Reviews Videogame / Five Nights At Freddys

Simplicity at its Finest, and a New Style of Horror

While the game looks rather simple at first glance, it is that very simplicity that makes Five Nights at Freddy's such a fun, thrilling, and challenging game. What makes this game so challenging is two factors: You have a limited supply of power, and you cannot move around.

The horror genre encompasses a wide range of gameplay styles and ways to implement horror. In a number of horror games, you usually have a means of defending yourself and of being able to escape any horrors you encounter. Five Nights at Freddy's does not do that, only giving you a limited amount of power that drains quicker the more you check the cameras, use the lights and keep the doors closed, all the while not being able to move from The Office. This requires you to learn how to manage your power and use it in the most efficient way possible, as each Night after the first gradually becomes harder and harder as the animatronics' AI increases, and the four Animatronics as a whole start to become more active.

The threat posed by the Animatronics, especially on later nights, is virtually omnipresent, and part of the game's enjoyable challenge, requiring you to master the skill of managing each individual Animatronic while balancing out the other three along with it. Each Animatronic is its own unique enemy, requiring you to compensate for each Animatronic's movement to survive. You can't kill them, and you can't escape them; you can only last until 6 A.M. They pose a great challenge, and this challenge is at the center of gamers' enjoyment of Five Nights at Freddy's and its unique style of horror.

The icing on the cake is the lore interwoven into the game by its creator, Scott Cawthon. He wove a hidden story into the game through various Easter eggs to be found through the story, adding a complex and tragic layer of story-telling to the Animatronic characters you contend with each night. The fandom's dedication to discovering this hidden story and understanding what it means shows the enjoyment people took in this Dark Horse franchise.

As someone who has beaten the 4/20 Custom Night, I can say that I took great enjoyment in this challenging game, and very few games gave me greater satisfaction in its completion.

I encourage others to try the game, and I hope they will have a fun time playing Five Nights at Freddy's.