Black Mirror Plaything: Cast, Bandersnatch link, thronglets and ending explained

*Warning - This article contains spoilers for Black Mirror’s Plaything and Bandersnatch.*

Fans of have been glued to their screens since season 7 hit yesterday, with eagle-eyed fans spotting a link between the fourth episode, Plaything, and the interactive special, Bandersnatch.

Netflix teases the episode with: "In a near-future London, an eccentric murder suspect is linked to an unusual video game from the 1990s - a game populated by cute, evolving artificial lifeforms."

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Post-launch, viewers have been racking their brains over Bandersnatch's events and theorising about the enigmatic cliffhanger at the end of Plaything, reports .

Intriguingly, they're also on a hunt to find Charlie Brooker's deceptively adorable yet ominous new game, Thronglets....

Plaything cast in full as Bandersnatch characters return

and The Thick of It actor Peter Capaldi plays the older version of video game journalist Cameron Walker, who is arrested on suspicion of murder at the beginning of the episode.

Meanwhile, Lewis Gribben plays the socially awkward younger version of Cameron Walker. His other roles include Somewhere Boy, Masters of the Air and The Severed Son.

DCI Kano is played by James Nelson-Joyce, while Michele Austin portrays psychologist Jen Minter.

Returning characters from Bandersnatch include The Bear’s Will Poulter as Colin Ritman and People Just Do Nothing star Asim Chaudhry as Mohan Thakur, who is the CEO of Colin Ritman and Stefan Butler's game company, Tuckersoft.

Who is Will Poulter’s Colin Ritman in Bandersnatch?

Colin Ritman was a hugely successful video game designer in the 1980s, making games for a company called Tuckersoft.

In the beginning of Bandersnatch, he becomes obsessed with a choose-your-own-adventure game and enlists the help of Tuckersoft programmer Stefan to make his new game.

However, the genius developer grows more and more paranoid as he obsesses over alternate realities and wormholes, slowly unravelling as the pressure of the game launch approaches.

What happens at the end of Plaything?

In a huge twist at the end of Plaything, we learn Cameron has been arrested on purpose so that he can deliver a message from the Throng to the whole .

The whole time, he repeatedly asks for a pen and paper to “draw” an explanation to his story, but it turns out he actually wants to write up a QR code so that the interrogation room’s CCTV camera linked to a powerful central government system will be able to pick it up.

This code allows the Throng to enter into the government's digital network, leading to a “singularity event”.

The signal will trigger the Global Emergency Broadcast System on every personal device in the world, with the Throng transmitting a signal into every human’s mind via sound.

Cameron explains humans will merge with “an advanced collective intelligence”, describing it as an “upgrade”, before everyone’s eyes roll back in their heads and they collapse to the floor.

Will this really be an “upgrade” for humanity as Cameron claims? Or has he been on drugs so long that he’s become delusional and instead threatened humanity’s existence? As is often the case with , the ending is left deliberately ambiguous.

Where can I play Thronglets?

At the end of the credits, the QR code flashes up on screen which you can click on.

This will take you to Thronglets, a real mobile game created for the episode, though it’s up to you if you dare to play it.

Black Mirror season 7 is available to stream on Netflix.