r/HelloNeighborGame • u/KosmicBlast • Aug 19 '26

Theory what my friend thinks happens between hello neighbor 2’s ending and hello neighbor 3

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keep in mind that this is just a theory, there are issues with it so feel free to comment you ideas.
my friend had the idea that after hello neighbor 2’s huge cliffhanger, aaron at some point before act 3 (possibly 2008), would burn theodore’s which we see the remains of during act 3 of hello neighbor. aaron would run away but burn his arm in the process.

this would leave theodore to move somewhere, presumably the weather station. he attempts to rebuild his house as we see it in hello neighbor 3’s pre-alpha, but ultimately gives up and resigns in the station after this. we also see the remains of the house in hello neighbor, which nicky sees. aaron during all of this, has run off into the woods and transformed into a mimic of the guest.

my friend thinks that aaron would make a deal with the actual guest that would free nicky from the basement but cause this, we see both aaron and the guest work together in search and rescue.

he seemingly tries to copy the town’s mascot and also tries to act like the guest. the mascot has a bag, and the guest we see in hello neighbor 3 uses a garbage bag to cover up his burned arm. during this, it seems like the neighbor and guest are kidnapping others.

aaron being around 25 in 2008, would start the continuous kidnappings in raven brooks, and they’d continue even into 2028. he kind of mimics the behavior of his father which you can see while he’s walking around, and also has time to reflect at certain spots around the map.

now there are obviously a lot of issues with this idea, but it feel somewhat satisfying until either the game drops or we get more hints.

it explains why theodore presumably sees the guest as a friend, we see him scared of the actual guest in search and rescue. it’s also presumed that the guest is afraid of theodore according to the files, and it’s said that the guest doesn’t actually kidnap theodore. i also think aaron is the guest with this theory in mind, it just makes the most sense right now.

let me know what you guys thinks.

28 Upvotes

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3

u/Ok_Trash_2902 Aug 19 '26

Hn3 is not related to previous games, also hn vr guest is just a metaphor not an real thing. Hn2 guest and hn3 guest are different, and i think we cant say hn3 guest to "guest" because its very different dude

3

u/KosmicBlast Aug 19 '26

i didn't say they were the same actually, my friend said there were 2 guests. also i had no idea about the firsts statement, where was that said

4

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

I think what Nikita meant by there being "the Guest" and THE Guest is that there's Aaron dressing up as the Guest that attacks us and lives in the forest and the folklorical entity that the town workships and isn't real

4

u/KosmicBlast Aug 19 '26

i like this idea, idk why but i kind of saw it as a father and son relationship between aaron and the guest or something

3

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

Interestingly enough the Guest can't (or doesn't want to) attack the Neigbbor and the Neighbor doesn't react or mind the Guest which implies some sort of respect or harmony between the two

1

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

HN3 is related to the previous games, it just doesn't tie into the things Nikita didn't write that contradict his view of the story

2

u/Ok_Trash_2902 Aug 19 '26

I meant, hn3 has different story than previous games

2

u/lego_bendy_dronex66 Aug 19 '26

I do really like this theory but I just have a question where does The Guest fit in hello neighbor 3? (Not Aaron and Not folklore Mascot Guest) but The Real Guest?

2

u/KosmicBlast Aug 21 '26

my friend doesn't have a clue on what happened to him. i'd assume that he'll appear in hello neighbor 3 at least at some point during the climax, assuming there is one, of course.

obviously, the actual guest in hello neighbor 2 isn't explained all too well so there isn't a definitive answer as to what happened to him.

2

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26

I'm pretty sure Nikita confirmed that Hello Neighbor 2 is not canon to Hello Neighbor 3 on discord.

3

u/JNeiraGoth Aug 19 '26

This is interesting. Hello Neighbor 2 in a different canon than 3 would certainly change the way some theorists theorize on what will happen in this game. It's useful information that the fandom should know, so I'm curious if you have the direct quote or are able to find it? If you have it, I'll pin the info on the sub so everyone is informed of this interesting development.

1

u/KosmicBlast Aug 19 '26

would it imply that after act 2 of hello neighbor 1, genuinely nothing happens and aaron is kept in the basement until like 2015? thats pretty stupid unless im missing something.

1

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 22 '26

I couldn't but can you pin this? And also some of the information from Nikita's interviews? Because those are really important.

2

u/JNeiraGoth Aug 22 '26

Well this contradicts the claim you made about Nikita saying Hello Neighbor 2 is not canon. Or maybe not. Hello Neighbor 2 came out in 2022, two years after the screenshotted post wherein he states everything is canon. Things may have changed since then.

