[music]

How does a highly respected creator go

from getting over 1 billion views a year

to losing it all the following year?

It's simple. Do not

absolutely not at fault there.

>> Admit.

>> So for everyone who's mad about that,

I'm be angry about it.

>> Fault.

>> We are just blaming you. It's about the

zero accountability is what makes us so

mad.

>> There's no zero accountability, dude.

Jason Thoroughhal grew a small following

while proudly acting as the face of his

game studio Pirate Software. While this

developed, his indie game Heartbound did

not. For nearly a decade, he has been

teasing progress on Animus, a single

chapter in his five chapter game.

Progress further stalled when he became

something of an online icon. Through his

YouTube shorts, Thor would grow rapidly.

His viewership increased by 31,000%

[music] in November 2023 alone. Here he

would disseminate advice and establish

his lore that would pay into his

credibility.

>> Yeah. Yeah. My my last job was hacking

power plants for the federal government.

I worked for the United States

Department of Energy. Yeah. No, my dad

didn't inspire the Wow Guy from Zur. My

dad is the WoW guy from South.

>> I am a content creator specifically that

is a game developer that has worked in

this industry for 20 years. Pirate

Software was massive but not

unstoppable. It was in January of 2025

that he alongside hundreds of content

creators joined in a massive

collaborative gaming venture in the MMO

World of Warcraft. A game which he not

only helped developed but was also

supposedly an expert in. It was his

failure here but more so his failure to

admit fault that unraveled everything.

>> Straight up, bro. This dude

this dude is a complete fraud.

>> No, that's the issue. disguise

egoistically.

>> The internet watched live as a life and

tech guru struggled with even the

simplest of PR decisions. For months,

Pirate would only address the

compounding criticisms with

unsatisfactory and snider retorts. This

caused his indie game to lose support,

brought a sharp decline in views, and

fueled an endless stream of expose

videos that have meticulously unearthed

his controversial past and discredited

every one of his achievements. I have

been called a zoo file, corporate plant,

degenerate, narcissist, nepo baby, and

many other names. And they attacked all

the accomplishments over my life despite

physical evidence to prove to the

contrary. To get the fullest

understanding, this video aims to

capture all of Pirate Software from his

controversial history to present day.

In 1987, Jason Thoral was born. And four

years later, a game studio integral to

the story of Thor was founded.

>> If I can't say no good about someone,

then I'll say nothing at all.

>> Silicon and Synapse, composed of three

University of California graduates,

worked to port video games, essentially

translating them to work on other

systems. This included a game based on

Lord of the Rings and other high fantasy

themed games. Through their continued

success, they developed their own

original IPs.

Joey Ray Hall, Thor's father, was a new

hireer and responsible for many things,

but mostly the artwork. The studio then

renamed itself Chaos Studios. As

reported by PC Gamer, this was a

decision made because, quote, "People

would often mistake silicon for

silicone, thinking breast implants

instead of electronics."

As the studio saw continued success, its

senior employees earned promotions. Joy

Ray Hall through his work as an artist,

a 3D modeler and a supervisor, would

eventually create and lead the cinematic

team. At this point, the company had

rebranded as Blizzard. It had become

famous for its high fantasy original IPs

like Warcraft and Diablo.

>> Hello, my friend. Also, in the 1990s,

they released science fiction RTS

Starcraft. All of these games were rich

in lore, in strategy, and were developed

with care.

>> Go, go, go.

Let's move. While Blizzard was earning

its status as an iconic game studio,

there was trouble brewing for Thor and

his family.

>> We had a we had a moment my dad and my

mom split up when I was very young,

right? And when they were when they

split up, we actually got the chance to

like which house do you want to live

with from like the court and I I was

like chose my dad because my mom was

very emotionally driven and it just kind

of freaked me out.

>> Thor, now in high school and wrestling

with the emotions of his parents'

divorce, used art as an outlet.

>> In high school, I became the the leader

of comic book club. So, I started comic

book club, but it wasn't like we're

collecting comics. It was we're making

them. And then, um, that's actually when

I made the comic that is Heartbound

today, cuz I made it when I was like 16.

In high school, I became the the leader

of comic book club. So, I started comic

book club, but it wasn't like we're

collecting comics. And then, um, that's

actually when I made the comic that is

Heartbound today.

>> Eventually, Heartbound would take the

form of a video game. For now, what Thor

had was the story and the emotion behind

it.

>> Yeah. And it's funny, people in chat are

talking about uh the tower, which is a a

chapter in our game, Heartbound. And uh

yeah, that's that's completely what

that's about. It's all about, you know,

my relationship with my mom growing up

and everything like that. That's why I

made that section of the game. It was

kind of a cathartic thing for me to

build that portion of the video game

about that. I think for me when I was

young, it was I guess it felt like the

norm, like all people are going to be

like this. So that's because you have

very little perspective.

>> What does this mean?

>> Um lying to you about things,

gaslighting, saying things that happened

that didn't happen, all kinds of stuff,

right? And it's it's a rough it's a

really bad feeling.

>> Thor at around age 17 secured possibly

his first job through the help of his

father who among hundreds of employees

was one of the elite. One of the first

10 employees of Blizzard before it was

Blizzard.

>> The relationship with Blizzard. I mean

obviously your dad worked there. Did he

just you know help you get in the door

initially?

>> So he did back in in 2004. So there was

a bit of nepatism that happened there

which I don't like. Right. So like I

stayed there for about six months and I

was terrible at the job. I was awful

100%. And I left because I it was like a

lot of shame from that. It's like I only

got this job because of you. I'm not

very good at it. This sucks, you know?

So I left and I went freelance for about

5 years and I made stuff online. I um I

actually built things in Second Life.

>> Second Life, a multiplayer simulation

released in 2003 was meant to capture a

more mainstream audience seeking

escapism.

>> Second Life is not a game. It is a

multi-user virtual environment. It

doesn't have points or scores. It

doesn't have winners or losers.

>> Though Second Life at its peak did have

over a million casual players, a more

goal-driven high fantasy game would take

the throne in terms of cultural impact

and active user base. This was none

other than World of Warcraft.

This MMO based on the Warcraft games was

a cultural phenomenon. The expansive

worlds full of millions of active users

birth stories of great achievement. OH

MY GOD. [screaming] OH MY GOD.

>> AND CRIPPLING ADDICTION.

>> Oh no.

No. What?

>> So much so that even the television

series South Park made an episode

dedicated to it titled Make Love Not

Warcraft.

>> Even the people when we we did this

episode in conjunction with the people

at Blizzard, the people who actually,

you know, produced the game.

>> Who is this?

>> And um even they were like, "Boys, boy,

some of these people are losers that

play this game all the time." Even the

people work for the company. Thor's

father, Joey Ray Hall, was one of the

people Blizzard sent over to make this

happen. As such, he was given the honor

of becoming the inspiration for He who

has not life, the antagonist of the

episode. While Joey Ray Hall had

cemented himself as somewhat of a

cultural icon, mostly within the

company, Thor, as a freelance contractor

for Players of Second Life, had started

his own journey. as funny as that is,

did a whole ton of commissions, actually

moved out, went off and lived on my own

in Colorado and and like learned

programming, learned how to do 3D

modeling and texturing and like

releasing things and, you know, living

on my own off my own creations,

everything like that.

>> On May 7th, 2006, Thor began his journey

on Second Life under the character Mald

Davius Victory.

Over the years, this account will be

renamed constable [music] victory,

clockwork, sexually transmitted bees,

[ __ ] posting AI, king of space, Thor,

and mailware. In the space, [music] Thor

began relatively small and unknown. It

was only 6 months after Thor was exposed

to this world that he created his fur

affinity account. Here, he would

commission artwork like his furry avatar

inspired by a ferret. [music] Even his

profile picture was commissioned, likely

using him and a ferret as reference. Not

only was Thor a fan of this artwork, but

also according to Avastar, a Second Life

magazine in a piece written by Bilbo

Winkler, quote, "Funky furry Maldavius

Fake Tree owns Dark Sphere Creations as

well as being a talented sculptor."

