Five Nights at Freddy's
- Not what you were looking for? See Five Nights at Freddy's (disambiguation).
- Or were you looking for the demo version, the mobile version, the home console version, or its film adaptation?
“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, commonly abbreviated as FNaF and often referred to as Five Nights at Freddy's 1 or FNaF 1, is an indie point-and-click survival horror video game developed and published by Scottgames. It is the first installment in the Five Nights at Freddy's series. A demo was initially released on Amazon on July 23, 2014, and a day later on IndieDB, with the full game launching on Desura on August 8, 2014, and on Steam on August 18, 2014, followed by an Android release on August 24, 2014 (a Android demo also released around this time), Amazon Fire OS on August 26, 2014, iOS on September 11, 2014, and Windows Phone on December 2, 2014.
Scottgames would partner with Clickteam in 2018 to port the game to all major consoles and update the mobile ports. The "Remastered" titled mobile updates would release on July 30, 2019, for iOS, and on Android on August 16, 2019. This would be followed by an Xbox port on November 28, 2019, and an PlayStation and Nintendo Switch port on November 29, 2019. These ports/updates would fix bugs, remove copyrighted material, and add a subtitles and cheats menu.
Chronologically, the game is the sequel to Five Nights at Freddy's 4 and Five Nights at Freddy's 2 and the prequel to Five Nights at Freddy's 3, which makes it the third game of the series.
Due to its universal success upon release, the game spawned a media franchise for a series of video games, books, and merchandise, as well as a film adaptation, which was released on October 27, 2023.
Welcome to your new summer break at Freddy Fazbear's Resturant, 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're 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?
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 after hours. Mike is forced to spend each night in the security office, which serves as a base of operations. The player has a monitor at their disposal to scroll through the security cameras and see where the animatronics are, 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 deactivate for the rest of the night. Freddy himself will then appear in the office, eventually attacking unless the clock hits 6 AM first. If an animatronic does enter the office, it results in them jumpscaring the player and taking them to the Game Over screen before we are brought 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 animatronics' difficulty.
For specific information and strategies on each night, look here.
| Reviews | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| OpenCritic | (PC) 78/100[2] |
| Metacritic | (PC) 78/100[1] |
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.[3]
Omri Petitte for PC Gamer gave Five Nights at Freddy's a score of 80 out of 100[4], 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.[5]
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."[6]
Development for the game started as early as May 2014, as indicated in one of the behind-the-scenes screenshots Scott shared for the game's second anniversary. On June 13, 2014, Five Nights at Freddy's was submitted to Steam's now-defunct Steam Greenlight platform for community review.[7] A day later, on June 14, a trailer for the game was uploaded to YouTube[8] and a Kickstarter page for the game was made;[9] though it would later be shut down on June 17, 2014. Following the cancelation of the Kickstarter, a demo for the game would be released on Amazon on July 23,[10] with an IndieDB demo releasing the following day.[11] Sometime between late-July and early-August, the game would be promoted on Scott Games.[12] Five Nights at Freddy's would fully release on August 8, 2014, exclusively on Desura.[13] The Amazon page would also receive the full game at an unknown date.[14] Following the success of the release, the game would be greenlit on Steam Greenlight on August 13, 2014,[15] along with the version 1.10 update. A day later, on August 14, both the demo and full game would be updated to version 1.12. On August 17, both the demo and full game would be updated to version 1.13. On the following day, August 18, the official Steam version released.[16]
An Android port was released on August 24, 2014,[17] and a demo was released shortly after. The mobile version would soon be updated to version 1.2, 1.3, and eventually 1.4. The next day, the game would release on Amazon Fire OS.[18] The Android port was updated to version 1.5 on August 28. The following day, the port was updated to version 1.6 and later 1.6 Patch 2. Version 1.7, 1.71, 1.72, and 1.73, were released on August 30, followed by version 1.76, 1.77, 1.78, 1.79, 1.8, 1.81, and finally, 1.82 on September 3. Version 1.83 would release on September 4, followed by 1.84 the next day. An iOS port would release on September 11, 2014.[19] Sometime in September-October, 2014, the game was released on the Clickteam ClickStore.[20] On December 2, the Windows release would be updated to version 1.131 and the Android release to 1.85, along with a Windows Phone port, that was closely followed by version 1.0.0.9.[21]
On June 3, 2015, the game would be added to a Five Nights at Freddy's Bundle on Steam.[22] Sometime later, the Desura release would be removed from the website following the bankruptcy of Bad Juju Games, Desura's owners. A few months later, the game would receive a Halloween-themed update on October 27, adding seasonal decor to the pizzeria's environment. On June 16, 2017, the iOS port would be updated to version 1.1. A little under a year later, in April, 2018, the production of console and remastered mobile ports were announced to be underway by Clickteam.[23] Clickteam's "Remastered" update for iOS would release on July 30, 2019,[24] updating the port to version 2.0. The remaster mobile port would be updated a few months later, on August 10, to version 2.0.1. The remastered Android port would be released on August 16, 2019.[25] Following the Clickteam update, the Android demo was removed from the Google Play Store. Clickteam would update the Android port on September 2, 2019, updating the game to version 2.0.1. The PlayStation port was released on November 11,[26] followed by the Xbox port, released on November 28,[27] and finally, the Nintendo Switch port a day later, on November 29.[28] In December, the Nintendo Switch port would receive an update to version 1.0 Patch 2.
The next year, the Android port would receive an update to version 2.0.2. On August 1, 2020, the iOS port received the same update. Clickteam would release an Xbox-exclusive bundle on October 28 that included Five Nights at Freddy's, titled Five Nights at Freddy's: Original Series.[29] In December, Patch 1 of version 1.0 for Switch and Xbox would release around 10th-13th. The next year, on January 12, 2021, Maximum Games would release Five Nights at Freddy's: Core Collection, which included Five Nights at Freddy's. On December 23, the Android port would receive an update to version 2.0.3, and iOS was subsequently updated to the same version two days later. On March 11, 2022, the console ports were updated to version 1.2. The Android port would be updated to version 2.0.4 on October 4, 2023, with the iOS port being receiving the same update the following day. The Android and iOS ports would be updated to version 2.0.5 on March 7, 2024, and a few months later, the Android port would be updated to version 2.0.6 on June 17.
References
| Five Nights at Freddy's 1 Media | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
