How Good is FNaF in 2025?

 

 

Five Nights at Freddy’s is a franchise that I have a very complicated relationship with. On one hand, it defined my pre-teens and was definitely the series that got me into over-analyzing my favorite things, but outside of that this franchise hasn’t really left that much of an impact on me despite it being one of the first franchises I really got into. I stopped paying as much attention after the 4th game, with my interest slowly fading until sister location’s release, after which I left the series entirely until security breach’s very unfortunate launch in 2021, which I didn’t play for another year. Recently though I tasked myself with the insane challenge of marathoning (most) of the series, starting at the first game and going to the recently released into the pit and it got me thinking: how well do these games hold up nowadays? One deranged 11 hour stream and a lot of late night writing later and I think I’m ready to finally put my thoughts into words.

FNAF 1

FNaF 1 was released on August 8th, 2014 and was a very strong start to the franchise. It had a quite simple premise; you’re a security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza who’s tasked with watching over the animatronics overnight and making sure they don’t approach your office. The gameplay loop is fairly simple too; you watch the animatronics through the cameras and if they approach your office, you shut the door on them. However you can’t keep these doors closed all night as you also have to manage your power consumption because running out is almost a guaranteed game over. 

I think the gameplay is the worst part of the game because these nights go on for 9 whole minutes and for a majority of the game there’s NOTHING going on. Everything starts out so slow I find it hard to engage with the game in the early nights, with the game only really ramping up near the end of it’s runtime which is a shame cause I really think it’s great from a conceptual standpoint. The mechanics are decently thought out and work really well, it’s just far too slow to really keep my interest on repeat playthroughs.

I also find it weird the whole point of the game was the camera system but it’s one of the weaker implementations of it in the series. You can’t just check the cameras whenever because you have very limited power and you’d wanna conserve as much of it as possible and if it wasn’t for foxy the cameras wouldn’t even be required at all. The ideal strategy for this game is flipping the monitor for half a second and checking the doors on repeat, which is about as fun to play as you’re thinking. I understand that the slowness of this game might be why some people find it scary but I’m not a part of that group.

It’s hard for me to feel scared when I’m barely engaging with anything in the game, which is a really big shame because I think this game has one of the best atmospheres in the entire franchise. No future game comes close to the level of immersion that this game provides. There’s just something about how the game looks and sounds that really draws me in sometimes. You’re in this very claustrophobic office working at a pizza place that feels rundown despite being open for business with these animatronics that are weirdly alive for just being robots. Bonnie and Chica make human groaning sounds when they’re in your office, Freddy has a laugh whenever he moves and Foxy can be heard singing a song sometimes. Not to mention the robot talking Bonnie and Chica do when they’re in the hallway corners. Add on to the fact that you only get very limited glimpses of this place and it really does a lot to add to the immersion. I just wish the pacing didn’t hold it back as much for me personally.

FNAF 2

FNaF 2 was released only a short couple months later on November 10th, 2014 and was the first game in the series I actually played. It’s a very similar premise to the first game but where it makes changes is in the gameplay. There’s no more doors or managing a pair of double a batteries that the entire building runs on, instead you have two vents to either side of you, a hallway that you have to flash your light down and you have a freddy mask to defend yourself against any animatronics that enter your office. 

I think this game has the worst implementation of the camera system because at some point you don’t have time to watch any camera that isn’t the prize counter because of the music box. You can get away with it for the first couple nights (fun fact you can beat night 1 while completely in the camera) but once every animatronic is active and at a higher difficulty you just don’t have time to watch the cameras. At least in the first game you could check other cameras as long as Freddy wasn’t in cam 4B and even then that wasn’t super common until the end of the later nights. This game just forces you into cam 11 pretty much as early as night 2 so the rest of the camera system may as well not exist.

This game is also very infamous for being extremely random, with 10/20 mode being mostly luck based as far as I understand it. I don’t have as much problem with this as some people but I can understand why people have such an issue with it because it feels more fun than later games. It feels bad to die to things out of your control but I’m saving that rant for a future game (hahahahahahahahahaha fuck fnaf 3) because it doesn’t feel nearly as bad in this game. Something I also like about this game is the faster pace of the nights, it feels like you actually have to play the game for most of it.

The atmosphere is one of the weaker in the series, even though it has the iconic ambience track. Nothing about it feels particularly scary to me, from the visuals of everything to the sound design being overall weaker. The office is very open, the newer animatronics look way too plasticy to really feel like they’re actually alive unlike the first game, although I actually do like how the withered animatronics look. The general sound design just feels weaker this time around too, despite a lot of this game's sound being iconic. I believe there’s also just less sound in this game than the first as well which could be why I feel this way. There’s nothing like the human groaning noises or the song that foxy sings, hell freddy doesn’t even laugh anymore. It is a shame that the atmosphere suffers as much but it makes up for it by having an actual gameplay loop unlike the first game where I feel the opposite.

FNAF 3

FNaF 3 was released another short couple of months later on March 3rd, 2015 and is the first game I have truly mixed feelings towards. It’s the first time the general gameplay gets shaken up with there only being one true enemy and having 3 separate systems to manage.

Contrary to the previous game, I think this game has the best implementation of the camera system. It feels like you’re actually monitoring the threat using the camera system instead of it just being a gimmick that forces you to be active. You’re supposed to be finding springtrap and luring him to different cameras and sometimes you have to scour the entire building just to find him. He’s also very hard to spot, making you have to pay more attention to the cameras, which also adds to immersion but I’ll touch on that later. The phantom animatronics are a neat idea too, extra enemies that don’t end your run but are enough of a detriment to make you want to avoid them. Another addition to the general gameplay loop is a maintenance panel that allows you to reboot your audio, video and ventilation system. These systems will degrade over time and being jumpscared by a phantom will create an error for one of the three options.

Remember a little bit ago when I said there was a game I had a problem with in regards to the rng? It’s this game. This clip right here perfectly summarizes my problems with this game. [cue the one stream clip] I don’t know why it feels worse in this game, but it just does to me. It feels completely unfair compared to fnaf 2 where your run can end at any moment if one small thing goes wrong. It feels like there’s no chance to fix the situation and instead you just have to accept your fate. Not to mention how some phantoms feel impossible to react to on later nights and you have a recipe for disaster. The night pacing is really good, and I like the general loop but the random elements bog it down for me.

The atmosphere of this game is disliked a lot by people but I’m personally fond of it. Sure it’s still not very scary but in terms of immersion I actually think this game holds up very well. It really feels like you’re in a horror attraction with a bunch of old systems and the gameplay adds on to it as well with your core systems breaking down. I can get the complaint of it being too green but I think it adds more than it takes away. The camera views are also rendered extremely well, with Springtrap being really hard to notice, making you lean into the screen more and focus on finding him, priming you to be jumpscared. It’s a cheap trick but it’s effective.

This game was also supposed to be the end of the series, with a definitive “good end” you could achieve by doing a bunch of minigames over the course of the game. These steps were pretty complicated at the time but of course it’s widely known what you have to do for it. We know that this isn’t the last game in the series, but it’s interesting that Scott intended on ending it with this game.

FNAF 4

FNaF 4 released on July 23rd, 2015 and was the supposed final chapter of the series. This game is the most different from its predecessors because not only forgoes the camera system the previous games used but also can be beaten without any visuals at all.