[music]

In this interview, Thor as Melavius

states he helps tag Griefers and that he

himself owns his own hangout spot, a

club known as Dark Sphere Creations, or

DCS for short. This was built by him and

a few other artisans. At some point,

Dark Sphere Creations became more than a

location. It became a company and an

online store. As per this article on

land sales in Second Life, quote, he

bought his own sim. DCS is a content

business that was founded September

16th, 2006.

Thor, alongside an artist known as

Wingless Emoto, would work to sell

avatars. So, like I had a business at

the time. I was working freelance. I was

working on things with another person.

Um, the way that it worked is I was

creating programming. They were creating

3D models and we were building these

things together and then selling them

online. And at that point, we were

making a lot of money. I was making like

10 grand a month. I was making a ton of

money. And for a young person, that's a

that's a ton. Even now, that's a ton of

money, right? Thor was making a good

amount of money on Second [music] Life.

But this was not the only thing he was

doing. As per this leaked text log

taking place around April 2007, he was

also working with others to target

specific griefers. Today, these are

better known as trolls. [music] As

Second Life was in essence many

simulated worlds, these griefers could

come in and spawn endless entities to

crash a world or just overload it with

noise-causing entities.

While some griefers could be less

harmful in their approach, others could

spawn in entities plastered with images

of bloody wolves, decapitated animals,

or images containing texts or slurs. All

of these were aimed to harass Second

Life's furry community. The video on

screen comes from the infamous 4chan

adjacent griefer group Patriotic Nigas

or PN for short. Thor likely running

into these through his griefer hunts

eventually joined up with a group of

like-minded vigilantes who called

themselves a Justice League Unlimited or

JLU for short. To this we go back to the

leaked chat logs that show Thor joining

this group. After a lengthy pledge given

by the leader of the group, explaining

the origin of the group wearing

superhero costumes and a dedication to

do good and not bad, Maltavius accepts

and becomes a member of JLU. There is a

rabbit hole involving this group and

their involvement with each other and

their direct connections to Lynen Lab,

the creators of Second Life. This video

will only cover Thor's involvement. As

per the PN run wiki, Thor created

[music] cubes that quote are probably

hidden in a few other permanent objects.

If they see any objects rested in the

sim with common projectiles, resers,

etc. names, it would automatically

attempt to orbit you. Isn't this

technically griefing as well? This is

pretty much useless as well, as long as

you actually know they do this. C

bypass," unquote. This object of Thor's

creation looked for key words and

activated when an item titled under a

suspicious name like orbiter, weapon,

nuke, etc. was spawned in. They were

effectively mass surveillance tools, but

as PN discovered, they could be bypassed

by name griefer tools or their

components object, as object is a

standard name for items in Second Life.

This was not the only attempt Thor made

to counter this infamous group. He

infiltrated them as well. Quote, "I'm

not even a furry if you didn't know. I

make money selling furry avies. I make

steampunk. See the robot in front?

That's my normal Avy. The cube on my

hand is a cube of havoc, my weapon of

choice." unquote. Thor then claims he

crashes his own Sims more than Pen,

implying he is a reputable griefer.

However, the other participant is

distrustful. Later in the conversation,

they ask why Thor would go around in a

furry avatar if he is not a furry. Thor

responds, quote, "Because if you show

yourself as a member of the group, that

group trusts you. Same with JLU, PN, and

the rest. I show myself as a quote

unquote member and they buy my stuff.

When I'm a robot, I sell less." Sneaky,

sneaky. Everyone knows I'm not a furry."

Thor did indeed grief and/or delete

other simulations. One was of a client

that he had a copyright dispute with,

and the other was a simulation known as

Woodbear University, a base of

operations for PN. Though there exists

stories that Thor righteously struck

this sim, the owner has stated that the

sim was set to be rebuilt anyway, so it

was not an act of malice. It was only

seen as such because the sim was soon

removed by Lynden Labs themselves. Even

so, PN struck back by spreading word of

Thor's infiltration, tracking device,

and his docs. This includes his name,

address, both home and cell phone

number, and email. This could formally

be found on the PN wiki. According to

it, Thor tried to get this page removed,

but did not succeed. Side note, Thor as

Mount Davius Victory did have a wiki for

a page with his real name and birth

date. It also lists the games he played

and made note that his persona is a

ferret. According to the wiki's removal

request, someone likely Thor kept

removing information found on the wiki

only for it to be restored until a

request was made for personal exclusion

which Thor allegedly verified it was him

by posting the comment delete me on his

for affinity page. This is why his

current day wiki for page states it is

left blank by request. As for PN's wiki

that was maliciously doxing Thor, it

also served as a gossip piece for a

Second Life drama and even makes note of

Thor's father and his status at

Blizzard. Undoubtedly, because Thor

would bring this up in conversation,

things only got worse for Thor as his

business partner, Wingless Emoto,

wanting to renegotiate their contract.

Eventually, that person came by and

they're like, "Hey, I'm going to re

renegotiate. I want 80%. I'm going to

give you 20% cuz I do the the art and uh

you do the you just do the programming."

They didn't respect that the programming

was half of the half the job, right? And

I said, "No, like we have a deal for

50/50." Like, "No, we're not doing

that." And they said, "Okay." And they

took all of our work and they open

sourced it. According to the Alpha Veil

Herald, quote, "Maldabius Victory,

notorious for having destroyed builds in

the Woodbear University sim last summer

is in the news again this week after his

controversial firing of Avatar designer

Wingless Emoto. According to reliable

sources, Victory held an suspiciously

timestaffed meeting last Friday morning.

A meeting timed when Wingless Emoto

would be asleep and therefore unable to

attend. During this meeting, it was

determined that the talented avatar

creator Emodo was earning too much and

should therefore be removed from staff.

The terms of service for Victory's

company, Dark Sphere Creations, were

conveniently changed, and Miss Emoto was

removed from her position, all before

she awoke to the news. quote, "Tabloids

at the time do what tabloids do. We were

kind of a big deal in the game at the

time for the avatars we were selling, so

they made extreme and idiotic statements

and took the side of just the artists

without reaching out to me." Thor

commented on the story with the alleged

chat logs between him and Wingless

Emodo. Quote, Wingless says, "I made a

druid named Penis Cock." Maldius says,

"Cool. I ran the company while you sat

on your ass." Wingless says, "Keep up

the good work then. I intend to continue

sitting on my ass. I'm far too cheap to

buy a new tablet right now." Maldavius

says, "You're an ass. You really are.

You don't give a [ __ ] about this

anymore, do you? You realize everyone

else in this company is telling me to

drop your ass right now. Even Gryore."

Wingless says, "Did it really in the

first place? Money is nice and all, but

mostly I build because I like doing it."

This article has 55 comments. While some

do point to the article's bias, as the

image the author selected to represent

Thor is of a furry avatar giving oral

sex, the majority of comments testify to

Thor's infamy. This comment in

particular provides more information on

him and Wingless Emoto. Quote, Maldavia

says, "I fired her. She didn't work for

2 months, missed meetings because she

was playing WoW and or too lazy to come

and then freaked out when I said I would

be paying her on Fridays instead of

point of sale due to tax complications

since I had to report all this income

for taxes. She's also underage. So, I've

reported her. I know this because I met

her IRL. She lives 2 hours from me. I

told her she'll be paid on Fridays for

the sales when she turns in the weekly

report as usual, and she freaked. So, if

half the content is mine, and I agreed

to only take half the revenue, as I

always did, then why would she be

pissed? I planned the meeting, told her

about it, she played well till 4:00 a.m.

and slept through it. Not my fault."

