On Tuesday, January 9th, Matthew Patrick (aka MatPat) posted a video on the Game Theorists channel titled “Goodbye Internet.” This 25-minute-long video details his stepping back from his 4 main YouTube channels, his explanation, and what’s to come for MatPat and the Theorist channels.

In case you don’t know who he is, Matthew Patrick is one of the original popular gaming YouTubers alongside Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, PewDiePie, and DanTDM. While he only started with the Game Theorists, he became the face of the other channels, including the Film Theorists, the Food Theorists, and the Style Theorists for the entirety of their existence, along with his live streaming channel GTLive.

While there have been side series on his first channel like Smash History, DeadLock, and YouTube Red (now Premium) exclusive Game Lab, all of his content revolves around Edutainment, teaching various concepts through video games, media, food, and most recently fashion. He also does deep dives into the lore, or overarching stories, of mysterious games and series.

He has well over a thousand total theories across the channels and takes a look at everything from Minecraft to small alternate reality games (ARGs for short), but he is most known for his extensive coverage of the horror game Five Nights at Freddy’s. He has made 67 theories on the franchise, over 10% of the entire Game Theorists channel, and is one of the biggest names trying to decipher the clues in every corner of the franchise.

Sadly, his time as the main voice and .png cutout across the Theorist channels is coming to an end due to many factors, mainly that YouTube has been the main focus of his life for around 13 years. He and his wife Stephanie built these channels from the ground up, and their son Ollie is going to be 6 this year. In the video, he states how he and Steph have been planning this for a while, as he wants to focus his time on his family and his separate creative projects.

His retirement wasn’t immediate though, as he stated he had “10 Final Theories” to post, with the final one on March 9th, alongside a few events including a YouTube Fashion Show. After that, he will entrust the channels to his employees, Tom taking over the Game Theorists, Lee for the Film Theorists, Santi for the Food Theorists, and Amy for the Style Theorists. He will stay on GTLive until sometime this summer, but he has not decided its fate as of now (I’d predict his technician Ash will take over, as they’ve been a big part of GTLive for a while now and they deserve it).

As for MatPat, he revealed some major projects he has been working on in the background for a while that I’m personally excited about. First, he has been working with several musicians to create lo-fi music with a hidden story, seemingly (or jokingly) called Lore-Fi in “Goodbye Internet” and some of his videos uploaded afterward. As well, he said he created a pilot for an animated show called The Envie, with him describing it as “if you took Gravity Falls but aged it up and made it about adulting”. Finally, he’s been trying to bring a game concept of his to life for years, but never could fully focus on it while running the Theorist channels. While he hasn’t said much else about what it could be, he will “step into the role of Scott Cawthon and challenge the new Game Theorist,” maybe starting this year.

While he will be missed by millions upon millions online, myself included, he will still be here challenging our minds for the future. He’s been an inspiration to me, and my biggest motivation to try and become Valedictorian like he did in high school. He’s done a lot of good both in and outside YouTube and will be remembered for years to come. “But hey, that’s just a theory, a Game Theory!” Thanks for everything MatPat.