Finally, I’m Thrilled for a Five Nights at Freddy’s Game

I won’t mince words; the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise is one that I’ve often struggled to get into. Despite its incredible popularity and massive success, it quickly became a franchise that I just couldn’t get excited about. Sure, the first game was interesting to me when it first came out, and I respect the deep lore that the series has become known for, but it felt like every subsequent entry failed to stop me in my tracks in the way that the first game did. The surprise factor and uniqueness of the franchise only became more and more diluted with each game feeling the same as the last.

A 2D FNAF Game?

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit is the first title in the series to be handled by Mega Cat Studios. A 24-person team from Pittsburgh, Mega Cat’s previous experience largely centers around releasing modern games for retro platforms, such as the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis. It’s an unconventional approach, but it helped them create a name for themselves early and often. Since 2023, though, the studio has changed up their style, instead focusing on PC and modern consoles, while still creating games in the old-school, 2D style.

As previously mentioned, this is a fully 2D adventure title with a pixel art graphical style. While the series has had occasional 2D minigames here and there, this is the first time Five Nights at Freddy’s has fully committed to a 2D style for the entirety of a game. The gameplay appears to be very puzzle-oriented, while also seemingly allowing players to explore several different time periods in the Fazbear universe. As the title would suggest, this title also takes heavy inspiration from the anthology novel Fazbear Frights: Into the Pit, one of the more beloved FNAF novels.

Related

FNAF: Security Breach’s DLC Foreshadowed Its Ending In The Best Way

Come and get your candy.

This Is What The Franchise Has Needed!

As previously noted, a massive part of the reason why Five Nights at Freddy’s became such an uninteresting franchise to me was the barrage of games released at one time that played too similarly to one another. The first game, released in 2014, brought with it a rather fresh take on the horror genre, restricting the player by not allowing them to move around freely. Sure, you could see it as “a game that makes you sit around and wait for a jumpscare,” but it was an interesting limitation that helped emphasize a great amount of strategy in a horror game.

Following this sleeper hit, though, the franchise saw numerous sequels released in such a short span of time, a near-milking of the success of the original. In just two years, we were already on the fourth mainline entry, as series creator Scott Cawthon was releasing sequels at a rate that would make publishers like EA and Activision blush. And it wasn’t merely that multiple games were being released at one time, either; it was that these titles all played extremely similarly to one another, failing to really provide many unique gameplay changes. As someone who values gameplay more than anything in a video game, the sheer amount of titles that failed to meaningfully innovate on the gameplay front turned me off of the series for a while.

Next

Five Nights At Freddy’s: Every Game In The Series, Ranked

The Five Nights At Freddy’s series is the true king of mascot horror. This list breaks down the best in the series for your animatronic horror fix.