This game returns to the first game’s method of defense where you have to use doors to protect yourself from the animatronics, with the twist of having no monitors and having to move to each door and listen for breathing. There’s also the closet where Foxy resides if he manages to enter your room and the bed behind you will spawn mini freddies that you have to flash with your light to get rid of. This game also happens to be my least favorite because of this loop. The jumpscares are intentionally loud and the breathing is so quiet it’s hard to hear, which I understand is the point of the game but doesn’t mean I enjoy it. I do actually enjoy the tension that this game creates when you run up to your doors but outside of that I don’t like a lot of this game. It just feels like it tries too hard to be scary at times, especially with the animatronic designs.

While I am a fan of the designs of the nightmare animatronics, I feel their design tries too hard to be scary, especially once you combine them with the gameplay loop. I do think the house is fairly well designed visually, even if it’s one of my least favorite locations in the series. It does a pretty good job of being immersive despite my problems with it. The sound design is really well done too, with there being distant noise like a dog barking or chimes going off. The footsteps being directional is insanely helpful too, since if I remember correctly no other game had directional audio.

This game also has a lot of content to play through after the 5th night, like extra bonus nights, challenges and a minigame called fun with plushtrap. Fun with plushtrap was a minigame that you'd be prompted with before every night that would allow you to skip 2 hours of the next night, with it being a standalone option in the extras menu. You could also make the nights harder by adding challenges like blind mode, which is pretty self explanatory and insta-foxy, which would make foxy start out in the closet as soon as the night started. This is also where the cheats were located, with fast nights and allowing you to turn on a map in the corner that would tell you the location of all the animatronics. Finally, an all nightmare mode will replace all the animatronics with nightmare for the entire night, which is the hardest challenge in my opinion. I neglected to mention how this animatronic works earlier but fredbear (who is the base for nightmare's design) shows up on night 5 and onwards at 4am, acting as a boss battle. Their gameplay loop is largely the same where you have to run to whatever side you hear them go to, flash the hall and shut the door on them. Occasionally they will laugh and sometimes this laugh can be fake, which you can determine by listening for footsteps after the laugh, but if the laugh is real they will either teleport to the closet or bed, in which you'll deal with them as usual.

This was also the first game to get significant updates post launch, with fnaf 4 halloween edition coming out on October 30th, 2015. This was mostly a visual update, with bonnie and chica gaining new halloween themed appearances but not freddy for some strange reason. Foxy was replaced by mangle, who even brought over her radio static sounds from the 2nd game when she’s in your closet. Fredbear remains unchanged but nightmare is replaced by nightmarionne, who plays the music box tune the entire time they’re active. This makes the halloween edition harder than the base game because there’s constant audio that obfuscates the very quiet footsteps sounds that you need to hear. Even plushtrap got replaced by balloon boy, and I believe funtime with balloon boy was even added to the base game. It wasn’t much but it’s still a really neat thing that this game got a significant post launch update.

This game was subtitled the final chapter, so presumably it was intended to be the last game in the series. But as we all know by now, scott has a bad track record with making “the final game in the series”. This game’s release also started my decline in interest in the series, with it dying off mostly throughout the next year. I figured the series was done since we had no word of a new game for a while after halloween edition’s launch. This was also around the time I started getting interested in other franchises, so this one understandably took a backseat for a while, but the next main game would change that. Until then, however, we got something special to try and hold us over until then.

FNAF WORLD

FNaF World was released on January 21st, 2016 and was the first spin-off game released. It was initially met with harsh criticism upon release due to the trailer for the game showing off a 3D overworld but releasing with an 8-bit styled overworld on top of the game being completely unfinished, leading to the game being delisted and updated roughly a month later on February 8th, 2016. 

This game is a lot different from the previous, being an rpg instead of a click and point survival game. You’re tasked with going through 6 different areas, trying to find the cause of the distortion that is affecting this world. During your time exploring you’ll fall into the glitch world, with there being 3 layers to it that can be safely traversed. Throughout the game you’ll fight bosses and gain new characters in order to keep progressing, until you fight the security system at the end of the game.

You start off in Fazbear Hills, where you’ll be greeted by Lolbit and Mendo, who act as shops, as well as Deedee who hosts a fishing minigame. This fishing minigame is actually pretty worthwhile, since if you get the pearl 5 times you’ll unlock it as a free byte that heals the party. You’re pretty free to move around and do whatever you want, but obviously you’ll need to grind up levels and obtain more characters before moving on. There’s also a hidden path around here that takes you to a later area but that’s not relevant right now. Eventually you’ll move on to the glitched tree, where you can traverse to the second area in the game.

Once you arrive in the second area, you’ll press a button and unlock fast travel. Here is also where you find your first no clip object, where running into it will clip you onto another plane of the world so you can unlock certain chips not otherwise obtainable. You also have two paths you can follow, one to the left to progress to the next biome and a cave to your right, giving the player some choice on their path, but obviously progressing to the next biome is how you progress the game. Once you arrive in the third biome, it’s the typical snow setting. Once again you’ll run into Fredbear who mentions a glitched object past the snowman, and once you defeat him you again have another choice; you can go in the cave for a byte or progress into the glitched object to progress the game.

The fourth area is a lot more interesting, as there’s a giant lake for you to traverse, and it’s fairly big. To the south there’s a portal that takes you to a Lolbit shop that’s actually located in the 6th area, and if you head up north there’s an extension of choppy’s woods.. In this area there’s a cave for you to progress too, and it’s one of the bigger caves in the game. Sadly it’s an optional cave like the ones before it, but it’s still pretty neat. Instead you’re expected to–get this–head into a glitched object to progress.

The fifth area is a graveyard and is sadly one of the smaller locations, meaning there’s not much here for the player to do. HOWEVER this area makes a massive change in formula: THERE’S A MANDATORY CAVE SEGMENT. Yeah it may be the only way forward but hey; every other cave has been optional up to this point. The cave isn’t anything to scoff at either, with it being a unique cave to this area. Once you traverse through the cave you’ll run into another glitched object, but this is the first one (that I’m aware of) that you can go to the 3rd glitch layer.

You’ll emerge in the sixth and final area of the game, a circus which perfectly represents my mental state writing this part of the script. Here you finally reach the home stretch of the game, as you progress through the funhouse until you find a block you can walk through and talk to fredbear for the final time. Afterwards you’ll–stay with me–walk through a glitched object to progress. Be careful traversing this one however, as you can fall beyond the 3rd glitch layer, which is a big no-no. Once you emerge from the glitch real for a final time, you’ll have a short boss fight against porkpatch who’s guarding a key. Picking up this key is the key (hahahaha) to unlocking the gates that surround the security system. In order to do this, you’ll have to find four locks around the map and fight a souped up version of the area boss in order to push a button. After all buttons are pressed, you can go back to the circus and fight the security system. Normally the game would end here, but if you selected hard mode you have one more fight ahead of you; Scott Cawthon himself. This is probably the hardest fight in the main game, only  being beaten out  by secret bosses. Once you beat him, the game is over.

