Project 863

Project 863 is a series featured on the Matthias Channel, created by Show-runner/Director Matthias and produced by Production Manager Samantha Fekete. The channel started producing the series in April 2018 with "We Found A Secret Pathway In Hi5 Studios!" While this video has no direct correlation to the series, Matthias likes to say this was the "beginning" of the series. Matt took a break from the series: "it didn't become a deep immersive story until 2019. Before then it was just some adventures I lead some friends down. Then I thought of a story that might connect it all together". The series restarted with a video named "We Found A Safe In The Wall..." posted on March 27, 2020.

From March 2020 all the way through the beginning of January 2021, Matthias called Season 0. From January 2021 until April 7th 2021, Matt calls Season 1.

About
Based on Matthias' own creation, Project: 863 is set at Hi5 Studios in California. From mysterious keys in the walls to vials of corrosive liquid, could someone possibly be endangering the employees? At the heart of the show is Matthias, Sam, and Woods, three people who are simply trying to uncover why they are being stalked. However, something much more sinister may be revealed with this journey. Our characters take us alongside them down the rabbit hole as more people become involved and more evidence is discovered. Will their curiosity ever stop?

The series has caused some controversy with Matt leading many viewers to believe that the events in the series were happening in real life and were in fact, not real. More about this is listed under the "Controversy" heading.

As for the title of the series, the title is still up in the air- to the frustration of many fans. Matt comments on this by saying, "It includes 863 but I cant say the official title till the end of the year, it gives too much away."

When asked about how long the series will last, Matt see's a future of the series going until December 2024. As for the breakdown, he states, "each season is a quarter of the year. So Q1 is season 1. There are 4 seasons in a year. I like the idea of doing BTS after that season is over." In all, he says he plans on making 12 seasons.

Further, in a Behind 863 channel video, Matt revealed he plans and hopes for the first quarter of each year to be a break from the series, as well as season 2 will not start until the third quarter of 2020, beginning on June 30th.

Characters
Matthias as himself, is the CEO of a company named Hi5 Studios. He is generally known as one of the "coolest" bosses by having a non-traditional approach to working-life. He often jokes most of the episode and has a deep passion for comedic values. Sometimes, Matt puts on a persona named 'Overkill'. He attributes a very deep voice and is generally meant to be serious and frightening. However, the persona only lasts for a few seconds at a time. In the series, Matt is the first character who is the primary suspect in the mysterious happenings around the studio. In the first episode of the Season 0, he discovers a key in the ceiling of Blue base. It is titled 863 (see: photo card at the top of the page). Amongst setting up ghost hunting videos with his employees and almost playing a "real-life" escape room following clue after clue, things start turning dark when they encounter the legendary Red Mountaineer. From there on, he has taken Sam and Woods with him on his journey to track down the mysterious events happening to the trio and the studio.

Woodland DeMars as himself, is the quiet one of the trio. He represents the "general confusion" of the audience. He brings very low-energy to serious situations, though is very thoughtful in his questions to follow through towards the next event. Woods has a semi-reputation of ironically being familiar with random places or objects (ie. knowing how to work a geiger counter). Woods plays the 'straight man' in the serious and is extremely loved amongst fans. In Dec 2021 Woods quit the team.

Samantha Fekete as herself, is very high-energy and acts as the complete opposite to Woods. She acts as the "know-it-all" or someone who gets works up very easily and thus, asks a lot of questions in trying to get an answer. Fans like to compare Sam and Woods as a loving sibling duo as they sometimes bicker in a light-hearted way. Sam is usually the character to listen to because she tends to give hints to the audience about what is about to happen in the future while Woods is completely clueless.

Storylines and format
Season 0 introduces the three main characters: Matthias, Sam, and Woods. Matthias is the CEO of Hi5 Studios, Woods is a tinker and prop maker around the studio, and Sam is a content creator and producer for the company. It is established early in this season that keys play an important part to the stories. After following a multitude of keys that lead to a multitude of safes, one key lead to the infamous Red Mercury Mountaineer. If one were to described this season in three words it would be "Keys", "Safes", "Stalker". Someone mysterious broke into Hi5 Studios multiple times. The story takes a serious turn when the team finds bottles of mysterious flammable liquid with an injection gun. The team has semi-contact with a person named "Syphus" throughout the series and presumably the guy who keeps showing up to the studio.

Season 1 begins with first episode of the year. The trio actually calls "Syphus" and its the first time the have official contact with this person. A new character is added to the series named "John Doe". Through a set of emails back and forth, "John Doe" leads our characters to new evidence and the trio uncovers some more information. However, is "John Doe" a good guy? More events unravel like safes mysterious melting, finding a secret room under a staircase, and discovering the company linked to "Syphus". The characters realize they might be in over their heads when they realize that the chat logs on a computer they found mentions deceased patients, moral dilemmas amongst the employees, and another character to the story: "D". They learn the company they discovered is run by Nelson Syphus and "he must come to an end". Lifes Blood? March 5th? Threats from Syphus? When will it end?