This chat log, among providing evidence

that Thor did fire Wingless as she

slept, also provided the information

that she was a minor and that Thor met

up with her in real life. Thor would

later state that Wingless was 17 at the

time and he was 19. He also claims they

never did anything sexual. An account

claiming to be Wingless Emodo would

later add, quote, "nothing inappropriate

happened when we hung out. He literally

sat on my couch and played Eve online

the whole time and it wasn't quote

unquote in private. My mom was at home."

As for the other comments directed at

Thor, they read, "This is not only

hypocrisy from Aldavius, but greed. I am

glad to see the rest of the grid waking

up to what a cancerous evil there is in

Maldavia's victory. Much of the drama in

his little world centers around his

penis." These are only a handful of

select quotes. On the lengthier side is

this testimony. Quote, "OMG, this is so

funny. He wanted to be my business

partner, so I took him on board. He did

approx 80 minutes of work against my 30

hours and expected to get half the

cash." Then when I complain about this,

as well as being constantly ignored for

two weeks, he gives me his, "Do you know

how good of a scriptor I am? How much

I'm worth. I make $8,000 US a month from

SL speech." Of course, at this stage,

the alarm bells ring and I quickly hit

the delete/silence button."

>> I had a very kind of grand vision of

myself, way grandio, way larger than

life, frankly, in an absurdest sort of

way. I thought I was top of the world. I

thought I was I was kick-ass all the

time. And um it humbled the [ __ ] out of

me. Frankly, it's the best way to put

that.

>> It was not the falling out with the

wingless emoto that quote unquote

humbled Thor. It was a wingless emoto

making all the avatars she had made for

the business now free.

>> Our income went gone. So they cut off

their nose despite their face. They lost

everything as well. But I was in a much

more financially precarious position

because I was an idiot and spent all of

my money. That was on me, right? Their

action awful, but also I didn't plan for

anything like that. So, I went homeless.

I lived out of my car almost

immediately, too. I didn't have money

for next month's rent. Like, it was just

like boop, gone. That's a problem,

right? And uh I was on a month-to-month

situation like that, which is already

highly expensive. So, I was out. And I

learned throughout that process, it's

like I could blame them, but where's

that going to get me? I'm going to get

back in this exact same scenario.

>> Thor goes on to claim that it was his

time being homeless that made him

self-reflect. what can I do better so

that even if another person acts

improperly and tries to abuse that sort

of connection or what they have over me

that I will not be back here and that's

where I formed all of these ways that I

kind of handle problems and logically

walk through problems and handle

everything in the way that I do is to

prevent that from happening to me again.

It appears that Thor after his falling

out with Wingless Emoto attempted to run

his own store using models of his own

design with little success. It took Thor

a year to scale his business to the

point that he claims he was making

$10,000 a month. As his fame gradually

increased, so did his sense of status,

leading him to make a decision that

would not only turn the community

against him, but also entirely destroy

his career. Though he would feel humbled

through his failures, these lessons

decades on would be ignored and history

would repeat itself at a much larger

scale. For now, as Thor claimed, after a

year living out of his car, he would use

his experience in Second Life to apply

once more at Blizzard. Thor on his

LinkedIn reframes his time in Second

Life generously, claiming he worked as a

quote unquote freelance security

researcher and developer. Either with

this or through his father, Thor got a

job at Blizzard for a second time. Thor

claims this was with his own merit. And

then I came back to Blizzard in 2009 and

I applied again and I got the job

without him. And that was the whole

point for me was to make sure that I got

a job at a place like that. Good thing

is never a good thing.

>> At Blizzard, Thor worked under the

quality assurance team. These are game

testers meant to find quirks or bugs

before the product is made public. This

is highly important for MMOs like World

of Warcraft, as a major bug can lead to

rare item duplication or the like.

Little would have been known of Thor's

character in this time period if it were

not for his ex-coorkers speaking to the

person Thor was.

>> Basically, what happened is we share the

same last name. That's why I don't mind

sharing my last name. When I joined the

company, they literally thought that we

were related because I have a couple of

years on him. So, they thought that I

was his older sister and they thought

that with me coming in, I could

potentially handle him and he would be

less of a problem.

>> This comes from an interview creator

Quinio conducted. Though Cynthia Hall

claims to have clarified to Blizzard

that she was not related to Thor, she

still bared the responsibility of

keeping him on track, which was not the

easiest task. um whatever the task was

for the day. It could just be spawning

different monsters and [music] testing

their aixes to see how they perform.

That easy. But he would just kind of

create a character and idol in the

client and then read it. That's

literally what he did. He sat in front

of me and I was assigning the tasks.

>> So, not only did I see the work he was

not doing, I saw what he was doing

instead. Cynthia claims that even with

the knowledge that Thor would slack off,

there was little she could do because of

who Thor was.

>> He said, "Well, you could try to

escalate it, but no one's going to do

anything because I've [music] tried to

report it before." So, I talked to my

manager and I talked to one of the

department heads. Like, I talked to the

manager over the project. [music] And I

was essentially told that no one is

going to do anything. It does not look

good on your future at Blizzard if you

mess with an executive son. Period.

Everybody knows who Jason is. If you

write him up, if you fire him for

misconduct or otherwise, people are

going to know you did it. They're not

going to know that anything was actually

going on. They're just going to know you

were the guy that fired Joey Ray's son.

And your career is pretty much toast

because everybody in the games industry

knows each other, too. He was allowed to

do whatever he wanted to do because

nobody would course correct him.

Cynthia on the website Kiwi Farms under

the username Boing Boing also wrote of

what Thor would get away with. Quote,

"During a charity event on campus, he

participated in a League of Legends

tournament. He was profainely screaming

at his teammates across the office about

how shitty they were for not being able

to buy to counter the other team. This

was a casual charity event, not some

actual rank [ __ ] And these were people

he worked with on his team. I'm actually

shocked he wasn't written up for this,

but only one manager was present and

locked in his office at the time." Given

no recourse, allegedly some of Thor's

other co-workers saw it fit to troll

him. But this guy is a master troll.

This guy was also one of my best

friends. would print out a photo of

Edward Colon's face and tape it to the

bottom of Pirates's mouse so that

whenever he would come back to his desk,

he would wiggle his mouse to try to wake

his PC and he just couldn't wake his PC.

So, he'd have to flip his mouse over and

be greeted with Edward Coen's face, and

you could just hear him scream across

the floor.

>> Even with Thor's infamy, she found

herself to be in a bind that required

his help. Quote, "Thor became my

roommate because his dad kicked him out

of the house, and I happened to be in

need of someone to take over a room that

another person fell through on. I

already observed some of his [ __ ] but I

was in a bit of a bind and figured it

would be fine since we were on the same

overtime schedule." I really should have

known that if Joey Ray didn't want him

around, it was best to keep Max's

distance." unquote. Cynthia provides

this message as evidence that she

believes Thor may have been initially

hitting on her even though Thor did have

a girlfriend who also worked at

Blizzard. As per these two messages, it

is evident that Thor moved in with

Cynthia October 2011. Quote, "From the

first days after moving in, the kitchen

was a literal pigsty. All pans would be

constantly used and left dirty, usually

with food remnants intact, dishes and

utensils everywhere, sink full, filth

all over the stove and counters. I also

had a new patent leather chair that is

quote unquote totally non-destructive.

