About

Five Nights at Freddy's is a point-and-click survival horror video game in which the player must survive five nights working as a security guard working at the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant, avoiding being dismembered by the animatronic animals wandering the establishment.

History

Five Nights at Freddy's was conceived and developed by Texas-based indie game developer Scott Cawthon using Clickteam's Fusion 2.5 engine. On June 13th, 2014, Cawthon submitted Five Nights at Freddy's to the Steam Greenlight.^[7] On July 14th, the first trailer video for Five Nights at Freddy's was uploaded to YouTube (shown below).

On July 24th, a demo of the game was released via indie games website IndieDB^[5] by user animdude. On August 9th, the full version of the game was released on the gaming website Desura.^[6] On August 13th, Cawthon's Steam Greenlight submission was approved and the game was subsequently released via Steam store^[8] on August 18th. The game earned a rating of 79 from Metacritic^[13] and a score of 8 (Great) from GameSpot.^[14] On August 24th, PC Gamer^[15] published a review which lauded the game by saying:

"Five Nights at Freddy's gets clever with its simple presentation. It turned my sense of awareness against me, relying on my mind tricking itself to override logic. Those brilliant moments during my five hours playing it typically came after I fought down the urge to curl into a whimpering ball of tears and sweat. It's a first-person horror game, but the boogeyman jumping out of the closet isn't its payoff--it's the creeping buildup of dread watching that doorknob slowly turn."

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

On September 12th, Cawthon updated his website with an illustrated cover art which hinted at the development of a sequel title for release sometime in 2015. On October 21st, roughly two months after the release of the original title, Cawthon uploaded the official trailer for the sequel title to his YouTube channel. The trailer gained over 600,000 views within the first 24 hours; as of November 11th, the video has garnered more than six million views on YouTube. That same day, to many of the fans' surprise, Cawthon submitted the sequel title to Steam Greenlight.^[16] By October 22nd, Five Nights at Freddy's II had become the most fan-supported game on Steam Greenlight and the game was approved by the community within 48 hours of submission. On November 10th, the first two episodes of Five Nights at Freddy's II was released as a downloadable demo via IndieDB^[19] and the full version of the game was launched via Steam Store^[18] at the price of $7.99 USD.

Five Nights at Freddy's 3

Sometime between December 2014 and January 2015, a teaser image of a mostly obscured animatronic head featuring the caption "I am still here" was posted on Cawthon's website. About a month later, Cawthon updated the home page with another teaser image of a box filled with animatronic components and the number "3" displayed in the background. Shortly after the second teaser was posted on the website, Cawthon formally announced the third installation of the game with a teaser trailer video titled "Five Nights at Freddy's 3," which has earned seven million views and 186,000 likes.^[22] On March 3rd, 2015, the full version of Five Nights at Freddy's 3 was launched via Steam Store at the price of $7.99 USD.^[23]

Five Nights at Freddy's 4

On April 27th, 2015, a teaser image was posted on the Five Nights at Freddy's website announcing Five Nights at Freddy's 4 (FNaF 4) as the "final chapter" in the series set for release on October 31st. Within hours, the announcement was widely circulated on Facebook^[27] and covered by news sites Kotaku,^[28] Polygon^[29] and Engadget.^[30] On July 13th, 2015, a teaser trailer for the game was released on YouTube (shown below). Within three weeks, the video garnered upwards of 9.9 million views and 119,000 comments. On July 23rd, 2015, the game was released on Steam^[32] ahead of schedule. In FNaF 4, the setting is changed from a security guard station to a child's bedroom, where the player must repeatedly check doors, inside the closet and under a bed for animatronic killers.

Movie

On April 7th, 2015, The Hollywood Reporter^[24] reported that American media company Warner Bros. and FNaF developer Scott Cawthon had reached an agreement to create a Five Nights at Freddy's film adaptation produced by the Vertigo Entertainment and KatzSmith production companies. The following day, the AMC Theatres YouTube channel uploaded a video about the announcement (shown below). In July, it was announced that the film would be directed by Gil Kenan who would also co-write the script with writer Tyler Burton Smith.

