Five Nights at Freddy's

Five Nights at Freddy's
File:Five nights at freddys cover art.jpg The cover art for the first title
Genre(s)	Survival horror point-and-click
Developer(s)	Scott Cawthon
Publisher(s)	ScottGames.com
Creator(s)	Scott Cawthon
Composer(s)	Scott Cawthon
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows Android iOS
First release	Five Nights at Freddy's August 8, 2014
Latest release	Five Nights at Freddy's 3 March 12, 2015
Spin-offs	None

The Five Nights at Freddy's series is a saga of indie horror point-and-click games created by Scott Cawthon.

Gameplay

The games in the Five Nights at Freddy's series are horror-theme titles where the player takes the role of an overnight security guard at Freddy Fazbear, a children's-oriented restaurant/video game arcade similar to Chuck E. Cheese's. The restaurant uses life-size animatronic characters that sing and dance for children's parties. However, for various reasons, these animatronics wander the restaurant at night, and the guard is instructed to keep watch on these, as the restaurants have had incidents of previous guards being attacked and killed by these characters.

To survive each night, the player remains in the security office but has the ability to use a laptop-based security system to observe the positions of the characters through several locations in the restaurant, though can only view one location at a time. They also have the ability to light up the hallways next to the security room which will scare away animatronics outside, and in some games, use doors to secure the security room. However, these all use some power from a limited power supply, so the player must use these tools judiciously throughout the night. Some animatronic characters have various movement patterns that can be deduced by watching the characters or listening to verbal clues that are given by the guard's supervisor that instructs the player at the start of each night. For example, one character will not move from their spot as long as they are watched on camera regularly. Should an animatronic make it to the unsecured office, the game is over as the animatronic attacks the player-character. Each game requires the player to survive five nights, each night with added difficulty being introduced.

Games

Five Nights at Freddy's

Main article: Five Nights at Freddy's (video game)

The main character, whose name is later revealed to be Mike Schmidt, has started a job working as a night watch security guard at the restaurant Freddy Fazbear's Pizza (a pastiche of restaurants like Chuck E. Cheese's). A voicemail message left by Mike's predecessor explains that the animatronic animal characters used at the restaurant, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and the disused Foxy, are able to roam freely around it at night, because if they were left off for too long, their servo motors would lock up. He also adds that the animatronics were no longer allowed to roam freely during the day following an incident referred to as the "Bite of '87", which apparently involved the loss of someone's frontal lobe. The employee warns Mike that if one of the robots encounters a human, they will automatically assume that it is an endoskeleton that is not in costume yet, and "forcefully stuff them" into a spare mechanical Freddy Fazbear costume, killing the person in the process.

Newspaper clippings in the background of one of the scenes reveal that the restaurant was site to the disappearances of five children whose bodies were never found, after a man dressed as one of the animatronics lured them into a back room and reportedly murdered them. Later, the restaurant received complaints that the animatronics began to smell foul and became stained with blood and mucus around the eyes and mouth, with one customer comparing them to "reanimated carcasses".

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Main article: Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Taking place in 1987, the player character, whose name is later revealed to be Jeremy Fitzgerald, has started working as a night watch security guard at the family restaurant Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. As he did in the previous game, a specific Freddy Fazbear's Pizza employee calls Jeremy on the phone in the office at the beginning of each night to explain both gameplay and the story. He explains that the animatronics, which have special facial recognition software to protect the children from potential harm, were not programmed with a proper night mode, so when they do not hear any noise, their programming tells them that they are in the wrong room and they seek out the nearest source of noise to find people to entertain, which happens to be in the office.

As in the previous game, the animatronics' programming also tells them that there should not be people in the restaurant after hours, so when they encounter Jeremy, they believe he is an animatronic endoskeleton without a costume and stuff him into a spare Freddy Fazbear suit, killing him in the process. The man on the phone also explains that this restaurant has an unlimited power source at night, unlike the previous location, but there are no doors blocking access to the office, requiring the player to use a spare Freddy Fazbear mask to trick most animatronics into thinking he is not an endoskeleton. The player will also be informed to keep a music box wound up to keep an additional animatronic from leaving its box and attacking the player.

The player is also informed their flashlight will cause certain animatronics to reboot and leave the room. As more enemy characters appear as the player advances through the game, the man on the phone informs Jeremy of the characters' presence, their movement patterns, and some background information on their presence in the sequel. For example, the man on the phone explains that the older animatronics are in the new restaurant, and have been retrofitted with the new technology, but as they did not work properly they are kept for spare parts.

As the game progresses, it is hinted that something is going on during the day, as the man on the phone mentions that rumors are going around and, later, that a police investigation is going on. Exactly what is happening is not specified, but the man informs them that someone had apparently entered the restaurant and "used one of the [animatronic] suits" for unknown intentions.