Cat started scratching to hell the same

day he moved in. And he only ever

offered to tape up the chair. He even

tried to gaslight me by insisting the

chair was always scratched up. Zero pets

touched that apartment before he moved

in. I asked that he replace the $100

chair since all surfaces were destroyed

and he insisted taping it was fine. He

didn't do either. He was extremely into

Eve Online and would regularly stay up

half the night being loud on voice chat

with his friends while playing. This

apartment didn't have thin walls and

there were full closets separating the

rooms, but I could hear every single

word said until he shut down to get a

few hours of sleep before work the next

day. His general [ __ ] led me to

further investigate the living situation

overall a couple of weeks in. He never

put a shower curtain up in his bathroom,

so the floor was dirty and spotty from

pulling water. The bathroom countertop

that took up a whole wall was covered in

what I can only assume is ash, bong

accudant, and other detritus. Random

[ __ ] was all over the place. His bedroom

door was left cracked open. So I looked

inside again. [ __ ] everywhere. trash,

clothes, bags, and dishes everywhere.

The [ __ ] walls were smeared with, I

don't [ __ ] know, come or snut both.

If this was only a month of damage, I

couldn't afford to keep this guy

around."

Using the damage Thor's cat caused as an

excuse, Cynthia nudged Thor to move out.

And as per the screenshot, he did on

December 26th, meaning Cynthia only

lasted around 2 months living with Thor.

But even after he moved out, they would

still remain co-workers. Quote, "After

he left the apartment, he continued

being a shitterter at work. We

discovered some vulnerabilities on the

Diablo II real money auction house to

the tune of several millions of dollars

from the sales of deep gold and items. I

want to stress that Thor had no

involvement in the identification or

patching of the exploit. This issue had

two effects. First, Blizzard donated the

money from the dupe to a charity.

Second, Thor used this incident to

seemly secure himself an unofficial

position as an exploit tester. he was

still in QA as an analyst."

Cynthia goes on to state that Thor's

shenanigans became unclear as going

forward he was no longer reporting on a

team relating to hers, but does remember

that Thor found a client vulnerability

which led to a more firm role in exploit

testing. Cynthia also emphasizes Thor

wildly misrepresenting his time working

at Blizzard. So eventually I I wrote

this 13-page document. I brought it to

Alvatan. I was like, "Hey, you should

make this team. this is the application

security team. It's specifically for

security for Blizzard's websites. And um

he said, "Thank you for this." I could

have gotten fired right there. That was

like a there's like a whole culture of

like, "Don't break ranks." You know,

it's like a really dangerous thing, like

don't do it. It was a very military kind

of culture. And um two weeks later he

contacted me in the middle of a task and

he goes, "Hey, you should really check

out this job." And I was like, "What are

you talking about? I I have to do this

task right now." He's like, "No, you

should really check this out." And it

was it was my job, the one that I I

built the team for.

>> This is how Thor claims he became the

lead of application security. But this

was only a stepping stone

>> and I was the lead of application

security for Blizzard. And then we went

to Defcon because of that. The business

actually paid for us to go to Defcon

which is a hacking convention.

>> Yeah.

>> And at Defcon 22 I didn't win. I went

there and I competed in a cryptographic

challenge and I lost but we learned so

much.

>> Defcon 22 took place in 2014. While this

is a convention for hackers and other

computer- savvy individuals, it is also

known for its various challenges,

panels, [music] and as Thor stated,

cryptographic puzzles. Essentially,

complex coded puzzles that have

participants analyze whatever scan

information is available to hopefully

find a solution, which also requires

participants to avoid the many red

herrings. Though Thor did not win

anything in Defcon 22, his team, the

Council 9, did win the black badge

challenge for Defcon the following year.

So, there's a part when we were about

halfway through the challenge, you put a

board outside of your room. We thought

it was part of the challenge and it had

two coordinates on it. Um, we went to

one of those coordinates and there was a

land cable hanging from the ceiling that

wasn't connected to anything at one end.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

[laughter]

That was footage of him recalling the

black badge challenge. The coveted black

badge grants the winners of the

challenge free admission to future

conventions under his Twitter account.

potato sack. Thor would celebrate his

victory. Quote, "The Wild Derp in his

natural habitat."

It was also this year that Thor claims

he joined Blizzard's red team. As blue

team in terms of security is the

defensive team, red team is the one that

tests the security by approaching it as

a bad actor would.

>> I'll tell you some of the stuff that

I've done as as red team, too. I've um

3:00 a.m. in the rain jumping over

spiked fences, you know, putting a rug

over the spike fence to get over it. Um,

I've did dumpster diving to go find

passwords that people have thrown out

that they shouldn't thrown out in big

old galashes, you know, big old rubber

boots. Uh, I've broken in through

ceilings. I've broken in through

electronic doors. I've broken in using

uh While some of Thor's claims do not

seem entirely realistic, even for the

scope of Red Team, there is video

evidence of at least one of his feats.

In this video, he breaks into a safe.

Though Thor claims he got into this

position through merit, his ex-coworker

provides a different possibility.

They're just going to let him do what

he's going to do. And that's exactly

what I was told. And that's exactly why

Jason was allowed to form his hacks

team.

>> Joey Ray Hall left Blizzard in 2014. One

could assume that as Thor's father left,

so would the protection Thor had from

his presence. Yet, even without it, Thor

appeared to continue to get favorable

roles. So, I I actually applied at

Blizzard to go do what is called the

side projects and uh side project

committee. I was the first one that got

approved and I went and made a tiny

arcade game. Despite Thor never working

on developing games, as his job

descriptions fall under security and

game testing, and out of well over 2,000

Blizzard employees, it was Thor that was

the first to be allowed into the side

projects committee, a program that

allowed him to work on personal projects

outside of work without a conflict of

interest. On January 31st, 2016, Thor,

under the username Pirate Software,

tweeted, quote, "We will release

official Pirate Software updates here."

unquote. This account and the Pirate

Software website were not only made to

advertise his upcoming food themed game,

but also his new game studio under the

name Pirate Software. Thor claims he

chose the name because it was funny in

an ironic sense and not because he

actually encourages the pirating of

software. Then in February 2016, Thor

left Blizzard and joined Amazon Game

Studios as an automation engineer and

also began focusing on his own company.

The Pirate Software crew roster,

excluding Thor, consisted of three

people, two artists and a composer. This

leaves Thor with the sole

responsibilities of programming the

games. These came down to two projects,

both of which he worked on through

Blizzard's side project committee. On

March 4th, in this Reddit AMA under the

username Thor Witch, Thor claims he had

sunk 1100 hours into the development of

an RPG. Separately, he was also working

on an arcade shooter. The latter was

announced as Champions of Breakfast the

month prior. The former was only hinted

at through this tweet. The username Thor

Witch was also used for Thor's YouTube

channel Thor Witch Plays. Though any

videos on it now are now unlisted or set

to private, the name does imply that

there existed videos of Thor as a let's

player. Back to the topic at hand, the

goal was to get Champions of Breakfast

on Steam through Steam Greenlight. A

feature meant to fasttrack the approval

of indie games via the Steam community.

An issue here was that the game had more

users voting no they would not buy the

game if it was available on Steam. Even

so, on March 11th, the game was able to

get enough support to be green lit and

was released into early access on April

1st with its full release listed as June

23rd, 2016. Likely to stir up publicity,

Thor attempted to entice popular let's

players and let's play groups with

custom artwork to play his game. This

included Markiplier, Jack Septic Eye,

Game Grumps, and Super Beer Bros. Even

PewDiePie was a target. Though every

attempt appears to have failed, even

without their promotion, Champions of

Breakfast had an overall positive

reception. Thor as Maldavius was one of

these positive reviewers. On Metacritic,

he gave it a 10, the highest possible

score. As Thor wrapped up Champions of

Breakfast, work began on a new game, but

not a new story. Heartbound was

something Thor had been conceptualizing

all the way back in high school. Quote,

"For those of you waiting for Heartbound

updates, your time is now. This has been

a project of passion for me over the

last year and the main reason I chose to

go indie in the first place." Thor

sightes Secret of Mana, illusions of

Gaia, The Mother series, Secret of

Evermore, Super Mario RPG as his core

inspirations for the game. The biggest

is likely Earthbound as it shares part

of the name. As for the story, quote,

Laura is the main character of

Heartbound, a troubled young teen living

in a world rapidly being overtaken by a

horrific curse, turning everyone he

knows into creatures called darksiders.

