Employee Handbook Spoilers Analysis



The first spoilers from the Employee Handbook started coming out. Sadly, it’s not as revealing as we’d hoped. However, there are still some… interesting little details.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. If you’re on mobile and don’t want to be spoiled, scroll through this post without reading.



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1. Henry left the studio in August and is now living in California.



His memo refers to Joey as his “old friend”, but also states that he wants to go “anywhere but here”, so his feelings towards Joey and the studio are not very warm.

August was also the same month that Henry left, the month the game takes place, and the month when studio closed. Joey has the date 31 of August circled in red, as if it was important.



That’s… a lot of strange coincidences…

2. The pedestals were indeed in the Break Room, Wally didn’t lie.



It seems that the reason we can’t find them in the break room in the game is because of the studio’s cartoon physics strongly hinted in the BATIM novel.

It’s interesting that the donated objects seem to be tied to the “essence” (soul?) of the employees. Seeing as Wally was able to survive this, either the ink creatures were made from this “essence”, and the real life employees are safe outside the studio, or Wally donated something he didn’t feel a particular attachment to, and his soul was spared.

Also, a neat little hint that the wrench may have been Alice’s ritual item?

3. Sammy was on Joey’s side through and through. Even against his own employees!

This is an excerpt from a news article about the studio’s employees protesting against the working conditions. Apparently, Joey was under investigation for employee maltreatment. The article ends with Joey mentioning a “new technology installed with partnership from Gent Corporation”, so we can gather from it that the ink machine became operational in 1946.



4. Thomas was not directly employed by the studio. He was a Gent representative.



5. Joey’s relationship with Allison is… interesting



Allison is also the only employee who continues to have a good relationship with Joey after leaving the studio. It seems she was given a special treatment.

The date on the invitation is 1952, years after the studio went bankrupt. Either Joey isolated himself out of his own volition, or it pained him to see his friend (crush?) starting a family, while he was living all by himself. Perhaps it reminded him of what happened after his previous friend got a family of his own?



Despite that, he continued to exchange letters with Allison after this incident.



6. This is the second mention of Joey’s “girl” in the books, yet she’s not listed among the company’s employees.

Sammy and Grant’s secretaries are listed in the studio hierarchy, but Joey doesn’t officially have one.



Who was the “girl” then? What’s especially interesting is that Grant asks Joey to have his “girl” call him, yet in Grant’s official description there is this:

Directly. Not through any “girls”, at least not officially.



Keep in mind that these descriptions are written by Joey himself - they refer to Bertrum as “Bertie”. Joey wanted to keep his secretary off the records for some reason. Interestingly, Henry was also kept off the records…

Something fishy is going on…



Worth noting here that Grant’s line about “the genius upstairs” in the game could also be referring to the girl, since he wants her to call “down” to him.



7. Foreshadowing?