Online Presence

On YouTube, many vloggers have uploaded various gameplay videos, which many of credited with popularizing the series. YouTuber Markiplier has uploaded many of the most viewed Five Night's at Freddy's videos (shown below, left), with each receiving millions of views. On August 27th, 2014, YouTuber Garrett Williamson (GarArtStudios) uploaded a video entitled "How to Make Five Nights at Freddy's Not Scary" (shown below, right). As of May 2015, the video has nearly 30 million views. Williams later uploaded videos for Five Night's At Freddy's 2^[33] and Five Nights At Freddy's 3.^[34]

3D models of characters from the game have been ported to Garry's Mod and Source Filmmaker, which have been used in numerous machinima videos.^[35][36] On March 26th, 2015, YouTuber Father ferguson uploaded an SFM animation titled "[SFM/FNAF] Five Funky Night's at Freddy's 2" (shown below, left). As of July 2015, the video has over 31 million views. On September 9th, 2015, YouTuber VanossGaming uploaded a video titled "Gmod: Five Minutes at Freddy's (Garry's Mod Sandbox Funny Moments)" in which he plays a custom Garry's Mod gamemode on a Five Nights at Freddy's inspired map (shown below, right). As of July 2015, the video has over 24 million views.

On October 23rd, 2014, YouTube channel The Game Theorists uploaded an episode speculating about the real-life events that may have inspired the original game (shown below). As of July 2015, the video has over 11 million views. The channel has since created Game Theory episodes for both Five Nights at Freddy's 2,^[40] Five Nights at Freddy's 3,^[41][42][43] as well as Five Nights at Freddy's 4.^[44]

Fandom

On August 13th, the Tumblr blog freddyfazbear^[11] was created. On August 14th, 2014, the Five Nights at Freddy's Wiki^[2] was launched. The same day, a thread containing gameplay footage, animated GIFs and fan art was submitted to the Facepunch Forums.^[4] On the following day, a thread about the game was submitted to the /vg/ (video games) board on 4chan.^[3] As of October 2014, the game's Facebook page^[9] has gained over 37,000 likes.

On March 7th, 2015, YouTube based Let's Play group The Creatures uploaded a sketch based loosely on the Five Night's at Freddy's gameplay mechanics, but set in The Creatures' office building as opposed to the pizzeria featured in the games (shown below). As of July 2015, the video has over 652,000 views.

There are various fan-made music videos pertaining to the series on YouTube.^[37] On August 31th, 2014, YouTuber and musician The Living Tombstone uploaded a music video for his Five Nights at Freddy's homage song (shown below, left). He later made a new song for each subsequent Five Nights at Freddy's game.^[38][39] As of May 2015, his songs have a total of nearly 90 million views. On February 14, 2015, YouTuber ZarcortGame uploaded a video titled "FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S RAP | 2 MILLONES | ZARCORT Y KRONNO" (shown below, right). As of July 2015, the video has nearly 26 million views.

Fan Art

As of October 2014, there are over 10,000 pieces of fan art tagged Five Nights at Freddy's on DeviantArt. ^[10] There is also an entire booru dedicated to the game series.^[31]

There are also various fan made animations for Five Nights at Freddy's on YouTube. Among these creators are popular YouTuber Markiplier (shown below: top, left). and web cartoonist HotDiggedyDemon (shown below: bottom right).

Parody Games

Since the launch of the first games, several Five Nights at Freddy's parody games have appeared online. Many of these have been played by popular YouTubers. The most popular among these is arguably Five Nights at Fuckboy's.

Related Memes

Are You Ready for Freddy?

Are you ready for Freddy? is a humorous phrase used withing the Five Nights at Freddy's community. The phrase is used to indicate that the player was not prepared for Freddy Fazbear's arrival in the first game.

Search Interest

External References