These darksiders retain all of the

memories and ambitions of their host,

but twisted into a terrible mockery of

their former selves. To escape the

growing darkness, lore must travel to

another world to fight back from there,

slowly learning the truth and meaning

behind all this in the process."

unquote. Though Thor does not say as

much in this post, main character's

parents are both based off Thor's real

parents. Baron is Lur's talking dog.

Lore, as is the player's motivation

throughout, is to recover Baron after he

is left in an uncertain state. In the

beginning of the game, Baron's highly

optimistic attitude helps counter Lur's

pessimistic view of the world. In a way,

Baron also helps counter the negligence

of Lur's father and the abuse of his

mother. Though as lore ventures into

different worlds not of Earth, lore

interacts mostly with characters

unfamiliar with him or the existence of

Baron. There is a possibility Baron the

dog is not even real. Perhaps he is the

hopeful side of lore as he retreats into

his own world to grapple with the nature

of the real one. The consequence of

failure is to be doomed in an unmoving

depressive nightmare. This is largely

symbolized in the tower section of the

game based on a corporate office where

lore either finds that he through the

player's choices has become his

gaslighting mother or that he has

defeated her influence by not sharing in

her negative traits. Choice and the

impact of choice is what Thor aimed to

flesh out to an unrealistic degree.

quote, "Every time you interact with an

object, talk to an NPC, forget to turn

off a light switch, take out the trash,

or disregard a sparkly bush, the game

remembers this and would change subtly

for all further interactions. The

greatest part about this design is that

it already works and is in the current

builds of the game. Both minor and major

differences are going to pop up

throughout the game and give the

community something to share with one

another. Everything you do matters, no

matter what kind of player you are,

choose to be." unquote. On the bottom of

the post, Thor provides the current

plans for release. Quote, "Right now, we

are planning on releasing a public beta

before the end of the year along with a

crowdfunding campaign to help fund the

game."

Alongside working at Amazon Game Studios

and working on Heartbound, Thor also

attended 2016's DevCon, where for a

second year in a row, Thor's team, the

cancelled 9, won that year's black badge

challenge. That was also true for the

following year's challenge. Uh, I got

three in a row. So, Defcon 23, 24, and

25 hattrick is not like a normal thing

to get. So, the first one people are

like, "Wow, like I got one." The second

one, they're like, "Wait a minute." And

the third one, while I was at Amazon

Game Studio, the DOE, you know,

approached me and they're like, "Hey, do

you want to go do you want to go hack

those power plants?" And I was like, "I

love money." So, like, yes. You know, as

nice of a story as that is, it's

detached from reality and even

contradicts Thor's own LinkedIn that

shows he started working at Eagle

Research Group in 2016. This means it

was before Defcon 25 that took place in

2017, meaning that when he got his job,

he only had two black badges.

Furthermore, Thor did not work for the

Department of Energy. He worked for a

company that held a contract with the

government.

>> And uh they just fly us out to a site,

hack the site, write a report, go home,

right? And I had to wear a suit the

whole time and they made me cut my hair,

which was weird.

>> You hacked in [laughter] a suit? Wait,

>> suit?

>> That's very Hollywood, dude.

>> That is [ __ ] was weird, dude.

>> That is super weird. I kind of like that

though that they made you wear a suit.

[laughter]

>> That's Yeah, I like I

>> They made me wear a suit and they lied

to me too. They They told me They told

me I had to cut my hair and I was like,

"Why do I have to cut my hair?" And my

boss lied to me. He goes, "Oh, cuz

you'll be around turbines."

>> Also in 2016 is evidence of his haircut,

which aligns with the evidence on

LinkedIn that reinforces that he did

start working at Eagle Research Group in

2016. The additions of the lie about the

government approaching Thor and the lie

that it took place at Defcon 25 in 2017

are perceptibly only included to

arrandise himself, something that would

become all the more common. Though Eagle

Research Group undoubtedly did take much

of his time, Thor was keeping to

deadlines. Just as he stated, he did

release a beta version, but more so a

demo of Heartbound that could be

downloaded on his website in late 2016.

This game was green lit even faster than

Champions of Breakfast and was set to

release into early access late 2017.

Then on February 24th, 2017, Heartbound

hit its Kickstarter with a phenomenally

low goal of only $5,000.

This was hit in a little over 24 hours

after posting. Then in March, after the

funding period ended, Thor directed his

patrons to his development streams and

selected PayPal as a way of post

Kickstarter funding. There was even this

interview conducted by the channel Video

Game News Source.

>> So, speaking of games, what do you have

for us today?

>> So, we have Champions of Breakfast,

which is a twin stick shooter that we

made in 24 days from concept to release

on Steam. Blew up. It was really, really

awesome. Um, and that that game is

pretty difficult. So, if you're into

really hard arcade games, that's the

kind of thing for you. And the other one

is Heartbound, which is a more uh

storydriven RPG. Thor was specifically

working on two chapters of Heartbound.

Chapter 2, The Tower, which has a

distinct red, black, and white color

palette, and chapter 3, Animus. This

chapter is set mostly in an autumn

forest, home to various furries. Planned

were two additional chapters, making it

a fivechapter game. This was set to

release December 2017, not into early

access, but fully finished. These

chapters were entirely absent from the

Heartbound demo as only chapter 1, which

sets up the main character lore, his

parents, and his dog was accessible. By

mid 2017, progress still remained

steady. Thor claiming he was building a

new environment in Heartbound every 6 to

8 hours. Quote, "This one was created

from scratch and implemented in a single

day of work." Initially appearing as a

strategy to include his fans on his

game's development, Thor announced a

streaming schedule. He would stream

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 2

hours at a time. Somehow, he had the

ability to fit these streams into a

schedule full of dev work and his

obligations at Eagle Research Group. By

late 2017, this was all getting to be

too much. So, they wanted to increase my

my hours from 10 weeks of of work a year

flying around the country to [music] 30

with the same pay. And I was like, dude,

I'm not like that's more than half the

year. I wouldn't be at home. like what's

the point of even I just live out of

hotels at that point, right?

>> So, I quit. I quit and I was like, I'm

going to take two weeks. Maybe I'll go

back to Amazon cuz they were offering me

a position for a lead security position

to do security for their games. And uh

it was still open. They they did that

when I was leaving and it was still open

there. And I was like, I'm going to

figure out what I want to do. And two

days later, Jack Septic Guy played our

game Heartbound. And the community just

blew up. And I was like, WELL,

YOU LADIES, MY NAME IS Accept Guy, and

welcome to a game called Heartbound,

which I think is supposed to be a mix

kind of of Undertale and kind [music] of

Earthboundy or at least emulating their

styles in that type of game. A large

let's player had finally played

Heartbound. Jack Septic Eye was one of

the many that Thor tried to go into

playing his game. And though he only

touched on the demo that was limited to

chapter 1, Jack Septic Eye loved the

direction, expressing as much when he

finished the demo.

>> OH, [screaming] THAT WAS COOL.

OH, THAT WAS REALLY, REALLY GOOD. I

didn't expect something like that from

this. I didn't think it would be that

good, but I really, really like it. I

can't wait to see more of this. Oh, I'm

glad I played this now. That was that

was really, really good. Jack Septic's

video, among many things, impacted Thor,

and to that extent, Heartbound in two

major ways. First, it directed over a

million eyes to the project. Second, it

added pressure, something Thor was

having to contend with. By December,

Thor had updated the launch date. Quote,

"We are hoping to fully finish and

release Heartbound by early to mid 2018.

