". Cue an explosion that blows her apart.
• Throwing the Distraction: At the museum, you throw a baseball to divert a guard's attention.
• Too Dumb to Live: Some of the choices are just blatantly wrong.
  • Do not split up in the creepy dark sewers with the monster and the voices chanting about killing you.
  • Sure, reveal you're a Zombie Infectee to the obviously unstable soldier who's waving a gun around. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
  • Choosing to enter the Hermit's cave "for a bite" turns out to be a subversion, as he does indeed have food that he wants to share.
• Treasure Map: The box happens to contain one if you're going down the pirate route.
• Troperiffic: Tons of tropes, given the people involved in making it.
• Two-Keyed Lock: The entrance to the museum's vault is protected by a two-key lock.
• Unbroken First-Person Perspective: All scenes are experienced from the protagonist's POV.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Markiplier does random ninja flips while moving across a room at the museum.
• Vertical Kidnapping: Endings 28 in the sewers has you and Markiplier being Swallowed Whole by a giant worm attacking from above.
• Villain Protagonist: Both Markiplier and the Player are main characters, but they're still thieves who more or less are trying to get away with stealing a priceless, ancient relic. How evil they really are depends on the route.
• Wham Episode:
  • Meeting the Scientist reveals that the entire series is a bunch of timelines being merged together, explaining the multiple endings and why characters from one ending could show up in other paths.
  • Ending 31: After Mark suddenly vanishes right after you choose to split up, the environment shifts to a hallway, with pictures of Chef, Benjamin, Detective Abe, and Colonel William. Then, as you enter a pitch-black room with Actor Mark's frame, Darkiplier reveals himself, telling the viewer that if they really want to know what's inside the box, they have to find all the clues hidden in the other endings, and leaves you with that.
• Wham Line: Mark last question at the end of Ending 6 reveals where the series takes place in canon:
  You wanna go on that date?
• Wink "Ding!": Whenever Illinois winks, there's the sound of a bullwhip.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: In "Build a Sign", the aliens consider Markiplier to be the pinnacle of the human race for his humbleness in returning the "marker" to its owners. Not that he planned for this to happen.
• Zombie Apocalypse: One breaks out after you crossed the forest.
• Zombie Infectee: Due to a zombie bite. You have the option of hiding it or revealing it.

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"Try Again?"