Well, remember when I said earlier there’s a hidden path in fazbear hills? Well if we go back there you’ll get teleported to the halloween world. In here there’s a collection of minigames which include Chica’s Magic Rainbow, Foxy Fighters, Foxy.EXE and FNAF 57: Freddy in Space. Chica’s magic rainbow is an unfair platformer, foxy fighters is a side scrolling shoot 'em up, foxy.exe is a creepypasta parody and fnaf 57 is a metroidvania style minigame. Playing these games will unlock the overpowered update 2 characters, which is made even funnier by the fact you can unlock them before progressing to the second area. However you’ll need these characters to tackle the geist lair. In this area your health passively drains unless you use the skill bubble breath. Once you reach the north part of the map, you’ll fight the purple geist BUT NOT FOR LONG CAUSE THE STUPID MAGIC RAINBOW JUST HAS TO SHOW UP. This is by far the hardest boss in the game, made even worse by the 3 minute timer. If you fail to kill the rainbow she will use her rainbow cannon and kill you. If you beat her though, she’ll scold you and disappear, with a cutscene starting righting after. This cutscene acts as a teaser for the next game, as you’ll hear a very familiar voice.

While this game is a very decisive one, it’s definitely one of my personal favorites. The visuals are fairly goofy and the combat system is pretty fun at times. It’s also the first game to have a completely original soundtrack, which is a really nice touch. This game marks a pretty steadfast decline in interest in the series for me though, even though I made a–now deleted–video on this game years back that got over a thousand views. So yeah, this game made me super duper famous as you can tell. The year would go by fairly quietly for this series while Scott was continuing to develop the next mainline game.

FNAF SL

FNaF Sister Location was released on October 7th, 2016 and was the longest we had waited for a new game since the franchise started. Of course there were teasers throughout the year but we didn’t really know much about this game until release, which was a welcome change.

This is the first game in the series to stray away from the foundations set by the previous games, with the game being more futuristic and forgoing the core principles the original games were built upon. Instead of being a game where you defend yourself against animatronics and having to manage your very limited sources, this game you act more as a maintenance worker. You have to go around the facility doing different tasks each night, giving the game a more varied feel but can feel aimless at the same time considering nothing is consistent. I don’t mind this however, even if I do think that the game could feel a little more focused and less on-rails. The game still manages to feel like a fnaf game while still being different enough to have its own identity, which I think is impressive and definitely not something that was easy to do.

Getting into the actual gameplay of the game, the first is a fairly standard night. It’s more meant to give the player time to adjust to how this game works and helps to give a good idea of what is expected of you night over night. You start by leaving the elevator through a vent after dealing with a dysfunctional tablet on your way down, ending up in the main room. Afterwards you’re introduced to the most consistent part of the nights; checking on the funtime animatronics and shocking them if they aren’t on their stage. You’ll (typically) start in this room and move on from here depending on what the disembodied voice tells you to do. For tonight, you’re tasked with just checking on all the animatronics and leaving. It’s a bit shallow of a night but for an introduction I don’t think it’s too bad, though I wish you’d be able to explore more.

Heading into the second night it starts the same as the first, although this night shows some of the humor this game is infamous for. Your hand unit asks you if you want to hear a different voice and it selects angsty teen, who’s dialogue matches the voice pretty well. Once you get to the control panel you see the animatronics are right next to your window, but once you shock them the voice glitches out and forces you to carry on as usual. Heading to Baby’s room, the shock button doesn’t work and the hand unit shuts the entire power system down, forcing you under the desk in front of you. In this cubby you have to defend yourself against the bidybabs and afterwards the hand unit informs you that the reset failed and you have to head to the breaker room to reset the power manually. In this room you’ll encounter Funtime Freddy and have to manage rebooting the power and watching your danger level, as if you’re too careless he’ll jumpscare you and make you crawl through Ballora Gallery all over again. Fun fact about the ballora section, if you just tap the w key ballora shouldn’t be able to jumpscare you because of how she’s implemented in this section. Once you're down in the breaker room you can sprint across the gallery and make it out safely, ending the night. Thankfully this night is a lot more in depth but definitely shows the flaws of this style of gameplay. I also forgot to mention in the previous night that each night ends with an episode of the immortal and the restless that you can just mash the spacebar to eat popcorn during, which is just peak gameplay imho.

Night 3 starts the same as usual, going down the elevator and into the control panel. This time though, you get to listen to casual bongos in the elevator, my personal favorite bit of this game. You don’t even get to check on ballora or funtime foxy, as you’re basically thrown straight into the funtime auditorium. Although before that, the game does let you go to baby’s room and back under the desk to hear her talk about something. She details her first–and only–time on stage and talks about how she’d count the children coming in and out of her room. She then talks about how she makes ice cream and how she accidentally killed a child, saying she didn’t feel like herself when it happened. We later get to see a version of this event with the death minigame, where the secret ending of it has you bring an ice cream back to the start of the level, where you’ll see that event play out. Back to the main game, you have to navigate the funtime auditorium by using your light to flash the room occasionally while not running into funtime foxy. I’m still not really sure how this section works but once you’re through you’ll find yourself in parts and service with funtime freddy right in front of you. Once you push all the buttons on freddy’s face, his mask will pop open revealing another button you have to press to open his chest. Once you click his power module the bonnie hand puppet will disappear from his hand, making you track it down to click the button under its bowtie. This section kicks my ass more often than not, because for some reason I can never bait the bonnie hand puppet properly to save me. Once you click the button you’re free to leave, however funtime foxy is scripted to catch you during this night, making this the only canonical jumpscare in the series, which is neat. Sadly because the night ends in the building it means we don’t get to eat our popcorn tonight, which makes it the worst out of the entire game imho.

Night 4 is regarded as the most infamous night of this game and I’m inclined to agree, as I totally beat it legit during my marathon ahaha. The night opens up to show you inside some kind of animatronic shell while baby monologues about how she kidnapped you. She goes on about how the suit can barely hold one person and reveals that you’re in the scooping room, a location that will become relevant very shortly. Her dialogue kinda drags on for a while–just like me fr–but she eventually notes that there’s somebody else in the building tonight. Your view then gets turned to see ballora and exposing the suit’s front to a camera. Shortly after ballora gets scooped in front of your eyes, with baby opening your faceplates so the camera can spot you. This night is the first night that has been nerfed after launch, but oddly not the only time it’ll happen in this game. The entire night is just you fending for your life by winding up the spring locks and shaking the ballerinas off your suit. You can’t shake too much though, because this winds the spring locks down. It’s a very delicate balancing act that’s still pretty difficult even after the nerf. This is definitely my least favorite night in the game because I’m just flat out bad at this night. The bonnie hand puppet section is something I’m not great at–sure–but this night feels like the final boss. Thankfully though, this night redeems itself by having it end with the immortal and the restless, meaning more popcorn spam babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Night 5 starts as usual this time, with the elevator ride having the ever iconic exotic butters line. Once you enter the control module and check the lights, you’ll see the technicians hanging over the stages where ballora and foxy resided. Next you’ll head off to parts and service, but unlike before there’s nobody in here so you can just book it to the end. Afterwards, you’ll see baby in front of you similar to how Freddy was earlier. After some yapping you’ll have to input a key code on a keypad that’ll pop out of her head, and afterwards you’ll send her to the scooping room. You’ll leave parts and service and be sent back into the funtime auditorium, where baby will guide you through the room as you’re not allowed to use your flashlight or else you’ll get jumpscared. There’s actually a secret ending here but let's put a pin in it for now and continue on with the night as intended. After following her instructions you’ll eventually be lead to the scooping room, where you’ll see all the shells of the funtime animatronics and a mysterious new animatronic, named ennard, staring at you from behind the window. Very shortly after you’ll get your insides scooped and it’ll cut to a shot of you looking in the mirror with a blacked out silhouette, with what looks like animatronic eyes opening as the game cuts to credits.