Originally, we wanted to finish and

release the game by December 2017." I

have said many times that Heartbound

will never have a sequel. Taking this

extra time ensures I can keep that

promise because there is so much more

story now than there was originally.

Heartbound is very important to all of

us at Pirate Software, and we want to

make it the best it can be for all of

you." unquote. February 2018 came and

the launch date was pushed back yet

again. Now from mid 2018 to just 2018,

implying a late year release date. Now

late 2018, the type of launch changed.

Though it was previously meant to launch

in a complete state, it was now to

launch on Steam into early access in

December. This commitment was kept.

Heartbound released into early access on

Christmas Day 2018. This version came

with the addition of chapter 2, The

Tower, and sat at 95% positive ratings.

About 2 weeks after release in January

2019, Thor stated, quote, "Aaround 6 to

7 months ago, Thor was able to quit his

day job and start working on this

full-time, so things have gone super

quickly since then. Animus is next."

Being that Thor made some visible

progress on Animus and that he quit his

job, this new chapter could be expected

soon. There was however a small issue

with this tweet. Thor did not quit his

job six or seven months ago. He quit his

job as per his LinkedIn well over a year

ago as lined up with Jack Septic Eye

playing his game in November 2017. A

strange thing to get incorrect but also

inconsequential. Inconsequential like

creator MadPat of Game Theory's coverage

of Heartbound. We have successfully gone

through one and a half days here in 2019

without any major catastrophes, any like

major blowups on Twitter, anything.

Knock on wood, ladies and gentlemen.

>> No disasters.

>> We are nearly 2 days in a kind of

release, but it's not fully released,

but it's kind of released of a game that

we were uh you know, keeping tabs on

kind of in the background. Um I don't

know if you remember it. It's called

Heartbound. It was kind of one of those

ones that came out in the aftermath of

Undertale. uh but goes in a very

different direction with it. Uh it's

it's kind of got that earthboundy mother

series feel to it, that Undertale feel

to it.

>> Thor watched this live. The stream and

VA title was originally GT live. The

next Undertale game is here.

>> Stream and says for everyone watching GT

live, you can find our game Harpound

[music] here and has their link. So they

are pirate software on Twitter.

>> There you go. Pirate Software, there you

be the pirates. So you can play it

yourself and make your own choices and

see if it affects the ending.

>> Creator Jack Septic Eye also pointed to

Undertale as a comparison to Heartbound.

>> Welcome to a game called Heartbound,

which I think is supposed to be a mix

kind of of Undertale.

>> While Jack's Septtery's video inspired

Thor, game theories angered him. Quote,

"I'm pretty disappointed here, and so is

our community. Your recent # GT live

came across as an Undertale clickbait

mashup instead of being about #artbound.

you never linked to our game and you got

our studio name wrong as well." Thor in

his tweet attached two images. The first

is of a notepad that includes the title,

the description, public hashtags, and

the hidden YouTube tags found in Madat's

[music] video. Here, Thor, for a second

time, states that there were no links to

Artbound. The description of the video

is the second image, likely included to

provide evidence for Thor's claims. But

again, Jack Septic Eye also used

Undertale as a point of reference, which

was inspired by the 1995 RPG Earthbound.

With similar inspirations, the games do

share similarities, which neither

channel expressed maliciously, as

Undertale is highly regarded. One

noticeable difference between Game

Theories and Jack Septic commentary is

that Game Theory played a newer version

that included chapter 2, The Tower. A

much slower, puzzle-filled, overall less

guided chapter. large swamps of it will

have players wander the environment with

little direction. Game theory in

particular mocked the gameplay in this

chapter that while much of the gameplay

was symbolic, it was detrimental to the

game's pacing and hammered across themes

that were already well understood.

>> Moved on with the game play. How dare

you not love your dog enough to slog

through Dark Maze gameplay

for how riveting it is.

[laughter]

>> Chris,

>> thanks Chris. You're the best.

>> Thanks, buddy. A book with an eyeball.

>> What a weird game.

[laughter]

>> Mommy, no.

Don't lock me in. READING IS

FUNDAMENTAL.

>> EVEN with these comments, the coverage

was overall positive. Yet, that did not

stop Thor's tweets from gaining

traction. This is when creator The Gamer

for Mars covered this among some other

strange comments MattPad had made in the

past like this one.

>> I've actually never looked at porn

ever. Like,

>> further in the video, Thor's tweets and

outrage around it is covered. creator of

the game wasn't too pleased with this

stream, calling it out for a clickbait

title that compared his game to

Undertale, getting a name wrong, not

giving what he felt was sufficient

promotion, and a supposed misleading

video tag. Needless to say, this

criticism took off. So, was this

reaction justified? Well, in short, no.

MattPat, in response to the outrage,

stated he doesn't review the thumbnail,

tags, description, etc. his employees

do, but even so, he takes responsibility

for their decisions. Even with that, he

explains that the clickbait nature of

some of the videos serve to both get the

video to a wider audience and the small

games he covers to that same audience.

Furthermore, Matt Pack clarifies that

Thor's game is great. Regarding the

issue of linking directly to the game in

the description, he states it's not

something that game theory does. This is

when Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale,

commented, quote, "You should link to

any game you play. creators need all the

help they can get and think carefully if

you're misleading your audience with how

you present your videos. You went too

far this time." Thor at a later date

would claim that Toby Fox's tweet

immediately stopped threats and doxings

that were allegedly coming from Game

Theory's community. Thor claims that the

harassment was so bad that he nearly

cancelled his game. Eventually, MattPat

succumbed to the pressure and added a

link to Heartbound in the video's

description. a smarter move at the time

because of who Thor had the potential to

become. Developers such as Toby Fox and

Scott Cawan are famously known for the

success of their indie games and are

looked upon with admiration as their

games are a large extension of

themselves. Large studios because of all

the names attached to projects are

rarely known for their individual

developers. On the flip side, there are

indie developers who are praised for

their unique or beloved games only for

them to destroy their reputation. So

much so that it even erodess interest in

their game. This is the exact case of

the Yandere dev who was previously

covered on this channel. This is why

reputation is highly important as an

indie developer, especially for those

that made the choice to become public

figures like Thor was doing. Every one

of these purple squares represents a day

that Thor streamed in 2019. The opacity

is dependent on how long he streamed,

meaning the darker the purple, the more

hours he streamed that day. On average,

Thor streamed 5 to 10 hours under

science and technology and also the art

category. Thor, as he claims, was

streaming himself developing Heartbound.

This interview conducted by

gamedeveloper.com reads, quote, "The

next step was proving to everyone who

invested in our game that we are not

going to run away with their money

because that's a big problem for

Kickstarter games. People go and throw

money at a Kickstarter, then the devs

will disappear for 2 years, then come

back and make something that wasn't up

to par compared to what they promised in

the Kickstarter. So, we thought, what if

we streamed at all? Full open

development. They could see every single

thing that we ever do, and no one could

say the devs ran away with the money."

Thor did not exclusively stream

heartbound development. This is a stream

circum made 2019 of him building a

chair. back on this chair now, but I

don't know how cuz I threw the

instructions.

>> Presumably the same month, he also

streamed himself playing The Division 2

as his 26-second highlight video was

also uploaded in May.

>> It means the world to me, and I'm just

going to say I'll always be here [music]

throwing bits and supporting you.

>> While the commentary is not of note,

Thor's deeper voice was, or at least it

would be as part of a strange footnote

in his undoing. For now, the goal was

Animus. Chapter 1 was made while working

at Blizzard and Amazon Game Studios.

Chapter 2 took two years, though half

the time Thor had a job keeping him from

dedicated development of debilitating

illness in the last 3 months. Here, Thor

also calls it a cold. Thor continued to

tweet about this illness until March

16th where he stated he had been feeling

better, but by the 17th he was feeling

far worse. He claims he was diagnosed

with pneumonia and was given a COVID

test which he was waiting for the

results of. 4 days later, he stated that

he tested negative for COVID and only

had pneumonia. With his illness

diagnosed, he would no doubt begin

receiving proper treatment and improve.

