Five Nights at Freddy’s

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Information

Platform(s)

Windows/Android/iOS

Engine

Clickteam Fusion 2.5

Developer

Scott Cawthon

Genre

Point and Click

Theme

Horror

Mode

Single-player

Project

Indie

Release Date(s)

August 8, 2014 (PC)

August 18, 2014 (Steam)
August 25, 2014 (Android)
September 11, 2014 (iOS)
November 28, 2019 (Xbox One)

Download(s)

Desura

Steam
Amazon
Google Play Store
iTunes
IndieDB

ESRB Rating

T for Teens

Page Navigation

Overview • Gallery • Updates • Credits

“During the day, it’s a place of joy… But you aren’t here during the day. You have the night watch.”
— Trailer tagline, Five Nights at Freddy’s

Five Nights at Freddy’s is an indie point-and-click survival horror video game and the first installment of the series developed by Scott Cawthon. It was first released on Desura on August 8, 2014 (although it was ultimately removed at an unknown date), and released on Steam on August 18, 2014. The goal for the player is to survive five nights at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza while avoiding getting caught and stuffed into a mascot costume, thus getting killed by the animatronic characters; this is done by tracking their movements via the restaurant’s security cameras. The game is chronologically set as the sequel to Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and the prequel to Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 which makes it the fourth game of the series. Based on how much money the player earns on their paycheck, it’s implied that the game takes place in 1993.

Due to its universal success upon release, the game spawned a media franchise for a series of games, books, etc.

Summary

Welcome to your new summer job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, where kids and parents alike come for entertainment and food as far as the eye can see! The main attraction is Freddy Fazbear, of course; and his two friends. They are animatronic robots, programmed to please the crowds! The robots’ behavior has become somewhat unpredictable at night however, and it was much cheaper to hire you as a security guard than to find a repairman.

From your small office you must watch the security cameras carefully. You have a very limited amount of electricity that you’re allowed to use per night (corporate budget cuts, you know). That means when you run out of power for the night- no more security doors and no more lights! If something isn’t right- namely if Freddybear or his friends aren’t in their proper places, you must find them on the monitors and protect yourself if needed!

Can you survive five nights at Freddy’s?

Gameplay

FNaF 1 is an indie point-and-click survival horror game. The player controls Mike Schmidt, the night guard at the fictional Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza restaurant. The objective of the game is to survive a whole shift, which lasts from midnight to 6 AM (several minutes in real-time) while avoiding the four animatronics who roam the restaurant during the evening. Mike will spend each night in the security office, which serves as a base of operations. The player will be able to use a Monitor on their desk to scroll through the security cameras and see where the animatronics are going, although the cameras are grainy and poorly lit, and the camera in the Kitchen only provides an audio feed.

The animatronics each have unique movement patterns, and will attempt to get inside the Office through one of two hallways on either side of the room. The player can activate Hall Lights to check if an animatronic is outside, and shut either of the two Doors to keep animatronics out. However, the player has limited Power each night, which is displayed via a percentage in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Power will drain over time, although using the Monitor, lights and doors will consume more power, and if the player runs out, all of these features will de-activate for the rest of the night. Freddy himself will then appear in the Office, eventually attacking unless the clock hits 6 AM first. Failure to defend himself from an animatronic will result in them jumpscaring the player and killing Mike, resulting in a Game Over before booting them back to the title screen.

The game’s main campaign is split into five increasingly difficult levels, or “nights”. Finishing Night 5 will complete the story and unlock an extra-challenging Night 6, and clearing that will unlock a customizable Night 7 that allows the player to adjust each animatronic’s difficulty.

For specific information and strategies on each night, look here.

Audio

The main menu music (PC version).



The main menu music (Mobile and Console versions).



The static that occurs for a short while when the player first opens the main menu screen.

Reception

Reviews

Aggregate scores

Aggregator

Score

GameRankings

(PC) 85%[1]
(iOS) 80%[2]
Metacritic

(PC) 78/100[3]

Five Nights at Freddy’s received positive reviews from critics. Indie Game Magazine praised Five Nights at Freddy’s for its simple take on the horror genre, noting that its artistic direction and gameplay mechanics contributed to a feeling of “brutal tension” only worsened by how a player may be familiar with similar restaurants such as Chuck E. Cheese’s, and that “it’s an incredibly terrifying experience to try to save yourself from the single jump scare that ends the game.”

Five Nights at Freddy’s was described as a “fantastic example of how cleverness in design and subtlety can be used to make an experience terrifying.” However, the game was criticized for taking too long to load when launched.[4]

Omri Petitte for PC Gamer gave Five Nights at Freddy’s a score of 80 out of 100[5], commenting that the game took a “less-is-more” approach to its design and that while “the AI isn’t some masterwork of procedural unpredictability,” it would “[still] head straight to you and eat your face off, or it’ll play around like an innocent child before closing in for the kill. Your mind will fill in the rest.”

The game’s overall atmosphere was praised for emphasizing the fear and suspense of an approaching threat rather than the arrival of the threat itself executed frequently in other horror-oriented games. However, the gameplay of Five Nights at Freddy’s was criticized for becoming repetitive once a player masters it, as there is “not much more to expect beyond managing battery life and careful timing of slamming doors shut, so those with steely willpower won’t find anything else past the atmosphere of it all.”