Normally the game would be over, but remember that pin I made earlier? Well, going back to it reveals an alternate ending. How you access this ending is by bringing the ice cream back to the child in the death minigame, granting you access to the private room on this night. During Baby’s guidance in the funtime auditorium, go forward and right to enter the private room. You’ll know you did it right when you hear the voice say “access granted” otherwise it’ll say “access denied” and you’ll be attacked by ennard. Once you enter the room, you’ll be greeted by an office with the hand unit saying that this is a dangerous area and once the maintenance crew arrives at 6AM you’ll be rescued and fired. After the dialogue ends, the ennard boss fight will begin. I’m not fully sure how this night works myself but I do know that power is very strict during this night. Throughout the night baby’s voice will be talking to you, asking why you didn’t trust them and wondering why people are the way they are. There’s also a neat easter egg where if you hit 1983 on the keypad, the screens will light up with views of the fnaf 4 house. If you paid attention during the breaker room segment, you’ll see it has additional maps on it too, resembling the fnaf 4 house, fun with plushtrap section, and another area that I’m not quite familiar with. Once you beat the night it ends as usual, although when you get home you’ll now see your exotic butters on your tv. At some point ennard will crawl across the screen, implying he still takes your body no matter what ending you get.

This is the 3rd game to get a significant post launch update, with this one getting a custom night added. Although it’s less of a custom night and more of an assortment of challenges seeing as you can’t customize what animatronics are active. There’s 10 challenges to pick from, and those challenges are

• Angry Ballet, featuring Ballora and both Minireenas.

• Freddy and Co., featuring Funtime Freddy, Yenndo, Funtime Foxy and Bonnet.

• Funtime Frenzy, featuring Funtime Freddy, Yenndo, Funtime Foxy and Lolbit.

• Dolls, Attack!, featuring Bonnet, Bidybab, Electrobab, and both Minireenas.

• Girls’ Night, featuring Ballora, Funtime Foxy, Bonnet, Bidybab and both Minireenas.

• Weirdos, featuring Yenndo, Bonnet, Electrobab, Lolbit and Minireena 1.

• Top Shelf, featuring Ballora, Funtime Freddy, Yenndo, Funtime Foxy and Bonnet.

• Bottom Shelf, featuring Bidybad, Electrobab, Lolbit and both Minireenas.

• Cupcake Challenge, which excludes Yenndo, Bidybab and Minireena 2.

• Finally, Golden Freddy mode features every animatronic.

Going over the animatronics, they all function as follows, taken directly from the in game descriptions.

• Bidybab will always be in the vent ahead of the player. When she gets too close, close the vent door until she retreats.

• Funtime Freddy will hide in either the West or East closet, then send Bon-Bon to attack from the same side. When he commands Bon-Bon to attack, shut the door. If he announces a surprise, shut the opposite door.

• Funtime Foxy will emerge from his curtain, then charge to the office. Check on him frequently to slow his progress.

• Ballora will approach from either the West or East hall. Listen for her music to become louder, then shut the appropriate door.

• Electrobab drains the player's power if there is a danger sign next to the power. The player must administer a controlled shock to deactivate Electrobab.

• Lolbit will appear on the three monitors in the office, followed by visual and auditory distractions. The player must type L-O-L on the keypad in the office or on their keyboard to deactivate Lolbit.

• Bonnet may run through the player's room at random after the player closes the monitor. Click on her nose to deactivate her before she leaves the screen.

• This mysterious endoskeleton will appear at random after the player closes the monitor. If he is in the office, quickly open the monitor again to make him disappear.

• Minireenas will appear at random and begin draining the player's oxygen supply, eventually causing a blackout. Administer a controlled shock to deactivate them.

• These Minireenas will appear at random and block the player's view in the office. They can't be prevented or deactivated.

Each challenge has 4 difficulties: easy, normal, hard and very hard, each with fluctuating ai levels. Beating these challenges on very hard mode will unlock a series of cutscenes, where we see michael afton walking down the street and watching him progressively become purple, until the last cutscene where he vomits out ennard into the sewers while hearing baby’s voice ring that he won't die, before getting back up. Beating golden freddy mode on very hard unlocks its own cutscene, where michael monologues about how he’s gonna find his father and ends with a shot of springtrap in the ruins of fazbear frights, the location from the 3rd game. Initially when this update came out, golden freddy mode was locked as scott wanted to fix any potential bugs before he released the mode, with it being unlocked a few days later. It was discovered that golden freddy mode on release was extremely difficult so a patch came out a couple days later that added more power and the aforementioned cutscene. This is also the first time the game can be controlled with a keyboard, a very nice qol feature that will be present in a future game. I think this iteration of the custom night is my favorite because it’s mostly–if not entirely–up to your skill at the game instead of random elements.

Finally getting into the visuals of the game, I know a lot of people don’t like them but I’m personally a fan of them, with it being a contender for my favorite in the series. This game goes for a more futuristic art style than the previous games, with the animatronic face plates being able to open and the place looking more high tech than the previous locations. I also think the private room is one of the best looking rooms in the game because it really makes the place feel like a secret underground bunker. Something that’s easy to forget is that you’re in an underground facility, due to the only reminder being your descent at the beginning of the night. There’s also this fact that this game’s environments are fully animated unlike before, which really helps to immerse you.

This game marks the last time I played a fnaf game until 2022. I don’t really remember why but I checked out of the franchise after this game. I think around this time I got my own console so I had a lot more options to play games, which would explain a lot given this franchise wasn’t on consoles until recently. But man, what a game to end on yeah? SL is a very mixed game for a lot of people despite it being a game I enjoy a lot. It’s even funnier when you realize my re-introduction was security breach, but that’s a topic for later. For now though, who’s up for some tycoon gaming?

PIZZA SIM

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator released on December 4th, 2017 and it’s just a normal tycoon game. You start the game by creating a pizza and feeding children until your shadow clone shows up but no biggie. You just throw pizzas at it to stun it and uh… sorry what? Uhm, I don’t think that’s normal.

This game is a massive bait and switch by scott. The game itself is fairly unremarkable at first; the steam page only shows the beginning of the game, the description is pretty normal--albeit short--and nothing about the game seems off until your shadow clone starts glitching out. That’s when the real nature of this game is revealed, as you’re suddenly facing scrap baby and conducting an auditory experiment on her. Afterwards the proper opening cutscene plays out, where it’s revealed you’re a franchisee for fazbear entertainment. You’re then thrown into the “simulator” part of the game, where you can start buying items to place around your pizzeria. This part of the game is fairly standard, purchasing items to raise your pizzeria stats and making sure you don’t get sued. You can also choose to accept advertisements for some extra money, but I’d be careful with these. You also need to upgrade your floor plan to be able to add more items, which brings more customers, which brings in more money. It’s also home to the best character in the franchise; the Fruit Punch Clown. This loop is pretty simple, but it’s only half the game.