Except on the 23rd, Thor now tweeted

that he was misdiagnosed. It was not

COVID or pneumonia. Instead, it was

bronchitis. A week from that tweet, on

the 30th, Thor now marks this as day 30

of his illness and reminds his audience

that he tested negative for COVID. Then

in April, he tweeted that he was getting

better, then worse. Then on the 10th,

finally, the cold was defeated. Thor

went as far to say quote unquote this

time for good. The following month, Thor

on Steam released an update to address

the lack of them. Quote, "Rason for

delay. Animus was set to be released by

now. For the last several months, I've

been in and out of hospital with severe

viral bronchitis. Lost around 70% lung

function at one point and went to

hypoxia and almost bit the big one.

Thankfully, with treatment, I've been

doing much better. I ended up losing

around 2.5 months of work and the stream

was offline for over a month total. this

is the most amount of work I've missed

in 3 years, so it's been pretty rough."

Below, Thor post an image of his stream

frequency, noting how much he had not

streamed in April and May due to his

illness. Finally, in July, Heartbound

was updated, but only with a small

portion of Animus added, quote, "You can

now play through some of Fern and wrote

story line in EN us only." 4 months

later, now in November, Thor tweets,

quote, after nearly 8 months of

recovery, my lungs are well enough to

steam and work on a daily basis again.

Thank you for all of the support and

good vibes to get me back here." It is

now the 1st of January 2021. Animus has

not been delivered and is now a year

delayed, but Thor in this tweet

reassures his audience that it is

coming. Quote, "#heartbound is the main

priority. Animus will absolutely be done

soon. Now that I'm no longer recovering

from CO, things will go much faster.

We're also working on a commission game

on the side. That should be fun." Now,

Thor claims he had had CO. It went from

a cold to pneumonia to bronchitis to

testing negative from COVID to now

rewriting it all as COVID. Users were

none too pleased with the lack of

development. Ko on Twitter tweeted,

quote, "Don't get your hopes up."

According to interviews, Act 3 is in

development since over 1 and a half

years, and the game is supposed to have

five acts. Also, sorry, PS. I love the

game, but I am fed up with being

played." Thor responds stating again

that he had COVID and rewrites the

recovery period from 8 months to roughly

9 months. and he also states he needs to

use an inhaler for the rest of his life.

Thor adds that the state of his lungs

have improved and that he can at least

work again. Now, September 2021, Thor

teases at Animus and reassures a

commenter that it is nearly here. But

these excuses were no longer

satisfactory. On Twitter, a Portuguese

fan tweeted that chapter 2 of Delta Rune

had already come out, yet there is still

no new content for Heartbound. Thor

contests this by stating he streams his

development every day and that Animus is

92% finished. This would seem impressive

until one compares it to the last

miracle update on progress which

happened in October 19th, 2019 at 86%.

This means by Thor's own metric, he had

only developed 6% of a single chapter in

almost 2 years. What's more, Thor had

redconed the window he had been sick

where it had previously jumped from 8

months to roughly 9. In September of

2021, he now states, quote, I caught CO

in early 2020 and lost nearly a year of

development time in recovery. Thankfully

not dead, but mad that I lost so much

time." On the topic of lost time, Thor

in the middle of 2021 ran for a seat on

the Council of Stellar Management in the

video game Eve Online, a position where

the council members act as a

representative of the player base to

deliver ideas and requests to the game's

developers. Eve Online is an MMO that as

per any of the genre consumes a vast

amount of players time. But not only was

Thor playing Eve and running for the

council, he was also a leader of his own

corporation known as Drybog Clay. This

could explain the absence of steady

updates. It would be several months

until Thor provided information on

Animus. As now patterned in 2022, he was

delivering not Animus, but more bad news

now regarding his partner Sheay. Sheay

does all of the art and animation for

the entire studio. Anytime you see uh

messages [music] on Twitter with art on

it, anytime you see any of the art in

the video game, anytime you see any of

our merchandise, any of that stuff, it's

all made by Sheay. Sheay hurt his back

badly. He's been going back and forth to

the doctor. He's not allowed to lift

anything. He's not allowed to like move

around or anything like that. He has to

walk around with a cane. And I've just

been taking care of him the whole time.

So, I have to take care of all the pets.

I have to take care of everything in the

house. Shay can't lift anything. He

can't do anything on his own. So,

because of that, most of my time has

been spent on that. It's why I haven't

streamed very often this month. It's

been about half the days of the month I

haven't streamed that I normally would.

It's just because of this. So, don't

worry. I haven't quit working on the

game. I'm not dead. Like, everything is

it's okay. But, we're trying to find out

what's wrong with Shay to get him

repaired like a robot, right?

>> Two months later, Thor published another

video containing hope that Animus was

nearly here and an excuse that would all

but guarantee its delay.

>> All of the stuff for Avocados finished.

All the stuff for [music] um the misery

and mania middle story area is finished

and most of the stuff for the mossbacks

are finished. So that is the end of

Animus. Basically all of that is

finished. Animus [music] just has the

final scene and we're finished with it

and it's done and we can move on to

Yotenheim which is about Vikings and

combat and and you know conflict

resolution and all that cool stuff. And

that's the end of the primary chapters

in Harpout. And then it's just the end

of the game. That's it. We're basically

we're basically at the end here. It's

finally happening. My doctor has

diagnosed me now with what's called

trigeminal neuralgia. There's a nerve

that goes like this on your face. It's a

trigeminal nerve. Threeprong try, right?

And it comes out of your brain stem,

goes to about here. It is like you have

worms in your bones that are made out of

fire. It is the most devastating pain I

have ever felt in my entire life. Thor

also discusses the failing health of his

cat and the time needed to monitor it.

But that's it. That's really it. It's

just taking care of my cat and [music]

um I'm just I'm amazed she's still

alive. So if you're upset this stuff

hasn't come out, if you're upset that I

haven't made these videos, I understand.

[music] Sorry. But uh to not mince

worries about it, this is the worst two

months I think I've ever had in my life.

and it's it's not going to stop me from

making this game.

>> Since its initial deadline, Animus has

been delayed two years and about 5

months. Thor, in comparison, sped

through the first two chapters. So, why

is this one so different? Thor attempts

to answer this also in his update video.

An Animus took so long to build because

it is the most complicated chapter in

Hearth. Most of the rooms in Animus take

between 15 and 40 uh kind of, you know,

timelines that can go through them.

there different routes through all of

those different sections because human

interaction is so complex. It's not just

about yes or no to someone. It's about

yes or no and also how did you treat

them before? How did you treat them

before that? And if you're mad that it

took a long time, well, I'm sorry. And

for me, I'm just going to make it as

realistic and interesting in terms of

character interaction as I possibly can.

>> Animus, at least the segment of it that

exists in the game, has the largest

number of distinct characters of the

three chapters. A core tenant of

Heartbound since the game's inception is

player choice.

>> So Heartbound is a game that is about

player choice. And let me let me be

clear about this. You've probably heard

that before, right? You've heard about a

game that's of player choice and it

always ends up being some kind of

narrative route that's sort of dog [ __ ]

right? It ends up being something that

looks like this

where the the route doesn't actually

matter. The beginning and the ending is

exactly the same. You may have like one

line of dialogue that's different, but

it ends up not mattering in the end. you

always get the same ending and it sort

of doesn't matter at all. Let me show

you what hardbound does. Understand this

is just three rooms.

These are all the interactions and how

they play into each other in those

rooms.

There are thousands of routes in

Harbound. There are thousands of routes

in Harbound. Everything you do in the

game matters and they're all distinct

from each other. There's a ton of

interactions that you will never see.

