The short films in jacksepticeye's ALTRVERSE

Online creator Sean McLoughlin, aka jacksepticeye, has slowly been building a multiverse of stories across various mediums, from gaming playthroughs and skits to short films, interactive livestreams, and ongoing comic series, with a narrative podcast and video game on the horizon. In Part 1 of this series, we covered the origins of Sean's six main characters. Be sure to read that guide to become acquainted with them. Now begins our look at their canonical first appearances in the burgeoning ALTRVERSE. relaunched in 2019 with creative director Sophie Jackson. At the time, we had no idea what was coming.

From 2016 onwards, characters created by Sean and his community grew and grew, becoming a major part of fan interaction and building a lore for the channel. This was softly rebooted with one very important video. The trend of glitchy appearances of Anti and the usual spooky Halloween videos were well known to fans, but after Sean's first short film, the appearances of 'egos' took on a different air, something perhaps more thought out, more cinematic and intriguing. There's still unanswered questions from 2019, yet to come to fruition in the ALTRVERSE. But let's get to the project that kicked it all off.

CHASE

CHASE, released October 13, 2019, was a four minute exploration of Chase Brody's character told without dialogue. The ambiguous dreamy nature of the short gave the character new depth, rewriting his family as a lost wife and child, confirmed by Sean. Chase lays a polaroid of them next to a cairn-like object in the woods, usually marking a burial.

This, Anti's blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance and the Easter egg reference to 'What do you want from me?' in the number on Chase's vacate notice, suggest that some version of the ending of that video, with Anti appearing in red light in Chase's house, did happen in this continuity. Still, CHASE, marked the beginning of Sean putting more planning and purpose into his characters' journeys, beyond appearances within the narrative of gaming videos.

A Doctor, a Puppet, a Magician

Six days after CHASE's release, fans were treated to another appearance. Once the usual video ends, static brings us to Dr. Scheeplestein working something out on many sheets of paper in front of two monitors with futuristic displays. Before he can crack it, the beeping crescendos, the screen glitches, and the doctor is left staring at a strange spiralling aperture, as if sucked in.

On Halloween itself, Jameson Jackson returned for the first time since 2017. While his outfit was similar, the character this time performed a puppet show, before becoming a possessed puppet himself at the end of the video. It's unknown whether this event is related to the rest of the ALTRVERSE, or whether it was a one-off haunting. Still, the video is the best representation of Anti's puppeteering of another character in the post-CHASE era.

While there were plenty of more advanced scares in horror gaming videos in the year that followed, whether Anti-related or not, it wasn't until Halloween 2020 when the ALTRVERSE's next definite entry released. The video still poses more questions than answers, but in the time since this video, Bad Egg Publishing's Void Silver (Argentum Inanis in Latin) has released, following Marvin's journey, his appearance and lore within the Magic Circle set up by this short.

"Please use Argentum Inanis with caution.
Inform an AIMC immediately!
Don't make eye contact."

- Argentum Inanis video description

It's yet unknown how exactly the Void Silver comic that we'll cover in Part 3 relates to the more advanced Marvin and his crystal ball/potential Philosopher's Stone in the video. Marvin sees visions of Anti in his past reality in control of Jack, as well as Scheeplestein in front of the screens. While the orb's final visions obviously ties to whatever the doctor experienced, Argentum Inanis itself is a mystery. The video's retitling to 'Don't Make Eye Contact' and back again, and the pages of Marvin's book glimpsed within, mentioning time travel, mirror dimensions and IRIS = Antimatter, certainly relate to what came next in the ALTRVERSE, though.

The IRIS Project

It wasn't until 2022 when things really ramped up and began to tie together.

Fans found a mysterious twitter account for a corporation known as IRIS. The whole account is worth an exploration and really aided in worldbuilding, with tweets (including images) continuing throughout the year, related to both real-world and fictional events, like the company celebrating its centenary by looking back on out-there inventions.

It wasn't until Sean's video 3 Scary Games, a month after the twitter account began, that we first saw anything IRIS-related, beyond the mention in Marvin's spellbook, on screen. Though this wasn't in-universe, fans watched Sean's office through the eyes of a WTCHR camera, unsure what it meant beyond the genre trope. Powered by an IRIS AntiMatter generator, a WTCHR camera can detect emotions, and heartrate, from a lie to the warning signs of a severe medical emergency.

Sean's 5,000th video ended with a trailer for what fans didn't know would be an interactive livestream and short film combined. The trailer opens with footage of IRIS staff members, as well as some later shots, that didn't appear in the livestream. Following the trailer, sneak peeks and glitches were found in three horror game videos building towards Halloween, the last of which was Security Booth. (Check 27 seconds into the video.) On October 23, IRIS reported someone hacking their system, there was a redacted file revealing that Chase was detained in their facility, then a three day countdown began.

The livestream started as evening came in the UK. It took the YouTube chat half an hour to first realise that they could input commands, then to begin to try and crack the on-screen computer's password. A "hacked into" camera feed cycled through various rooms in IRIS's facility, including a room with the possible AntiMatter generator, a hallway, and the staff room seen in the trailer. It's fascinating to watch the footage back, as slowly fans cracked puzzles (ranging from a phone password to noughts and crosses to an infamous pipe-laying challenge) and realised the camera could be moved and zoomed. This interactive game was made in Unreal Engine with Hyper RPG and was stuffed full of Easter eggs...

Upon the completion of each room's puzzle, a new section IRL footage would be released, footage that documented Chase's captivity, interrogations and hauntings, as well as providing much more insight into IRIS's history and operations. Shortly after the unexplained ending of CHASE, he was detained and held for days in the facility because of his connection to ALTR 114209. ALTR is an acronym of which we have yet to learn the meaning. From various signs and documents we know there are many, but that particular one is IRIS's name for Anti. The footage backed up everything fans had theorised about Chase losing his family and featured a potential new character referred to as Echo.

As the gaps between filmed footage lessened and their content ramped up, a red light and alarm blared as whispers grew. Almost four hours into the stream, Chase was moved by two security guards into the hallway, now glowing with red light, reminding Chase exactly of how he found Anti at the end of Dark Silence. As he's dragged away, the stream suddenly crashed, a real something to experience live.

Fate combined perfectly with the narrative as after around half an hour of nothing, the stream came back online for the finale. As the facility's cameras cycled a final time, each room was bathed in red light, phones rang without an answer and people were heard hurrying about. The entity known as Anti took over the facility, and finally drags the viewer, the hacker, through the camera in Chase's cell for the final shot of this story.

Above is the security footage sections pieced together in a short film, for viewing ease. This was Sean's first major attempt at writing and directing, and starred not just him in two roles, but his friend Arin Hanson of Game Grumps as the IRIS scientist interviewing Chase, as well as many extras.

Overnight Watch

While the current ALTRVERSE comics from Bad Egg Publishing are exploring two different sides of Sean's potential multiverse, it looks like he'll be returning to the IRIS mythology soon, with a Observation Duty-like video game made in collaboration with Security Booth's solo dev Kyle Horwood. Overnight Watch, unrelated to the rest of Sean's lore, was a camera-grid livestream to bridge the gap between two days of charity streams in 2018. Every so often some haunting imagery would appear on one of the cameras, something that inspired The IRIS Project and probably this game within the ALTRVERSE. The IRIS twitter account shared the above image too on September 13, the first time being online since November of last year.

With continued talk of a narrative podcast joining this game, Sean's video content and the comics (which we'll cover in Part 3 of this guide), there's still a lot to come from the ALTRVERSE. So keep your eyes on jacksepticeye.