I always love a good scare. This is why I’ve been so disappointed in modern times with the direction that horror has taken in relation to video games. Slow paced atmospheric titles are being replaced with action shooters, and old fashioned survival horror has almost completely disappeared. While there has been a slight resurgence with a few big developers the indie scene is doing quite well when it comes to horror. While browsing the app store I saw a curious title, Five Nights at Freddy’s, as one of the top selling apps and after reading a few reviews for this horror title I eagerly downloaded it. This simple game sucked me in immediately with its unique premise, fantastic atmosphere, and the sense of dread that emanates from it. Five Nights at Freddy’s is one of the most horrifying titles in some time.
You play as a newly hired night shift security guard for a pizzeria. This place, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, markets specifically to children, and it’s a popular joint thanks to the animatronic characters that perform nightly for the crowds. Unfortunately you soon come to learn that these robots are not shut off at night, and this is when they generally act a little ‘quirky.’ By that I mean they wander the halls of the dark restaurant searching for your character. Upon making contact they kill you by stuffing your body into one of the empty character costumes. That’s why you need to avoid them altogether, but unfortunately your movement is limited to only the security room. From here however you can view the security cameras posted up in every room of the restaurant, and you can shut both the left and right doors as well as turn on the lights right outside of your office. Unfortunately each of these actions requires precious electricity, and because the restaurant is falling on hard times the usage of this is extremely limited. This means you cannot simply lock yourself in the security office all night. If you run out of power the lights go out and your character meets an untimely end at the hands of Freddy himself. There’s a lot of hidden lore to discover in this game, and the story turns out to be quite deep. Most of the plot is conveyed via answering messages left by the previous night watch man which is a pretty effective method of setting up the story.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is played almost like a typical point and click title on the PC. As I mentioned earlier your character is planted in his chair in the security room and can only activate switches and look at the security cameras. There’s no real means by which to fight back. Your goal here is to survive each night, and each of your tools are required to make this happen. At the start of each shift the animatronic characters start off in the warehouse farthest from the security post where they can be viewed on the camera, but as time passes you may look again and one or more will go missing. Here begins a hunt for them in the restaurant via the various camera feeds. These consist of pre-rendered images meaning when the characters are present they always have the same poses, but on occasion they will move or briefly animate in a variety of fashions. Tracking the characters generally keeps them at bay (due to the game’s pre-rendered style they can’t switch rooms while you’re looking) and it’s extremely important to track their location especially as the difficulty increases. You lose if any of the animatronic characters reach the security room and you’re given only a brief amount of time to close the door when they arrive. You can see the characters peering at you from just outside of the door, but they happen to stand in blind spots that can only be viewed by activating the corresponding light switch. When you spot them just outside you must act fast.
One thing I really like is that, while generally each of the animatronic characters function similarly, they all follow different patterns and even have different abilities. The leader of the bunch, Freddy, isn’t a real threat until you’ve reached day five, but he’s the one that will get you when the lights go out. Bonnie the Bunny only targets you on the left side door while Chica the Chicken only comes from the right. Generally Chica is the least aggressive and Bonnie is the most; they like to work together and approach the security room at the same time. What makes these two particularly dangerous is the fact that they can disable the camera feeds as well as the light/door switches. They like to work together which makes them very difficult to manage. This brings us to the character Foxy. He doesn’t function like the other characters in that he spends almost all of his time at the Pirate’s Cove room, and can frequently be seen peeking through the curtains. He doesn’t like to be looked at, and if you happen to look in on him and discover he’s missing that means he’s probably making a mad dash to kill you. He’s the only one of the characters who is animated via the camera feed because you can actually see him running full blast down the hallway on his way to you. When you catch that view you need to flick the door closed as quickly as possible. He’s easily the most scary of the bunch in my opinion. The final animatronic character is Golden Freddy, but he only appears at random and instantly kills your character if you see him.
Despite the fact that this may sound like Night Trap, or other similar FMV games from the early 90s make no mistake; this is a true blue survival horror title. Managing the amount of electricity at your disposal may sound easy, but it can be quite difficult especially as the tension rises from the maniacal animatronics approaching your security room. Basically, anything you do costs precious power. You might think you could simply close both doors and be safe, but keeping these shutters down drains your electricity fairly rapidly, and you simply do not have enough to last like this the entire night. Flicking on the light switches also costs precious power, and you cannot simply leave these on either. I had the most problems with the fact that viewing the camera feeds also uses up this resource, and you’re forced to rush as you go between the different rooms. Unfortunately the video feed is grainy, full of static, and the cameras generally move left/right to show the entire room. This forces you to take more time in order to make out the details from the video feed, and is counter productive to conserving energy. There are few moments in any other game as tense and dreadful as when you’re nearly out of electricity with the animatronic characters looming in the hallways here. Five Nights at Freddy’s is one of the few games that I’ve actually shut off to avoid a jump scare.
The graphics are generally a little underwhelming. The pre-rendered style of this game makes it look like something that could have been released in the mid 90s, and there’s very little animation. The backgrounds are all drawn with quite a lot of detail, and the art style used for the animatronic characters is alarmingly creepy. Chica in particular is enough to cause nightmares with her “Let’s Eat!!!” bib. This game would have been easier to play with fluid animations for each character as they move through the rooms, but I almost think the fact that they just stand still while you look through the camera is pretty creepy. Foxy is the only one who’s animated outside of the security room, but you can only see him running down the hallway. Each of the robots has their own CG animation for when they kill you, and these are surprisingly detailed and quite well done. Some may be put off a bit by the fact that this game features no music. Your ears are met with only the gentle whir of the security room’s fan for most of the time, but and you’re given subtle audio cues to help indicate where characters are at. For example, Freddy’s menacing laugh echoes through the corridors when he switches rooms, and Chica knocks over pots and pans when she’s in the kitchen. The audio is effective and eerie, and it really makes you feel completely and utterly alone.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is an incredibly simple game, but you can tell right away that it was a labor of love. The amount of tension and atmosphere the developer was able to create is simply amazing; this is one of the single most horrifying games released in several years. What’s more is the fact that it has some really subtle yet fun to follow lore behind it. The game is fun, challenging, and extremely scary. At only $3 it’s well worth it. If you haven’t yet played Five Nights at Freddy’s then it’s time.