Ryan Bates of Game Revolution gave the game a 4.5 out of 5, comparing its camera-oriented gameplay to the 1992 game Night Trap. He praised the game’s minimalistic presentation (with particular emphasis on its audio design and lack of music) for contributing to the terror of the game, along with the fact that the “nervous impulses” of its repetitive gameplay would reach “almost OCD-type levels, adding to the tense environment.” In conclusion, he felt that the game was “horror done right,” but that it was too short.

Eurogamer’s Jeffrey Matulef compared the animatronic animals in the game to Weeping Angels, who are predatory creatures from the universe of Doctor Who, due to their ability to only move when they are not being observed.[6]

Softpedia gave the game 4 out of 5 stars, with reviewer Cosmin Anton noting that it “drifts away from the classic first-person horror survival titles,” but that the “inability to move combined with the limited power available will make you feel quite helpless in front of those relentless robots that just want to share a bit of their ‘love’ with you.”[7]

Development History

2014

• On June 13, Five Nights at Freddy’s was submitted to the Steam Greenlight.[8]
• On June 14, a trailer for Five Nights at Freddy’s was uploaded to YouTube.[9]
• On July 24, a demo of the game was released on the indie games website IndieDB by user animdude.[10]
• On August 8, the full game was released on the gaming website Desura.[11]
• On August 18, Five Nights at Freddy’s was accepted on Steam Greenlight and then was officially released on Steam for PC.[12]
• An Android port was released on August 25 on the Android Google Play Store, by Scott himself.[13]
• An iOS Port was released on September 11 on the iPhone App Store by Scott himself.[14]
• A Windows Phone version was released on December 2 along with the second game.
• The game was released on the Clickteam Clickstore on an unknown date by Scott Cawthon.[15]

2015

• On January 16, Five Nights at Freddy’s won three FEAR awards by user choice.[16]
• In April, Warner Bros. purchased the rights to adapt the game into a feature film.[17]
• In November, the game was included for the Five Nights at Freddy’s Franchise Pack (1-4) that can be downloaded from here. The bundle costs $24.99.

2016

• On October 25, the Franchise Pack is updated to include Sister Location. The bundle now costs $29.55.
  • Those who have purchased the pack before the update will get Sister Location for free.

2017

• On February 6, Scott had mentioned that the production of the movie was “back at square one.”
• On March 28, Scott posted a picture of a chair with the Name “Freddy” on it, with a displayed picture of Blumhouse Productions’ logo, revealing that said production company will be involved with the production of the movie.

2019

• On July 30, the mobile version received a remastered edition by Clickteam LLC. The game is completely improved to resemble the PC version, along with major fixes and changes.
• On November 29, Five Nights at Freddy’s, along with FNaF 2, 3, and 4, were ported by Clickteam LLC to the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. They were also ported to the PS4, but not in the UK. All games are the same as their PC counterparts aside from cheats and a few new bugs.

Trivia

• During the game’s development, Scott launched a Kickstarter campaign on June 14, 2014. Its goal was to pledge the game with $10,000. Although the campaign ended up being canceled on June 17, 2014, it revealed that Freddy Fazbear was originally going to be named “Freddybear”. Pledging the game with the appropriate amount of money would award the backers:
  • $10-24: A wallpaper pack of five desktop wallpapers. (Delivered in August 2014)
  • $25-49: Game’s early release copy, and comes with a wallpaper pack. (Delivered in September 2014)
  • $50-Over: A role as a beta-tester, and also grants new versions of the game on a weekly basis. (Delivered in October 2014)
• The game itself was inspired by the game Chipper & Sons Lumber Co., also made by Scott Cawthon. Many players of the game criticized it because of the graphics, which, according to them, looked like “animatronics”. Scott possibly used that criticism to make Five Nights at Freddy’s.
• When Scott released the first gameplay video of Five Nights at Freddy’s on his channel, the game seemed to be much more pixelated. On the starting screen, the video also showed a graphic of a man with the number 1 next to it, which shows that at one point in development, the player would have had limited lives.
• Even though there is no specified year in which the game takes place, many have assumed that it takes place around 1993, as the paycheck at the end of the game matches the minimum wage of the time.
• In the game, the newspaper article shown in the intro sequence misspells “pizzeria” as “pizzaria.” This was fixed in version 1.131.
• The concept of Five Nights at Freddy’s is similar to that of the 2006 comedy film, Night at the Museum. In both stories, the attractions act as expected during the day (the animatronics entertaining the guests, and the museum exhibits staying still), come to life during the night, and both protagonists are night guards who work for security at the establishments.
  • However, the aforementioned film required an object that brought everything to life at night, whereas the game’s animatronics can roam at night regardless.
• Five Nights at Freddy’s is the first of two games in the series to have a Display Resolution Support of 16:9, the other being Sister Location. The rest of the games only have 4:3.
  • However, all of the original mobile versions are natively 16:9. This is one of the possible reasons why the offices from the second and third games and the Bedroom in the fourth game look stretched in the older mobile versions.
  • As of June 15, 2017, the resolution for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, Five Nights at Freddy’s 3, and Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 were all changed to 16:9, as Scott most likely wanted the games to share the same resolution as the aforementioned first game and Sister Location.
• It is entirely possible to “pause” the game in the PC version by pressing both “CONTROL” and “P”. The same method also goes to the other games.
• There is a cheat code for Five Nights at Freddy’s and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 which will automatically skip a night. It can be triggered by holding “C”, “D”, and “+”. In the second game, it requires Toy Freddy’s nose to be clicked on the poster in the office and held on before triggering the code. This isn’t possible in the mobile or console versions of the game.
• In the anniversary images of the Office, Freddy can be seen outside the office but never used.
  • This is likely for when the power goes out.

References