Five Nights at Freddy's (video game series)

Fandom
Name:	Five Nights at Freddy's
Abbreviation(s):	FNaF
Creator:	Scott Cawthon
Date(s):	August 8, 2014 - Present
Medium:	video game, novels
Country of Origin:	America
External Links:	Steam page for Five Nights at Freddy's
	Click here for related articles on Fanlore.
	Contents 1 Characters; 2 History; 3 Games 3.1 Gameplay and Plot 3.1.1 Main Series; 3.1.2 Spinoffs; ; ; 4 Fandom 4.1 Fanon; 4.2 Fan Theories; 4.3 Conventions; ; 5 Controversies 5.1 Vincent; 5.2 Cawthon's Political Donations; ; 6 Notable Fanworks 6.1 Fanfiction; 6.2 Fanart; 6.3 Fanworks; ; 7 Archives and Fannish Links; 8 References;

Five Nights at Freddy's (abbreviated as FNaF) is a media franchise of indie survival horror video games created by Scott Cawthon. In general, the series takes place in a pizzeria with animatronic robots similar to characters from the Chuck E. Cheese franchise, and the goal is to survive the titular five nights without dying. During gameplay, the animatronic characters wander through the pizzeria at night and will try to murder the player character. There are also FNaF novels and a planned movie adaptation.

The series' immense popularity can be attributed to popular Let's Plays by YouTubers such as Markiplier (who named his dog Chica after FNaf) and Jacksepticeye, with one retrospective also crediting Pewdiepie as causing some hate towards the series after it's 4th iteration.^[1] Because of the frequent jump scares in FNaF, LPs are seen as a way for people who are too scared to play a game themself to get into the fandom.

Cawthon is friendly to fandom, partly because he owes his success to LPers, and FNaF has spawned hundreds of fan games at itch.io.^[2] This led to the creation of Fazbear Fanverse, which is a similar venture to Rick Riordan Presents but for fangames inspired by FNaF. Fan songs and fan fiction are also popular within the FNaF fandom.

Characters

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

History

FNaF's creation stemmed from negative reviews of Cawthon's previous games, which were mostly family-friendly and Christian-oriented, calling his character models "creepy." Jim Sterling of The Jimquisition posted a negative review of the Steam Greenlight trailer for Cawthon's game Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. in which he said: "It's just all over the fucking place and that thing looks like it's gonna kill your children." and "Robots. They're little robot beavers. That's not good." about the game's character models.^[3] This negative review is thought to be one of the many that provided the inspiration for what would eventually become FNaF. In an interview with Indie Game Magazine, Cawthon had this to say about the series' genesis:

I’d made a family friendly game about a beaver before this, but when I tried to put it online it got torn apart by a few prominent reviewers. People said that the main character looked like a scary animatronic animal. I was heartbroken and was ready to give up on game-making. Then one night something just snapped in me, and I thought to myself- I bet I can make something a lot scarier than that..^[4]

The first game in the series was released in August 2014 with sequels being produced at a rapid pace. Cawthon's first novel The Silver Eyes was announced in 2015.

Games

Five Nights at Freddy's (Aug 2014)
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (Nov 2014)
Five Nights at Freddy's 3 (Mar 2015)
Five Nights at Freddy's 4 (Jul 2015)
FNaF World (Jan 2016)
Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location (Oct 2016)
Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator (Dec 2017)
Ultimate Custom Night (Jun 2018)
Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted (May 2019)
Five Nights at Freddy's: Special Delivery (Nov 2019)
Freddy in Space 2 (Dec 2019)
Security Breach: Fury's Rage (Apr 2021)
Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach (Dec 2021)
Youtooz Presents: Five Nights at Freddy's (Apr 2022)

Gameplay and Plot

Main Series

The "main series" consists of titles within the series that are meant to go together coherently, as opposed to spinoff iterations which add to the lore but do not follow the story linearly. Fans list these iterations either by the year they were released or by the interpretation of the chronological dates within the game's story itself. Chronologically, the FNaF story is (or is interpreted as) as follows: Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 (set in 1983), FNAF 2 (set in 1987), Five Nights at Freddy’s Sister Location (set in the early 1990s or late 1980s), FNAF 1 (1993), FNAF 3 (set in 2023), Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator (set in 2023), Five Nights at Freddy’s Help Wanted (unknown date), Five Nights at Freddy’s: Special Delivery (unknown date), FNAF: Security Breach (set between 2024 and 2029).