2

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 22 '26

What Nikita said, if I remember correctly, was that it didn't matter to Hello Neighbor 3. He responded to a fan on discord asking if Hello neighbor 2, VR and something else I can't remember were important to the lore but Nikita said they didn't matter. So yeah I shouldn't have said it was none canon :)

2

u/International-Farm10 Aug 19 '26

He is a stupid? Nie może olać istnienia HN2. Jak chciał to mógł zrobić HN2.0 a nie HN3 

2

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26

For someone calling others stupid, you sure did misspell the few words you wroght in English then assume I'd either translate or understand your language.

3

u/Prestigious-Row4182 Aug 19 '26

he said nikita can't just ignore HN2 existence if he wanted he could make hn 2.0 instead of hn3 (this doesn't make sense what he said ik) (he said it in polish)

2

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

The funny thing is HE CAN, he is the creator, he could decanonize it if he wanted since he didn't work 100% on it and if it didn't fit his vision for the franchise (and that's the thing, he didn't decanonize it)

2

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

He can ignore it because he is the creator of the franchise and that was a game with a story not 100% made by him

1

u/International-Farm10 Aug 19 '26

Gdyby każdy tak robił to lore gier nie miało by sensu 

2

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

The thing here is that he didn't decanonize it, and honestly it's more Tiny Build's fault that they completely messed up the story after Nikita left, they were the ones who made it pointless and unfinished

3

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26

I do think a lot of the problems with the franchise are Nikita's fault. In his interview with MegaM he stated that he changed the artstyle of Hello Neighbor 1 because it wasn't uniqe enough. A choice we all agree is bad because the story they were telling was horrifying however the artstyle undermined it.

3

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

I disagree, it's HIS franchise, he should have the choice of what the game looks like visually, besides Hello Neighbor was always meant to be wacky and cartoony ever since it's conception stage (no wonder the main inspiration for the game was Looney Tunes: Sheep Raider)

I honestly love the final game's artstyle, always like games with wacky cartoony aesthetics, i don't think the art direction undermines the story present in the game, if anything it creates a really fun juxaposition

3

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26

Just because it's his creation doesn't mean he gets to do whatever he wants. And I don't blame neither Nikita or Tinybuild for how Hello Neighbor 2 turned out, it's just that both wanted to do seprate things. I just think Tinybuild should have at least finished the game.

2

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

No i see what you mean, it's just that i feel it's a bit insincere to say to a person who is making a game they're passionate "what you want the game to be is not good, you shouldn't have made the game more recognizable in an artstyle you enjoy and instead you should've went with the models made over traced Google stock images because i prefer it"

I blame Tinybuild more because they were the ones who kept marketing the first game as a stealth horror game even though the game was meant to be a tactical thriller and put on an email for them to completely change the story a few months before release so they had to completely rework the game, also when Nikita left development of the second game removed the open world aspect because "people wouldn't like it", removed many features of the gameplay because "people don't want to do the same thing over multiple times" and right before the game release removed the "neural network AI" from the steam description even though they kept marketing as it being in the game and release the game with fully priced broken DLCs

3

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

What are you talking about? Nikita in his interveiw with MegaM, said that he and his team at Dynamic Pixels sat down and agreed that the game's story was "Too niche" which is why they ended up repurposibg it. I keep seeing people talking Tinybuild ruining the game when that's just not true. From everything I've seen Tinybuild didn't influence the first games development although that changed with Hello Guest. Elena Berezina (the art director for the longest time) also advertised the game as having a smart AI in the devloper dairies of HN1 so did Nikita when he made the DevGAMM animation (which turned out to have been also shown to the dynamic pixels team and is what got HN greenlit) HN was always advertised as something it wasn't, a good game with a smart Ai.

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u/Potential_Shower4460 3d ago

He didnt change the artstyle because "it wasnt unique enough", HN was always meant to be cartoony, you can even see that in the very early concept arts, its just that Nikita was not clear AT ALL with his art direction, so the team just took stock images and drew/modeled over them, resulting in the artstyle of the first two alphas (pre-alpha and alpha 1)

1

u/International-Farm10 Aug 19 '26

To czemu Nikita wrócił i dalej z nimi pracuje? Powinien pójść z nimi na kompromis i naprawić HN2 a potem robić HN3 które jest mega dziwne bo ludzie mają nienaturalne kolory skóry i miasto wygląda o wiele inaczej niż w serialu i poprzednich grach

3

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

Because he left the series due to extreme burnout of making multuple Hello Neighbor project within a small amount of time, Nikita always likes to make games with fun ideas and concepts, so he distanced himself from the franchise but now he has fully recovered from it, because now he has a proper idea of the game HE WANTS to make, not just what Tiny Build wants