On the game's fifth night, Jeremy is informed by the man on the phone that the restaurant has been put on lockdown due to an event that he will not describe but which is in place to make sure no employees, present or former, can come in or go out. The man also mentions that the position of the restaurant's day shift security has a vacancy and Jeremy may be promoted to it, and that the owner of the older restaurant named "Fredbear's Family Diner" will be contacted for more information on the animatronics.

On the sixth night, the man on the phone informs Jeremy that the restaurant has been closed for undescribed reasons, but he does mention that someone used a "spare yellow suit" for the animatronics and now none of them work properly. He also tells Jeremy that he will be taking over as night shift security guard when the restaurant reopens. If Jeremy is successful in surviving the sixth night, he is promoted to day shift to cover a birthday party on the next day to make sure the animatronics do not cause any problems. A newspaper that is shown in the winning screen of the sixth night says that the restaurant will close down and the newer animatronics will be scrapped, but the older ones saved for when the restaurant reopens, hinting at the events of the first game.

In the custom night level, Jeremy is replaced by a new player character named Fritz Smith due to Jeremy's promotion. If the player manages to win the custom night, they discover Fritz has been fired for "tampering with [the] animatronics" and "odor", a call back to the previous game's custom level message.

Five Nights at Freddy's 3

Main article: Five Nights at Freddy's 3

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 is set thirty years after the events of the original game. The player assumes the role of a newly hired employee at Fazbear's Fright, a horror-themed attraction designed to capitalize on the disastrous past events at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, constructed using paraphernalia salvaged from the original restaurants. During the week before the attraction is scheduled to open to the public, the player must watch over the facility from the security office during the night shift (12:00 am to 6:00 am game time), using a network of surveillance cameras placed in the rooms and air vents. In addition, the player must monitor the status of three operating systems - cameras, audio, and ventilation - and reboot them whenever they begin to malfunction. Camera problems cause the video feeds, already poorly lit and distorted, to become totally obscured by static. If the ventilation fails, the player begins to hallucinate and to see phantoms of animatronics from the previous games, which may cause additional malfunctions.

After the first night, the staff at Fazbear Fright uncover a deteriorated, rabbit-like animatronic, which they refer to as Springtrap. The player must now prevent it from entering the office and attacking; if this happens, the game ends. The player can seal off the air vents at certain points to block its progress, but cannot seal the door or air vent that lead directly into the office. The audio system can be used to play sound effects that draw it away from the office.

As the nights progress, the player hears a series of instructional cassette tapes, similar to the telephone calls from the first two games, that instruct employees how to operate the Springtrap suit, which can be worn by both humans and animatronic endoskeletons. However, later tapes discourage usage of the suit by employees due to a series of fatal accidents involving the failure of the suit's spring-lock mechanism. Low-resolution minigames between nights hint at the restaurant's troubled past, with the first four nights' minigames depicting the original animatronics following a dark purple animatronic before being violently disassembled by a 'purple guy', previously seen in the minigames of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, as the man responsible for the various murders that occurred throughout the franchise's history. In the fifth night's minigame, the ghosts of the five children who inhabited the animatronics corner the purple man, who attempts to protect himself by hiding in the Springtrap suit. However, the suit's faulty spring-lock mechanism fails, and the purple man is crushed as the children fade away, leaving their killer to bleed to death.

Unlike the previous entries, Five Nights at Freddy's 3 contains two endings, depending on whether the player has found and completed all of the hidden minigames within the main game. Some of these are only available on specific nights, while others can be accessed during any night. The "bad ending" is attained from completing the game without completing all the hidden minigames, and shows a screen depicting the heads of the five animatronics from the first game with lit-up eyes. Completing all the hidden minigames before completing the game earns the "good ending", which is the same screen as described previously but with the animatronics' heads turned off.

Completing all five nights unlocks a bonus night, "Nightmare", which boosts the game's difficulty, similar to "Night 6" in the previous titles. While playing the mode, an archived recording states that all Freddy Fazbear Pizza locations' safe rooms, an additional emergency room not recorded in the animatronics' AI or security systems, will be permanently sealed, instructing employees to tell no one of their existence. When this night is completed, a newspaper clipping reveals that Fazbear's Fright is destroyed in a fire shortly after the events of the game, and that any salvageable pieces from the attraction are to be auctioned off. However, brightening the image reveals Springtrap in the background, which suggests he somehow survived, leaving his fate unknown.

Five Nights at Freddy's: The Final Chapter

Since April 27, 2015, Cawthon has been posting images on his website teasing at another game in the series, Five Night's at Freddy's: The Final Chapter. The images, featuring the characters from the series, cryptically teased at a release on October 31, 2015.

Film adaptation

Warner Bros. Pictures announced in April 2015 that it had acquired the rights to adapt the series to film. Roy Lee, Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg are set to produce. Grahame-Smith stated that they are collaborating with Cawthon "to make an insane, terrifying and weirdly adorable movie".

External links

• Official website