A Five Nights at Freddy's Recollection

A Five Nights at Freddy’s Recollection

All things that are popular are popular for a reason. Batman is popular because he’s awesome, Twilight is popular because lonely and desperate housewives want to feel fulfilled and 50 Shades of Grey is popular is popular because there is no justice in the world. What about Five Nights at Freddy’s. It has three games now and the third is certainly dividing opinion. Now more than ever opinion seems to be split on the franchise so what better time to talk about it?

So for the three of you who have been living under a rock what is Five Nights at Freddy’s? Well while each game adds more mechanics and gimmicks each game features a security guard sitting completely still in an office, trying to stop yourself from being killed by animatronics that may be possessed by murdered children or stuffed with dead bodies. Yeah, not disturbing in any way. Add a heap of tense and creepy atmosphere, some deep and interesting lore and backstory and some compelling gameplay and you have a great trilogy right?

 

When the first game came out I couldn’t find anyone who disliked it. It was original, it was intense and it was downright scary. Thousands of theories were spouted from the backstory, it made many YouTubers from their over the top reactions to the jump scares. Then again, it scared a lot of people. Most horror games are scary because of what you find and the atmosphere of the location. Five Nights at Freddy’s was scary because you were completely helpless. You couldn’t run away or fight back. All you can do is close your doors and hope your power doesn’t run out. I wasn’t the jump scares that was the scariest bit, but rather the waiting for the animatronics to come and seeing them move around the building. I think this game is great.

 

The sequel was certainly interesting. Its mechanics were slightly changed up and more animatronics were added. A large slice of new info on the lore was presented to us and some weird ass death mini games entered the game. At the time it came out many thought this game was even scarier. I understand, you didn’t have doors anymore, you had to wear a Freddy mask and watch them stand in front of you and glare with their messed up faces. Strangely however, I wouldn’t say it’s scarier per say. The jump scares were more surprising and the mini games were a good addition but the atmosphere wasn’t as thick and it felt a lot less Claustrophobic. It was still really good though and the franchise was still just as popular.

 

The third game was released and things got more interesting. This is where opinion started to split amongst the crowd. The game had sort of a 50/50 split with people having savage arguments in YouTube comment sections. The game was a bit different, there was one animatronic, there was a ventilation system you had to keep on top of and you had to lure the creature away. The death mini games were back in the form of compulsory mini games at the end of each night with hidden mini games to explain the lore and get the alternate ending. Personally I didn’t think this one was as good. I seemed like it was being a bit pretentious with its ridiculous hard to find mini games (The tiles in the office … really) and it was nowhere near as scary. It was still decent though and not worthy of huge amounts of hate like it has been. So why is there so much hatred?

 

Maybe because it’s popular? On the internet people love things that are fairly unknown, it makes it really cool. People tend to dislike popular stuff. It’s not hipster anymore. But there has to be more … there is.

 

People complain it’s not scary anymore. Well duh. Things get less scary the more you experience them. The game isn’t as shocking the longer it goes on, that’s normal. Even the most terrifying things ever created will eventually get scary. Maybe saying having a cutesy animal animatronic jump out at you wasn’t even scary in the first place. It was the build-up and the tension. This was especially apparent in the first game. Every time you put the camera down you could get attacked. They moved, you anxiously waited for them to move before your power runs out. Foxy was genius, the slow and tense atmosphere would become quick and hectic as you scrambled to close the door before it gets down the corridor. The game was great and remained tense even when it got less scary because you wanted to make it to 6 AM. The second was similar in how scary and tense it was and while the third was disappointing and felt like it was there to serve the lore it was at least enjoyable and a nice way to tie up the series.

 

Let’s talk about the lore a little more. I find it hard to believe this was ever supposed to be a trilogy. I imagine it was meant to be a scary one off game with a vague but interesting story. The game was expanded and more sequels were added and the lore was increased but I have always thought the story telling was very clever. It gives enough to theorise but not enough to 100% prove anything and equally never just giving it away. It is very clever as the creator knows at this point an out and out answer would never be able to live up to the hype and expectation you have in your head. In reality any theory could be correct and Scott Cawthon may not even have an entire backstory mapped out. It leaves it to us to fill it in and it makes a highly interesting plot.

 

I think the biggest reason Five Nights at Freddy’s has lost its popularity is because after the success of the first one everyone over hyped the sequels. Hype is a terrible thing for a game, a game will almost never live up to its hype and our opinion will be tainted before we even play it. Maybe we expect a bit too much. These are fun and tense games, is it too much to expect them to go down in gaming history as some of the great horror games like a Silent Hill 2. Will we still be talking about them in about 5 years’ time? Probably not. Were they a good experience when we played them and for a long while afterwards as we pondered on the identity of the purple man or the significance of Golden Freddy? Absolutely yes. So let’s enjoy them while they last and enjoy that lovely feeling of nostalgia when we stumble across them somewhere years later and always remember to watch pirates cove and wind up your music box. Or maybe just get a job where you’re probably not going to die, that’d work too.