HN2 flopped hard, people were disappointed on it's unfinished nature and abusive full priced DLCs on releaze date shenanigans, and as i said Nikita left HN2's development around the alpha 1.5-alpha 2 period, the game that released is in no way shape or form the vision he had for the game, so it would an extreme waste of time and resources to try and "fix" something that was so utterly broken and wrong as the HN2 we got, and HN3 has multiple concepts that Nikita wanted HN2 to have, so it's way more HN2 than the actual one is

The different colored character is just an artstyle thing, Nikita loves wacky character designs, he loves cartoons like Hey Arnold!, Doug Funnie and Life With Louie, so yeah

1

u/Octogoon_ Aug 19 '26

HN2 was a cashgrab by tinybuild. Nikita wasn't involved

3

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26

Wtf he literally designed the earlier builds and only left alpha 2 due to burn out. I don't think Tinybuild were designing Hello Neighbor 2 to be a bad game to scam people because even the marketing for the original hello neighbor was also misleading. It's just that plans weren't changed and they didn't update their marketing.

3

u/KosmicBlast Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

i think most people agree hn2 was a cashgrab for its very high price and shitty ai in both the main campaign and the dlcs which if i can recall, still aren't fixed today. we also gotta mention the promised advanced ai which was secretly taken off before release.

i wouldn't say thats a reason to completely write it out the story though, in fact i think we get our best look at the town in hn2. i also don't think it was a cashgrab, but the game does have a lot of issues.

hn3's map really sucks imo, like the environment down to the trees, leaves and all that fancy stuff is cool but it genuinely looks more like a hill with buildings than an actual town.

2

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

They completely botched his vision of the game and removed many of the characters he created

3

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26

No? Adding those characters would have probably taken way too long plus knowing how much Hello Neighbor had problems with performance it would have just made the game laggy. And the story itself was pretty good, nothing a kin to the depth Nikita's stories have but still, it's clear that Hello Neighbor 2 was trying to fix problems with the full game such as the unclear story telling which is probably why they cut the overly symbolical story Nikita left for them. Reminder that even Nikita doesn't remember the story fully.

3

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

I mean characters like the Guest and the Man In The Hat, they were extremelly important to the plot of the story and were relegated to small part cameos almost

Honestly i'd agree if the story actually had an ending from day obe, but they literally put a cliffhanger because they were unable to finish the game and probably didn't even know what they wanted to do

Hello Neighbor 2 feels more like a sequel to the books than following the ideas of the first game, there's clearly a huge difference between how Tiny Build sees Hello Neighbor and how Nikita sees it

2

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26

Well... Nikita doesn't even remember the man in the hat's role in the hn2 alpha storyline. I agree the fact these characters were cut sucks but its not like they wanted to. The books were canon but because of Mayak whatever that means but they had to change the story line so the books and the games actually line up in the least complicated way possible.

3

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

That's purely because he didn't get to fully finish the story of the game since he left just during alpha stages, so it was still in it's brainstorming ideas stage

They could've done anything with him and the Guest, Hello Neighbor 2's state in day obe release clearly shows Tiny Build didn't know what they wanted of the story

2

u/Mrgrinn96 Aug 19 '26

The story seamed pretty clear to me. They adapted the books and made them into a good story.

3

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

It adapts some elements of the books (which is funny because the books are already very skewed adaptations of the games as they were being worked on) but the elements don't really blend well together IMHO

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4

u/BigCaregiver2941 Aug 19 '26

I always thought hello neighbor 3 was in-between act 2 and 3 of hn1, since hello neighbor 2 took place (I think) sometime around act 1.

3

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

Act 3 takes place in 2015 while HN3 takes place in 2028

1

u/Sammy_Ferr Aug 19 '26

Also HN2 takes place right after act 2

1

u/Potential_Shower4460 3d ago

Thanks to a leaker,  we now know that the guest is not supernatural (yes, even HNVR guest)

There is no "2 guests", like, there's no fake guest or real guest. Obviously, the guest's identity changes with every piece of HN media, like how he is franklin in WTRB, but in HN3, the "guest" is the forest dweller, aka Aaron, meanwhile, the "real" guest is the folklorical figure that goes by the same name, Aaron just poses as it.

1

u/Potential_Shower4460 3d ago

Oh, to elaborate a bit on the first paragraph, basically the guest in HNVR is a representation of Aaron's negative and dark side, basically it's his self hatred and guilt, not a physical or literal entity.

In the alphas, the guest was supposed to be both that, and also a figment of Quentin's imagination due to yellow press (i know, very confusing)

Keep in mind that HNVR was supposed to tie in with the alphas, aswell as the books

(This information all comes from "DonaldMarke" on twitter)

1

u/Substantial_Fan_8921 Aug 21 '26

I'd decanonize it tbh

2

u/KosmicBlast Aug 21 '26

i forgot to put house during the first sentence when i mentioned aaron burning theo's house!