Spinoffs

FNaF World is a spinoff FNaF RPG that is set in a colorful world of animatronics. Releasing after FNaF 4, FNaF World took a completely different route, being much more lighthearted with a different gameplay style. The player commands teams of animatronics from hte previous games as they seek out to discover what has caused disarray in their happy world. While there are some references to the main series, as well as fourth wall breaks, FNaF World is not directly connected to the plot of the main series.

Ultimate Custom Night is the second spinoff and the 8th game in the series. It returns to the point and click style gameplay of the first three games in the series. Gameplay is completely customizable, with the player able to choose to add fifty characters from previous games to defend against. When the player dies to an animatronic, some characters which did not have voice lines previously now have dialogue, such as the Puppet and Funtime Freddy. Though considered non-canonical some fans still try and find ways to fit the game into the plot, and the novels make multiple references to this title.

Fandom

Fanon

There's generally two interpretations of Foxy's role in the daytime show.
- One: He's an adventurous story teller that provides entertainment when the band needs a break for maintenance or something.
- Two: He's the villain of the "story" who, much like the Hamburglar, raids and plunders pizza from the Fazbear group.
Fans often portray the robots with an electronic speech impediment of some kind, despite there being little to no indication of that happening in the game itself. However, this is somewhat believable due to how worn and old some of the animatronics are said to be.
The fans also agree that the cupcake held by Chica is a security camera, the fan sucks up all your power, and that Chica (FNaF) is going to the kitchen to eat regular, normal pizza.
While in canon it only appears on her bib, "LET'S EAT!" is often used as Chica's catchphrase in fanworks.^[5]
Fans sometimes interpret the main character from FNaF 4 as the son of William Afton, Michael Afton. This is despite the main character of FNaF 4 being implied to die in the end.

Fan Theories

A popular theory prior to the Five Nights at Freddy's 2 was that Foxy (FNaF) was the one who caused the "Bite of '87," due to his area being closed off and Foxy being less maintained and worn out than the rest of the mascots. Putting 1987 as the difficulty on the 7th Night after a patch, however, brings a Golden Freddy jump scare, leading people to suspect that maybe Foxy was a red herring. FNaF 2 largely Jossed this, however, since Foxy would've most likely been lying in the Parts/Service room at the time of the Bite.

Teasers for Five Nights at Freddy's 4 were interpreted to be about the Bite of '87, however the game was later revealed to be a prequel set in 1983, meaning there was then also a canonical "Bite of '83" caused by Freddy, possibly Golden Freddy, a "golden" variant of Freddy.

Conventions

Superstarcon - fan convention that began as a one-day event on October 28, 2023.

Controversies

Vincent

One of the fandom's BNF, Rebornica, created a popular AU that became notorious for its naming and characterization of the Purple Guy. The acceptance of the AU as canon became a point of contention within the fandom.

A person with the handle "Rebornica" made a very successful headcanon story that explains her own depiction of the events of FNAF. People, mainly young fans of the series, became so intrigued by the stories that she wrote, that they actually decided that they are CANON, and not necessarily headcanon. A character in the story is called Vincent, and he is of course shown to be the Purple Guy. A large majority of the fans made fanart of "Vincent" with the same design as Purple Guy, and people outside of Rebornica's fandom saw these artworks and got instantly pissed off, since Vincent is not the confirmed name of the character, nor are ANY of Rebornica's writings. People parodize it constantly now.^[6]

Cawthon's Political Donations

In June 2021, fans of the FNaF series discovered that Cawthon donated considerable amount of money, primarily to conservative Republican candidates such as Donald Trump and Devin Nunes.^[7]^[8] There was considerable backlash following this discovery^[9]^[10]^[11] which led to Cawthon posting a response to the allegations on the official FNaF Reddit.^[12]

Notable Fanworks