The second half is more akin to a traditional fnaf game with the major difference that your win condition is completing all your tasks and logging out of the computer. This part is similar to the sound based gameplay of fnaf 4, now featuring png jumpscares. The game gives you a few tools to defend yourself; audio lures that you can use to lure animatronics to a certain vent, motion detector that will detect the animatronics and silent ventilation which reduces your noise level, making it harder to be detected. You can also upgrade your equipment with the money you earn from the tycoon mode, allowing tasks to complete faster. The way the animatronics work are interesting because if you want you can just avoid them entirely. They can only enter your pizzeria if you A.) choose to salvage them after the office segments, B.) if you buy items that have high risk stats or C.) be lefty and be purchasable for five whole dollars. The advertisements also come into play during this night, with them interrupting your tasks and playing a loud sound, making you more likely to die. The safest way to play is to set an audio lure on one side, start a task and stare down the opposite side’s vent until your task is complete, then you start another one and repeat until completion. It’s an interesting idea for sure, but just feels kinda lame compared to what came before. I’m not sure why it’s a series of vents instead of rooms but I guess it’s to separate it from the main building.

I think the atmosphere here is the weakest in the franchise, it just doesn’t invoke anything in me. Sure the pizzeria looks pretty nice but the office section looks super bland to me. It also doesn’t help that you get to see basically nothing outside of your office. The audio design is also just kinda whatever to me, there’s nothing special about it but it’s effective. I do like that the animatronics have voices though, it can feel kinda haunting to hear them when you don’t expect them to be there.

I normally don’t talk about the story in this series because everybody knows how much of a mess it is. It’s convoluted as hell and constantly feels like it’s getting retconned. However, pizza sim is a special game. It’s the end to the original, scott written story and it ends with probably the most iconic cutscene in the entire franchise. It’s a very satisfying conclusion to everything, despite how rocky the road to this point was. I wasn’t really around during this game but even I knew of connection terminated at the time it was that popular. I’ll just let the cutscene speak for itself here.

UCN

We’re not quite done yet though. What started as a custom night for pizza sim turned full blown game, Ultimate Custom Night released on June 27th, 2018 and was the biggest fnaf game up to this point, with a whopping 50 animatronics to customize and an insane amount of on-screen effects.

This is the game I probably have the least experience with, as there’s not much outside of the challenges to do except mess around at your own will. Like before, let’s go over all of the challenges.

• Bears Attack 1 features Freddy Fazbear, Golden Freddy, Phantom Freddy, Nightmare Fredbear, Nightmare, Helpy, Nedd Bear, Rockstar Freddy, Molten Freddy and Lefty.

• Bears Attack 2 and 3 features higher AI levels for the aforementioned animatronics while adding Toy Freddy and Nightmare Freddy.

• Pay Attention 1 features Balloon Boy, JJ, The Puppet, Nightmare Balloon Boy, Old Man Consequences, Funtime Foxy, Helpy, Music Man, El Chip, Funtime Chica, William Afton and Phone Guy, with the 2nd version just increasing the AI levels.

• Ladies Night 1 features Chica, Toy Chica, Mangle, JJ, WIthered Chica, Jack O’ Chica, Circus Baby, Ballora, Happy Frog, Rockstar Chica, Funtime Chica and Scrap Baby.

• Ladies Night 2 features higher AI levels for the aforementioned animatronics while adding Nightmare Mangle.

• Ladies Night 3 features higher AI levels for the aforementioned animatronics while adding Funtime Foxy.

• Creepy Crawlies 1 features Mangle, Withered Chica, Withered Bonnie, The Puppet, Springtrap, Phantom Mangle, Ennard, Happy Frog, Mr. Hippo, Pigpatch, Nedd Bear, Orville Elephant, Music Man and Molten Freddy.

• Creepy Crawlies 2 features higher AI levels for the aforementioned animatronics while adding William Afton.

• Nightmares Attack features Withered Bonnie, Golden Freddy, Nightmare Freddy, Nightmare Bonnie, Nightmare Fredbear, Nightmare, Jack O’ Chica, Nightmare Mangle, Nightmarionne, Nightmare Balloon Boy, Music Man, Molten Freddy, Scrap Baby and Lefty.

• Springtrapped features JJ, Springtrap, Phantom Mangle, Phantom Freddy, Phantom Balloon Boy, Nightmarionne, Trash and the Gang, Rockstar Foxy, William Afton and Lefty.

• Old Friends features Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, Mangle, Balloon Boy, The Puppet, Springtrap, Circus Baby and Phone Guy.

• Chaos 1 features Toy Freddy, Withered Bonnie, The Puppet, Phantom Mangle, Nightmare Freddy, Nightmare Fredbear, Nightmare, Jack O’ Chica, Old Man Consequences, Ballora, Trash and the Gang, Helpy, Happy Frog, Mr. Hippo, Pigpatch, Rockstar Freddy, Rockstar Bonnie, Rockstar Foxy, Music Man, El Chip, Funtime Chica and William Afton.

• Chaos 2 features Freddy Fazbear, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, The Puppet, Golden Freddy, Phantom Freddy, Phantom Balloon Boy, Nightmare Bonnie, Nightmare Mangle, Old Man Consequences, Circus Baby, Trash and the Gang, Helpy, Happy Frog, Mr. Hippo, Pigpatch, Rockstar Freddy, Rockstar Chica, Rockstar Foxy, Music Man, El Chip, Funtime Chica, Scrap Baby, William Afton and Phone Guy.

• Chaos 3 features Bonnie, Foxy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, Mangle, Balloon Boy, JJ, Withered Chica, Withered Bonnie, Phantom Mangle, Phantom Balloon Boy, Nightmare Bonnie, Nightmarionne, Nightmare Balloon Boy, Old Man Consequences, Ennard, Trash and the Gang, Helpy, Happy Frog, Mr. Hippo, Pigpatch, Nedd Bear, Orville Elephant, Rockstar Freddy, Rockstar Bonnie, Rockstar Chica, Rockstar Foxy, Music Man, El Chip, Funtime Chica, Lefty and Phone Guy.

As you can tell, there’s a lot of stuff to go through here, given that there’s 50 characters all with unique mechanics. Here’s what they all do, taken straight from the in-game descriptions.

• Freddy Fazbear approaches from the left hall. Keep track of him on the monitor and shut the door when he is standing in the doorway. He moves faster as the building gets warmer. 

• Bonnie now shares Pirate Cove with Foxy, but whereas Foxy will hide from himself when viewed on camera, he will do the opposite, and become more agitated. View the figurine on the desk to see who is active in Pirate's Cove. 

• While Chica doesn't care if the music box is wound up, she can grow tired of the selection playing. When the sound of pots and pans stops, you only have a short amount of time to change the music. The Global Music Box can also soothe her. 

• Foxy will gradually leave Pirate's Cove if you don't check on him regularly. Once he is out, he will enter your office piece by piece. 

• Toy Freddy sits in the Parts and Service room playing Five Nights With Mr. Hugs on his big screen TV. Click the cams on Toy Freddy's monitor, then be sure that the appropriate door is closed to prevent Mr. Hugs from jumpscaring him. 

• Put on your Freddy Fazbear mask quickly when Toy Bonnie sneaks into your room to fool him and make him go away. 

