Indie horror game Five Nights at Freddy’s turns gamers to sleuths

Written by Wendellyn Mateo

Working the night shift as a security guard in a haunted kids’ restaurant seems like any other survival horror video game out there.

It has the creepy sound design, towering killers, and the occasional jump scares that even the most veteran gamer can fall victim to – but nothing has come close to what Five Nights At Freddy’s (FNAF) has managed to achieve, 11 years after its release. 

FNAF doesn’t have complicated mechanics: You’re stuck in a single room where you must constantly check monitoring cameras and remote-controlled doors to keep your potential killers – giant animatronics that seem to have a life of their own – away while maintaining what little you have left of your electricity for five nights until you get your coveted, and measly, paycheck.  

It’s a straightforward point-and-click management and survival indie game at the surface level, until many players started noticing hidden details that showed there was more to the story than meets the eye.  

The power of ambiguity  

While most games have a clear narrative, FNAF uses ambiguity to tell its story.  

It utilises clues and easter eggs scattered throughout the game, like a newspaper clipping showing a case of five missing children and visual hallucinations that flash the words “IT’S ME” across the screen in less than a second.   

The game will, however, not say how every clue fits into its lore; the player has to figure it out.  

“You could play through one of the early games of Five Nights at Freddy’s in about three hours. But as you do it, you’d fixate on these small details.”

“The number of buttons on an animatronic, or a background detail shifting based on your camera angle, things like that”, said Matthew Patrick, also known for his YouTube alias Matpat, in a report from Vulture.

Patrick was part of The Game Theory YouTube channel, which became famous in the gaming community for their videos exploring the lore of various games, before he stepped back from the channel in 2024.

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Tapping into community storytelling  

FNAF became a smash hit on its release in 2014 thanks to the rise of streaming culture on YouTube, with content creators like PewDiePie, Jacksepticeye and Markiplier releasing “Let’s Play” videos that allowed even casual audiences to get themselves immersed in the game.  

“It’s all told through atmospheric storytelling. It had never been done before.”

“In a lot of other games, if a character has extra toes or whatever, you’d just assume that the developer forgot, or that it’s a bug or whatever.

“But in Five Nights at Freddy’s, there are no coincidences.”

“It felt like each of those details was an intentional choice leading you to a different part of the story,” Patrick said.

Theories about the lore have since emerged from fans, speculating on what it could mean in the bigger picture of the story. 

In this way, the game was able to tap into community storytelling – described by Fairpicture as an approach that focuses on narratives based on the experiences and perspectives of a community, thus ensuring inclusivity.  

YouTube darling turns Hollywood hit 

Scott Cawthon, the one-man studio behind the cult classic, capitalised on its popularity and released several games in the franchise, with each one seemingly still ambiguous but filled with more clues to keep the fans on their toes.  

To date, there are 11 main games, 9 spin-offs and 6 expansions in the official franchise, alongside 58 books that explore FNAF.  

Not to mention several fan-created songs and animations and FNAF-inspired games from different developers that have built what is now a sprawling dedicated community.  

The game even turned into a brand after Cawthon signed a series of licensing deals in late 2015 that allowed the likeness of the animatronics to be imprinted on a wide range of merchandise like Funko Pops and Halloween costumes, Forbes reported.  

But its biggest and latest endeavor yet is breaking into Hollywood as an official horror movie produced by Blumhouse.  

The film, which shares the titular name of the first game in the franchise, managed to secure $80 million on the opening weekend when it was released in 2023, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

It was Blumhouse’s biggest hit, head Jason Blum told audiences at CinemaCon on Wednesday, where he also revealed a teaser for its upcoming sequel that is set to hit theatres exclusively on December 5 this year. 

Directed by Emma Tammi, the sequel will see actors Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, and Piper Rubio reprise their roles in the film alongside Matthew Lillard, who plays the iconic antagonist William Afton. 

While the film incorporated a clear, continuous narrative, it didn’t shy away from blink-and-you’ll-miss-it details that the whole franchise popularised – and ultimately defined a generation of gaming sleuths.

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