I can honestly see this going in so many directions so far. They could all be NPCs and the creator programmed the tapes to see how they would react after becoming aware of the killer/day repeating (although we don't know if the day repeats really because we haven't seen them try surviving the night, could be another ending/impossible for all I know). And maybe he was another character at first to start the chain reaction before removing himself/reprogramming the body to be another NPC. He could also just be the killer now and that's why the killer always knows when/where to appear instead of just being a random spawn in and maybe that's why it takes about an hour to respawn the killer in (could just be a random spawn in though). But that still doesn't explain why the village kills/traps the NPCs, they could just be programmed as the village sacrifices. And maybe Doha killed one in a previous round before becoming awake because of the cousin figuring something out about Doha true nature in previous games that he was playing awake and mentioning something to set him off (idk idk). I don't think the cousin is the "true" player at all either, I think just like Doha became awake, it's a chain reaction/cycle of NPC awakening one another and taking the other tapes to make them forget. I have so many other theories of where the plots could be going but this is already a lot. And I'm still confused about a few things like why the blue haired NPC couldn't remember previous games like our two MCs (and cousin I guess) could or why the locations seem to be unlocking (according to our main MC).
I can honestly see this going in so many directions so far. They could all be NPCs and the creator programmed the tapes to see how they would react after becoming aware of the killer/day repeating (although we don't know if the day repeats really because we haven't seen them try surviving the night, could be another ending/impossible for all I know). And maybe he was another character at first to start the chain reaction before removing himself/reprogramming the body to be another NPC. He could also just be the killer now and that's why the killer always knows when/where to appear instead of just being a random spawn in and maybe that's why it takes about an hour to respawn the killer in (could just be a random spawn in though). But that still doesn't explain why the village kills/traps the NPCs, they could just be programmed as the village sacrifices. And maybe Doha killed one in a previous round before becoming awake because of the cousin figuring something out about Doha true nature in previous games that he was playing awake and mentioning something to set him off (idk idk). I don't think the cousin is the "true" player at all either, I think just like Doha became awake, it's a chain reaction/cycle of NPC awakening one another and taking the other tapes to make them forget. I have so many other theories of where the plots could be going but this is already a lot. And I'm still confused about a few things like why the blue haired NPC couldn't remember previous games like our two MCs (and cousin I guess) could or why the locations seem to be unlocking (according to our main MC).