• Put on your Freddy Fazbear mask quickly when Toy Chica sneaks into your room to fool her and make her go away. 

• Unlike the other animatronics in the vents, once Mangle reaches the vent opening he will never leave. Use the vent-snare to prevent her from making it that far. 

• Balloon Boy will try to sneak in through the side vent. Close the side vent and wait until you hear a thud indicating he is gone. If he slips in, he will temporarily disable your flashlight. 

• JJ will try to sneak in through the side vent. Close the side vent and wait until you hear a thud indicating she is gone. If she slips in, she will disable door controls temporarily. 

• Withered Chica climbs through the air vents, but may get stuck when trying to enter your office. Use the vent-snare to prevent her from reaching the opening. 

• Withered Bonnie will appear in your office poised to attack! Throw on your Freddy mask to make him leave again. 

• Keep The Puppet’s music box wound or he will come to get you! The global music box also works against him. 

• Golden Freddy will occasionally appear in your office. Throw on your Freddy mask or pull up your monitor quickly to cause him to disappear. 

• Springtrap makes his way toward the vent opening embedded in the wall in front of you. When he is poised to attack you will see his face looking down at you. Close the vent door to send him away. 

• When you see Phantom Mangle on your monitor, quickly close it, or he will appear in your office and create an audio disturbance. 

• Shine your flashlight on Phantom Freddy to cause him to fade away. If you don't, he will jumpscare you, giving time for enemies in the vents to sneak into your office. Heat causes him to appear faster. 

• When Phantom Balloon Boy appears on your monitor, quickly close it or change the cam to avoid his jumpscare. 

• When the Freddles begin to accumulate in your office, shine your flashlight on them before Freddy appears! 

• Buy the Nightmare Bonnie plush from the Prize Counter when he appears in the hallway to avoid his jumpscare. He can't be stopped by the office door. 

• Nightmare Fredbear is invisible to the cameras and can only be seen when he reaches your left doorway. Close the door on his face to send him back into the darkness! 

• Nightmare is invisible to the cameras and can only be seen when he reaches your right doorway. Close the door on his face to send him back into the darkness! 

• When the office heats up, Jack O’ Chica will appear in both halls at the same time. Close both doors to make her vanish. This won't work if the office is 100 degrees or more. 

• Purchase Nightmare Mangle’s plush toy from the Prize Counter when he appears in the right hall to avoid his attack! He can't be stopped by the office door. 

• Don't let your mouse cursor linger over Nightmarionne for too long! 

• When Nightmare Balloon Boy is slumped over in your office, do not shine your light on him. When he is sitting up however, you must use your flashlight to reset him. 

• Use the C button to catch a fish when his mini-game appears, otherwise he will lock your monitor for a short time. 

• Purchase Circus Baby’s plush toy from the Prize Counter when she appears in the right hall to avoid her attack! The office door can't stop her. 

• Ballora will approach from the one of the hallways. Listen for which hall she is in and shut the appropriate door. 

• Check Funtime Foxy’s curtain to see when his show is set to begin, then be sure to watch his cam at that exact time to postpone the show, otherwise that is when your game will end. 

• Difficult to see on the vent radar, Ennard will make his way toward your office. Listen for the sound cue of squeaking metal, then close the vent.

• ???

• When you see Helpy sitting in your office, click on him quickly, otherwise he will get in your face with an airhorn, agitating sound-sensitive animatronics. 

• Happy Frog moves through the air ducts making her way toward you. Use the audio-lure to keep her in place. She is immune to the heater. 

• Mr. Hippo makes his way toward your office using the air ducts. Use the audio-lure to hold him in place, or the heater to push him back. 

• Pigpatch makes his way toward your office using the air ducts. Use the audio-lure to hold him in place, or the heater to push him back. 

• Nedd Bear climbs through the vent system making his way toward you. Use the audio-lure or the heater to keep him at bay. 

• Orville Elephant makes his way toward your office through the air ducts. He isn't often fooled by the audio-lure, but can be pushed back with the heater. 

• Rockstar Freddy will occasionally activate and ask for five Faz-Coins. You can alternatively use the heater to cause him to malfunction. 

• When Rockstar Bonnie appears in your office, search the cameras to find his guitar. Click the guitar to send him away. 

• Check the left and right hallways, then double-click the wet-floor sign to place it on the same side as Rockstar Chica. She won't enter if the sign is in place. 

• When you see Rockstar Foxy’s parrot, click it, and he may offer you some help. This comes with risk, however. 

• Keep the noise down, or you'll begin to hear  Music Man’s cymbals crashing faster and faster eventually leading to a jumpscare. 

• El Chip just here to promote his new restaurant. Close the ad when it appears. 

• Funtime Chica will appear at random to distract you. There is no way to avoid her. 

• Molten Freddy climbs in the vents, but can avoid the vent snare. Listen for his voice, then shut the vent door before he gets through. 

• Scrap Baby will appear on the opposite side of your office desk. When she moves, use a controlled shock! 

• William Afton will attack once per night, making a lot of noise and causing the lights to flicker before attacking. Close the right vent door to block him. 

• Lefty becomes active from noise and heat. He is too far away from the music box to be soothed by it, but the global music box can calm him down. 

• When Phone Guy calls, quickly mute him, otherwise it will create a lengthy audio disturbance. The mute button will appear in different places each time. 

Sorry, did I say there were only 50? Well I lied, there’s an additional 6 secret characters that are most commonly summoned during 50/20 mode. Those being:

• RWQ will cause your office to become pitch black for about ten seconds. There is no way to avoid him. 

• Plushtrap will appear on a specific screen and sit in his chair. If the player doesn't scare him out of his chair fast enough, he will jumpscare them. 

• Nightmare Chica’s jaws will begin to close on the player's screen. If the player does not promptly turn on the power A/C before the jaws close, she will jumpscare the player. The further down the jaws are, the longer they take to disappear. 

• Like in the previous game, Bonnet will walk across the office and must be stopped by clicking on her nose. 

• When summoned, several Minireenas will appear and block the player's view. Unlike in the previous game, the effect is temporary and the Minireenas will leave after a short time, usually about an in-game hour.

• When summoned, Lolbit's face will appear on the screen with the words "PLEASE STAND BY", blocking the player's view, preventing them from using the cameras or doors, and adding about 3 bars to the noise meter. The player must type L-O-L on their keyboard to make it disappear. 

Ok, now that those are out of the way, let's talk about some of the actual mechanics of the game. The game borrows mechanics from almost every single game so far while including its own. We have the cameras and freddy mask, with the cameras mostly just being used to stall certain animatronics (ala fnaf 1). You have 2 doors on either side and 2 vents, one in front of one and one on your right side. Entering the camera view, you’ll see you have 3 different systems, the camera, the vent and the air ducts. The vent system you can basically ignore as long as you shut the front vent before flipping your camera and the duct system you just have to place a lure on whatever side you like while closing one of them. While you’re in the camera system, you can collect faz coins that you can use at the prize counter to buy certain items, the most important being the death coin that allows you to eliminate one animatronics for the rest of the night. Finally, if you look on the right part of the screen you’ll notice a bunch of different options that you can select. These are the power generator, silent ventilation, heater, power ac and global music box. These are something you want to be using throughout the night since they are very useful for keeping you alive. You’ll also need to reset the ventilation by clicking the button in the bottom right every so often. Throughout your night, an animatronic called DeeDee (or XOR on 50/20) will occasionally pop up and either summon an animatronic or raise the AI level of one already enabled, but you can block DeeDee (not XOR) with a powerup you can select from the main menu.