Controversy
On February 21st, Matt came forward in saying that the series is fake/"un-fiction". He explains it in-depth, but he describes his series as "unfiction" which is "an umbrella term for a fiction which insists that it is real, existing within the same world that You or I exist in. The way to officially describe this is “fiction”, not fake, because it’s not “fake”."

In summary, he explains that the series is staged-not scripted. He explains how he genuinely was confused why everyone thought it was real for a plethora of reasons. In a very long Reddit post, he posts his apology highlighting many points.

Matt's apology was prompted from the "tiny majority" crossing boundaries. Assumingely, it is to be understood he meant that people were reaching out to people/businesses and calling/harassing them in person to gather information ("I didn’t anticipate people dragging real people into the mud").

In the beginning the year, Matt decided to start using terms in the intro/outro with 'LAST TIME', THIS TIME, NEXT TIME, started calling it a series, and put a disclaimer at the beginning of the video. The disclaimer use to read: "The following content may not be suitable for all audiences. Viewer discretion is advised". However, Matt said that he changed the word "content" with "story" for better emphasis. In a reddit comment, he further clarifies "...I will update the disclaimer in the beginning of the video. I assumed the disclaimer I put early Jan was enough, but I guess I was wrong." The new one will read: "The following story was created for entertainment purposes only and may not be suitable for all audiences. Viewer discretion is advised. This story and it's characters are fictitious. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved are wholly imaginary. Do not contact, engage with, or approach anyone or any company not directly linked in the description or confirmed to be a part of the story." In all, he doesn't believe the disclaimer with stop people from harassing others, but he hopes that it will. Matt genuinely believes that everyone were on the same page about the series being fake, however. He states:

"At this time I still really didn't believe that people didn't assume it was fiction. I thought the fact that we’re an entertainment studio, that we edited, added custom music, posted fan art, laughed and joked, clearly staged thumbnails that weren’t screenshots of the actual content within the video, made other content that was untouched by this fictional world, made comedy and thriller trailers, and the fact that I've made a great amount of other fiction over the past decade of being a content creator was evident enough that this was fiction."

He goes on in a comment, "I feel stupid too. I honestly didn't realize this would be a reaction until very recently this exact thing happened to me. I felt stupid, betrayed, when I realized what I wanted to be true wasnt true at all. Then I feel like it was a wakeup moment for me "holy crap, I am doing this to my fans that I adore."

I didn't believe that people actually believed it but rather, wanted to believe it. I feel like such an idiot for not seeing how the reveal would make people feel like this. I thought the reveal would bring a 'No way!" moment, but I was so wrong. People who were vulnerable, people who trusted me, people who enjoyed the content. For that, I am deeply sorry. It was not the intent of the story." So, the question...Was it always fake? It wasn't always. He said it started out as an escape room type video. He acted as a game master who was the only one who knew the story. All of the reactions of the staff up to the "stalker stuff" were real, genuine reactions. In a comment, Matt clarifies, "For everyone it was a different time. Sam and Woods became aware towards getting the mountaineer, and the rest we told before Syphus broke in." Why did he tell more people? He says, "Because the game master thing could only make videos like finding keys, but finding underground lairs with machines coded to talk back to us? That is far beyond anything I could do without the help of an amazing team".

A lot of commenters/viewers have criticized Matt for not being unfront since the start. He believes that he if he was upfront from the start, the world he created would not have existed. It would have been impossible to get genuine reaction from the staff. In the comments under this post, more criticizers have said he still should have came forward a lot sooner or came out after Sam/Woods were aware. Matt continues to defend himself in saying he thought most people thought the series was fake or that he was unaware about how much of his audience were emotionally invested in this series.

However, Matt does emphasize that he does feel empathetic with those who thought the series was real because something similar happened to him. He understand that trust could be misplaced and the viewer can feel stupid for believing in it.

Through all of this, Matt has no plans in stopping the series at all. Matt admits multiple times that he hadn't planned "on revealing anything till it was all over. That's years away."

Generally, the consensus on his apology was well-received.

Debunking Video
On November 17th, 2020, Matt uploaded a video called "Debunking The Myths About the Stalker!". A clear explanation in given in his apology post on Reddit, but he explains his wrong-doing in saying the series was real within the environment/world of the series. Matt wishes to stop arguing about the validity of the story inside the story. He has since taken down this video. He puts in a comment, "I don't have a lot of regrets but making that video is definitely one of them. I'm sorry that hurt you.