Anything you ever see me working on on

stream, it won't matter. People will say

spoilers in the chat, but there are many

routes in there that no one's ever

found. There are rooms that no one has

ever seen.

>> Thor had always desired to make

individual choices and exploration echo

louder than potentially any other game,

like he tried to do with chapter 1. For

example, whenever you feed your dog

baron garbage or dog food, it largely

helps determine the moral representation

of the main character later on. This

makes sense as the game's themes deal

with morality and choosing to be either

helpful or detrimental to others, which

ties into Lur's relationship with his

parents. Animus so far does have these

moral choices, but rather than having

them tie back to the story of lore or

the relationship with his parents or

even his dog, they are mostly done to

expand the stories of secondary

characters or just to explore the

morality of the player's choice.

Furthermore, though Thor toes the

expansiveness of branching past and

happenings, there are many choices that

end up being either detrimental to

gameplay or entirely meaningless. I have

always loved the idea of a choose your

own adventure comic book, choose your

own adventure video game, and I have

made butterfly effect the game. Every

environment in the entire game has

usually dozens to hundreds of routes,

all of them. In fact, one of the really

easy ways to check something that you've

done or not is in the very beginning of

the game, your bedroom. You can actually

leave the bedroom without ever putting

on your sweater. And all of the

animations for the rest of the entire

game change, and the ways that

characters interact with you and address

you is different because you're not

wearing your sweater. And your health is

cut in half for the rest of the game.

And even as tiny things, a little small

example, if you go and meet one of the

characters while wearing your pajamas,

which is Shelly, then save outside of

her house, then put on your sweater

after doing the save, then go back in

and meet her inside of her house with

your sweater on, now she comments on it

because 2 seconds ago you weren't

wearing a sweater, and she doesn't

understand. Not only does this

deceptively consequential decision make

encounters twice as hard, Thor finds it

important enough to have a secondary

character comment on it if you decide to

put the sweater on later in game in a

very specific spot. In attempting to

circumvent meaningless choice, he has

only created them. At one point in

development, quote, "Prior to patch

1.0.8b,

but now patch 1.03b, 03B. The Yotenheim

paths were determined by if the stove in

Lur's house is turned on. The

multipleheim path would be activated if

you turn the stove on. The Nephilheim

path would be activated if you left the

stove off. [music] The determinant on

which chapter the player could visit and

to that extent would be barred from

visiting was choosing to turn an

appliance on or leave it off. A decision

that the game would even fail to

highlight the importance of.

>> I like this. They're they're like Shaggy

and Scooby. Turn on the stove.

Great. Now it's a fire hazard.

>> What determines this path now is a value

known as curiosity. On Reddit, a user

expands on these values and emphasizes

that these are only known because Thor

talks about them. Quote, "Fear and

curiosity are two hidden variables, both

of which we only know because of the

live streams. Curiosity is how many

things you interact with. High curiosity

will make Yodenheim act four rightmost

portal be Mosheim lava while low

curiosity will make Yodenheim be Nlheim

ice fear is quote unquote evil nest

increasing when you feed Baron the

garbage throw away the Viking feast

steel binder's apple etc there are many

ways to decrease fear but the only one I

know about is taking the dog figurine

there are probably more hidden variables

we didn't know about yet but I'm sure

once the game is released we'll start

learning about them from the data miners

though Thor emphasizes the importance of

individual choice. He has still used

simplified systems to calculate outcomes

such as with the karma system found in

Fallout 3 that places decisions as

either good or bad. It is this desire of

complexity that Thor claims is delaying

his game. What was meant to only be an

element of Heartbound was now

overshadowing everything else. What drew

Praise from Jack Septic Eye was not the

choice in the demo. It was the tonal

themes and mystery of what happened to

Baron or what Baron even represents. It

was what Heartbound used to be when Thor

initially conceptualized it as a comic.

Not only is the novelty of choice

delaying the game far beyond when it was

meant to release, it is assuring that

the game's community lacks in shared

experiences and diminishes the game's

ability to tell a crafted story as it

hands that off to a reflection of an

endless list of choices that often have

imperceivable weight and that is

heartbound and to that extent Thor's

core issue. He aims to make a game

praised for its novelty, for its

branching paths and roots resembling a

puzzle rather than a story. While Thor's

motivation for this change in focus is

unclear, it could all be tied back to

one of his inspirations. Not an

inspiration listed on his initial post

about the concept of Heartpound, rather

an inspiration that he has shown himself

to despise being compared to. Can you

pinpoint where along your journey

growing up that you decided that you

wanted to pursue gaming professionally

or game development professionally or

did it just sort of happen that way?

>> So like I always kind of wanted to do

that. I was always like man one day I'm

going to do that I'm working in AAA one

day I'm going to go you know leave AAA

and do this and then it was it was funny

because Undertale came out and I was

like what the hell am I waiting for?

Right? Like if if if somebody can go

make something like this and they can do

it where there's there's flaws in it,

there's like art flaws, there's like

storyline, there's little pieces that

are, you know, it's an indie, right? And

you see that you're like, well, why am I

not doing this? This is all possibly

tied back to Undertale. Before the large

scale comparisons of Heartbound to

Undertale, Thor was working at a much

faster rate. It took him nearly 2 years

to release two chapters into early

access. Now he has been stuck on a

single chapter for nearly 3 years. a

chapter that he was working on when Matt

Patad covered his game and compared it

to Undertale, which infuriated Thor.

This possible ambition to set Heartbound

apart from even Undertale, a highly

praised game, could be fueling continued

delays and to that extent, frustration

from a lack of progress from both Thor

and his supporters. The more Thor

promises, the higher potential to

underdel. So, Heartbound is the most

anticipated

of 2022 for the GameMaker Awards, which

is freaking rad. [music] You guys are

awesome. Um, next thing up for me is to

go and release the rest of the Mossback

storyline and then finish Animus off.

And I am going to have that done

probably in the next month or two unless

something horrible happens.

Gadget Gadget passed away. I've taken

the last like week and a half off and um

just kind of dealing with it. You know,

I had her for 18 years. So, it's a long

time. Thor's cat had passed away and

Thor was taking time to mourn. By

October, he announces back and ready to

work to finish Animus. And when this

stuff gets translated right there, just

these kind of little blips here, um, the

next patch goes out, then I do this

stuff, and then the chapter's done.

That's it. That's the end of Animus.

>> Two more months passed without Animus.

On Twitter, Thor again hints at the

release of the chapter, this time giving

a visual representation on how much is

left to finish. There are only three

scenes requiring programming and three

other scenes where programming is half

finished. In a video released this same

month, Thor again sets a deadline. So

2023 is the year, man. That's that's how

I feel right now. It it seems extremely

likely, like very very high likelihood

that we will get all this done in this

next year, [music] which is crazy and it

feels weird, but we're there, man.

>> This deadline was missed. Thor explains

that he found too many bugs which stole

his attention.

>> As you can see here, let's pull this

over. A lot of this patch was bug fixes.

Massive amount. I needed to set up the

stage for me to release content [music]

faster. So, the last two to three months

have been me just fixing things. Earlier

in this video, Thor showed his visual

content tracker. Comparing this to the

tweet of the same tracker 2 months ago

shows that he added four new incomplete

scenes between Picnic and Lost. Below

Vapor Cave are also four other

incomplete scenes. Animus has now been

delayed 3 years since its initial

deadline. If it was not clear that

finishing this game was not his

priority, the statements made in this

video and the ones following it would

demonstrate as much. I have another cool

announcement. In the background,

secretly for a very long period of time,

not really secretly, but people inside

of the Discord know about this, we've

been working on a custom Minecraft

server. It's called block game because

it's funny to call it block game, but

basically this is an MMO and we have

hundreds of craftable items, hundreds of