This is the second game that uses keyboard controls, with the first being SL’s custom night. There’s a lot of binds because of how many mechanics there are, but it’s way better than having to do everything manually because it’d be a nightmare and also impossible. I wonder if it’d be possible to beat if you heavily limited the binds you could use though, I’m sure somebody has done it. 

And that about does it for the clickteam era of the franchise. After this game, Steel Wool Studios would become the developers for the series, releasing their first game, Help Wanted, in the following year. I won’t be talking about it here since I don’t have a vr headset as of writing. So with that being said, who wants to talk about everybody’s favorite game in the series?

SECURITY BREACH

Security Breach was released on December 16th, 2021 and is the most negatively received game in the entire series. It suffered a series of delays, as well as having a nightmarish development cycle behind the scenes. From the game suffering from major scope creep to Scott not even telling Steel Wool the story he had planned out, the game was a disaster.

However, despite its negative reputation, I don’t really hate this game. I agree it’s not really that great of a game, but there’s something special about it. It’s been a while since I’ve played a game that just… doesn’t work as intended at all. However, I’m not a fan of the game in its current condition because it feels like the devs slapped bandaids over gunshot wounds. This game is fundamentally flawed and needs more than just invisible walls to fix it up. I understand why Steel Wool did what they did, because it’s a lot easier to patch up a game that exists instead of remaking it entirely, but this game really needed more than what it was given. It’s perfectly playable now and you can have fun with the game, but a lot of my fun has been removed because of the patches. 

But why do I believe this game to be fundamentally flawed? Ignoring the bugs for a moment, security breach tries to use the core principles of the series (camera system, resource management, and time) and fails in every way possible. The cameras may as well not even exist in this game because I’ve rarely seen them used by people who aren’t sleep deprived out of their minds. I don’t think cameras work as well in a game where you can physically move around, especially with how limited the camera system is in this game. It made sense in the previous games because you were bound to one location but here you can just look at the area the camera covers or even go there yourself.  Not to mention how little they’re emphasized throughout the game, only being mentioned once in the very beginning and never again. Resource management is another system that may as well not exist given how many opportunities you have to recharge your flashlight. It really feels like it’s more rare to not have a recharge station nearby than to run out of flashlight battery, it just doesn’t make sense to me. I’d get it if the recharge stations were few and far between or maybe your battery drained faster as a result of having so many, but the battery drains so slowly it feels backwards. The Faz-Camera is on a passive cooldown, which is fine by itself but you’re gonna end up using it so infrequently that you’re always gonna have it ready to go whenever you need it. Funnily enough I think if you gave the faz-cam a manual recharge it’d be a better implementation because you’d have to actually manage when you use it. Granted in the current state of the game it still wouldn’t matter as much but it’d be a better design for the item. The Fazerblaster is basically just a better version of the faz-cam in basically every way except for the fact you can’t cancel a jumpscare with it like you can with the camera. You get multiple shots to stun animatronics with, you have a good amount of reach with it and it’s also on a passive timer. It suffers the same problem that the camera does where the infrequent use means you should always have it active but if this game had more animatronic encounters it might not be so bad. Finally, the time mechanic also may as well not exist because it only really matters for Moon’s hourly appearances. I guess Steel Wool tried to use the hour system as a “chapter” system but it just feels kinda half heartedly put together. A lot of the time I forget what time it even is since once you’re on one quest you’re typically locked into doing that specific quest. I’m not really sure how this could work in the game’s current state, as it fits more for what the older games were and not really a full roam game.

That’s not all either, as I believe the core foundation of the game is shaky at best, even taking away the “FNaF” elements from it. It’s a horror game with an insanely big and bright environment, leaving no room for enemies to sneak up or surprise you. You can see the animatronics from a mile away and have so many tools to completely negate their presence. Not to mention all the animatronics feel the same with the only real difference being which of your tools they completely ignore. Monty is the only real threat, as you can’t use the camera or blaster to negate him until you shatter him later on and he can leap forward to close the distance pretty fast. Roxy is basically just a worse version of Monty until you shatter her, in which she becomes very similar to him in the sense that you can’t use your blaster or camera on her. But by the time you shatter the animatronics they show up less so I don’t believe it makes that big of a difference. Chica literally exists and that’s about as much as I can say about her, all of her versions still can be trivialized by the tools at your disposal and are not hard to get away from. Freddy is actually not an enemy in this game, being your ally that you can upgrade by shattering the other animatronics, stealing parts from them and implanting them into Freddy. In fact that’s the whole point of the game, since you need their upgrades to further explore the pizza plex. I think it’s an interesting concept but, like everything else in this game, Freddy is an incredibly powerful tool that has basically no consequences for using. You can call him almost anywhere and hide inside his chest to negate any threats. He has a power system similar to your flashlight but just like the flashlight, there’s so many recharge stations it feels meaningless, especially since you can just upgrade his battery later on. Now granted, there are a lot less recharge stations for freddy so it atleast feels like the devs tried to make you balance his power, but in execution it still kinda doesn’t matter as much as it feels like they wanted it to. And of course, there’s one more threat I haven’t mentioned yet: Staff Bots. These little shits are EVERYWHERE in this game. You cannot turn a corner without seeing at least 3 of them at any given time. It makes sense to have some secondary threats as the main animatronics aren’t around as often as they probably should be, but this is just absurd. Sometimes I forget the main 3 even exist because of how many staff bots are around this place. Not to mention their spot radius feels a bit too over tuned and is used as the primary way to make the game harder. I get that they can’t just have all 3 animatronics on you at the same time but this also wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for how open the pizza plex is. It also doesn’t help that basically every staff bot is the same exact model, with a few unique ones that aren’t even threats to you anyway. Maybe if each area had staff bots themed to that location and the spam was toned down it wouldn’t feel as bad, but as it is now it feels horrible to traverse certain locations.

I wanna touch on the story for a bit, even though I haven’t talked about it for any of the other games excluding pizza sim. This game’s story is… nonsensical and stitched together. We actually know why the story of this game is so convoluted and disjointed. To give a short version of it, Scott basically told Steel Wool to implement certain aspects of the story into the game without actually telling them what the story is. Because of Scott’s very poor communication with them, Steel Wool thought it was their job to connect the pieces themself, which is what they started doing and is why we’ve ended up with this mess. In this game you play as a child named Gregory who is for some reason trapped in the pizza plex after hours. Throughout the game you go through and dismantle the other animatronics to progress your exploration throughout the pizza plex to uncover what’s really going on. At 6AM you have the choice to leave the pizza plex or stay and go for another ending, and that’s where it gets messy. It’s never explained why Gregory is here, or what exactly he wants to uncover. What connection does he have to this place? Why does Freddy just default to helping him out with everything? There’s so many unanswered questions just from the little I’m willing to talk about because if I think about this game’s story anymore I’m going to explode. [cool explosion fx]

Ok, I think I’ve gotten most of the negative stuff off my chest. I promise I still like this game despite how much I just ripped into it. There are redeeming qualities but I felt it right to talk about the negative first. I think the actual level designs are really well made and feel pretty cohesive, being a giant pizza plex with multiple locations. I think the location is just a really neat idea overall. It has a massive amount of potential and I hope to see something similar to it but more fleshed out in the future. The visual design, while not very scary to me, is pretty solid. Sure it’s undesirable for a horror game but hey, if it wasn’t a horror game it’d be pretty good.

I wanna talk about my enjoyment of the game because it’s super weird. As I mentioned earlier I’m not a fan of the game in its current state, instead the version I love are the older ones where the game isn’t as functional as it currently is. Old-SB felt like a sandbox game, figuring out how you could break and bend the game to your will and that’s where most of my enjoyment came from. This was the first game I had played since sister location’s release all the way back in 2016 and I came into it during its broken phase. To make a completely unrelated example, I love old-SB for the same reasons I love Sonic 2006. They’re both completely broken games where the fun to me is finding ways to use the bugs and poorly implemented game mechanics to exploit the game heavily to make it do wacky things. Only difference being this game is a lot worse than 06 was, but that’s my mandatory 06 mention out of the way. I loved the way you could skip over segments and confuse the game, causing very unintended results. The way these skips and exploits were patched just made the game less fun for me personally, with the invisible wall spam and half-baked fixes.

Security Breach is a very complicated game for me. It’s hard for me to fully quantify my exact enjoyment of the game. I didn’t intend for it for this section to be so negatively charged, but it’s also expected given how the game panned out. It feels almost wrong for me to mostly talk negatively about one of my favorite games in the series, but as mentioned it’s hard for me to fully put it into words what about SB encapsulates me. It’s such a fascinating game to me that I can’t really bring myself to hate it, despite all the problems I have with it. There is something Steel Wool did to redeem the game in some capacity and it lies within a ruined pizza plex.

RUIN

Ruin was a free dlc for security breach released on July 25th, 2023 and was an attempt to make things right with the community. It’s an attempt to redeem security breach, and it does a pretty good job of that.

Ruin is a lot smaller of a game than Security Breach, and I think that’s for the best. Security Breach is such an over-scoped game it’s a miracle it even exists in the first place. For Ruin it at least feels like they learned to keep the project smaller and more focused. It’s also a lot less buggy too, maybe they were given actual time to polish the game up instead of infinitely expanding it. Because of this it’s a more consistent and engaging experience compared to the main game, which is such a low bar but they managed to exceed the bar. They didn’t force in any mechanics that didn’t fit with the new gameplay style, the biggest example being the time system’s absence and having an actual chapter system for progression.  It’s also a completely linear game, similar to sl, but feels a lot more focused than sl. I think ruin deviates from the core design of the fnaf games a lot more successfully, although it has its own issues.

It still uses the same visual design language as security breach, which while I still like, it just feels like it bogs any potential horror elements down. It’s hard to feel scared when this is the same style used in the comically broken game that precedes this. The gameplay isn’t very interesting either, with it mostly being a walking simulator with the occasional puzzle. This style of gameplay isn’t per se but I don’t feel it’s utilized properly. It relies too much on the environment for the horror instead of the actual gameplay, which doesn’t work very well when your visuals aren’t that scary to begin with. The main threats are somehow easier to avoid than the base game, a feat I didn’t even think possible. If you hear the very obvious sound que, all you have to do is just… take the mask off and all your problems disappear. It’s actually more of an annoyance than anything, feeling like you’re arbitrarily timed on how long you can actually play the game. It’s not something you can avoid or get better at, you’re at the mercy of the game on how long you can play the game. It’s not like you can really do anything outside the vr world either, you’re just expected to sit around while the threat passively goes away. The dual world system is actually surprisingly well implemented and a solid idea from the start. I just wish the gameplay complimented it more. Again, you’re on rails for almost all of the game and there’s no real room to explore either worlds properly on your own. Feels like the biggest missed opportunity of the entire game.

In terms of bugs, there’s not really much to talk about, but I do wanna highlight the ones I did run into. The first one is the game incorrectly teleporting you when you take the mask on/off. Sometimes the game can get confused on your location so it can believe you’re in one space when you’re in another, so when you go to switch it’ll either teleport you way above the map or below it. Another problem that is only specific to one area is the game being confused on the animatronic’s locations, defaulting them to their origin point. In the section with the mini music men, this issue is most prevalent. It’s the only time I really died in all my playthroughs because of how easy the game is, with these deaths being caused by something out of my control. It also highlights my issue with the camera-audio system introduced, likely inspired by FNaF 3’s systems. Sometimes it feels like the animatronics just don’t work properly when you use the audio lures. It’s fine if they sometimes don’t move immediately but I’ve seen them just interrupt their own pathing for no apparent reason. It just feels inconsistent and unpredictable.

The premise for this game is a lot better this time around; You play as Cassidy, Gregory’s friend, who went back to the pizza plex after Gregory asked her to head there and find him. Throughout the game “Gregory” leads Cassidy through the now very broken pizza plex and disabling security systems to get to the bottom of the sinkhole. It’s eventually revealed that “Gregory” has been the mimic all along, leading the player to set it loose from the pizza plex. It’s serviceable but if you don’t know anything about the books (like me) you’re probably wondering what the hell the mimic is. I didn’t know what it was either until I looked into it a bit more, and yeah it’s what it sounds like it is. An endoskeleton created to mimic others, with it even gaining a disguise in the secret scooper ending. It’s currently unclear which ending is canonical but I’m sure we’ll figure it out with the next mainline game. Hell I’m still not even sure what sb ending the game follows.

Ruin is a weird game for me, and I never realized that until I actually started writing this section. I like it and think it’s a good game, but there’s also just a lot that feels like Steel Wool might’ve learned the wrong lesson from SB’s failures. Maybe it was just meant to be an experimental title while they iron something out for their next game, Secret of the Mimic. I want to feel hopeful for the future of the franchise, and ruin does give me some of that hope, but only time will really tell if Steel Wool can really carry the torch on their own.

CLOSING

Overall, I think this franchise still holds up in the current year, despite whatever problems they have. I would’ve liked to dedicate a section to Into the Pit but I haven’t beaten it yet and I feel like it doesn’t fit with the rest of this video given how new of a game it is. Maybe I’ll get around to it one day but I’m not sure how much interest I have in it at the moment. I’d also like to talk about the VR games at some point in the future once I get my hands on a VR headset, as I’ve always been interested in them. But for now, I’d like to thank you all for watching. Stay hydrated and I’ll see you next time. 

 

    video link: https://youtu.be/JWFGwGVfInk?si=BWQ3hZqid5fSG_pp 

 

      short director's commentary: this video started life as a smaller review of the games, but as i went on writing i started to fall into the same trappings as the shadow gens video, where i felt i didn't go into as much detail as i should've been. i think the old draft covers fnaf 1 and half of fnaf 2 and length wise is about as long as the entire fnaf 1 section of this script. this is also still the longest script i've written and it surely shows with the production cycle being ~2 months, scripting taking one month and video editing taking another. also surprise surprise i got sick the morning i uploaded this video, so that was really fun. the marathon i did that inspired this was also really fun to do and i'm hoping i can make marathons a yearly thing going forward.

word count: 12,848
video length: 1:02:37