Video Game / Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2

You'd better be ready to unmask the secrets of Freddy...

"Welcome back for another week of career fulfillment and minimal social interaction."

— Dread Unit

Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 is the tenth main installment in the Five Nights at Freddy's series and the twelfth installment overall. It is a sequel to Five Nights At Freddys VR Help Wanted, with Steel Wool Studios returning to develop the game.

As with its predecessor, the player assumes the role of a repair person for Fazbear Entertainment, tasked to monitor and perform repairs for animatronics at a pizzeria. Unsurprisingly, there's far more going on beneath the surface, and what seems like a mere series of tasks is part of something far bigger...While Help Wanted focuses on elements from the first four games of the series, this game mainly sources its content from Sister Location, Pizzeria Simulator, and Security Breach.

The game was released on December 14, 2023 for the PlayStation VR2 and SteamVR. A non-VR "Flat" version will be released on June 20, 2024. It will be free of charge for those who purchased the regular VR version.

You can watch the teaser trailer here, and the release trailer here.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 provides examples of:

• Abandoned Area: While not immediately clear, the entire game takes place in the destroyed Pizza Place below the Pizzaplex, augmented by the VANNI mask.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Sun has been given a lethal jumpscare in "Arts and Crafts: Daycare", whereas he cannot kill you until he transforms into Moon in Security Breach.
  • Funtime Chica started out as a mere purchasable attraction and then became a random Art Shift distraction. But here, she is an actual threat who is now hunting the player in the Office level alongside her fellow Funtimes.
  • Aside from Nightmarionne variants in the Sewers (and even then only when Gregory falls into a pit filled with several of them), the S.T.A.F.F. Bots from Security Breach only perform non-lethal jumpscares that merely attract other animatronics to your location. In this game, regular S.T.A.F.F. Bots can kill you in a couple of levels (namely, "Salon: S.T.A.F.F. Makeover", "El Chip's", and "Fizzy Faz").
• Adaptational Wimp: In Sister Location proper, Ennard was far and away the most dangerous animatronic in the main game, being the True Final Boss of the Fake Ending route and having appropriately aggressive AI. In this game, they're the enemy for the tutorial night for the office-style gameplay levels and have had their aggression dialed back significantly, with the other Funtimes posing much more of a challenge in subsequent nights.
• Adapted Out:
  • Despite the game adapting elements of Security Breach, Montgomery Gator is entirely absent save for decorations in a few minigames (notably, DJ Music Time), a couple pieces of merchandise, and his render in the gallery.
  • Eclipse, Sun's third personality from Security Breach: Ruin, is also absent. In his place is Jack-O-Moon, an even more nightmarish version of Moon who appears in "Capt. Foxy's Log Ride" and "Cinder Carousel".
  • Molten Freddy and William Afton don't appear in minigames that adapt Pizzeria Simulator. The First Aid levels that serve as a Pragmatic Adaptation of the office gameplay that featured the two (as well as Scrap Baby and Lefty, who unlike the other two characters are definitely adapted in the game) instead feature Pigpatch as a roaming enemy, the only Mediocre Melody to appear.
  • Among the Sister Location animatronics that appear in the Office levels, Lolbit, Yenndo, Bonnet, and Electrobab are absent. Bonnet at least still appears in the Bonk a' Bon levels, and Yenndo is the equivalent of Funtime Freddy in the hard breaker room level, but their absence from the office is noticeable. In addition, rather than having every Sister Location animatronic active at the same time, the Private Room campaigns that resemble the Custom Night are divided into multiple levels, one having Ballora, Bidybab (who while retaining their original role as a vent crawler, also takes on Electrobab's role in the level as an enemy that drains power and has to be shocked on the cameras), and Minireena, another having Funtime Freddy (with Bon-Bon) and Funtime Foxy (now joined by Funtime Chica as a new threat). The final Private Room level instead features Circus Baby, the only major animatronic who didn't appear in the Private Room in the original game, tasking the player with avoiding her PlushBabies.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: At one point in "Bonnie Bowl", the Bonnie-shaped pinsetter will become active and start to move towards you. Simply throwing a ball will stop it, though.
• Arc Words: "What makes you so special?" gets repeated by multiple animatronics around the game.
• Big Eater: As expected, Glamrock Chica is this, and in Food Prep: Pizza Pizza Pizza, once each order is ready, she personally shoves the STAFF Bot aside to get the meal for herself before leaving you be.
• Border Patrol: Bidybab appears in Ballora Gallery whenever you stray too far to the sides. His glowing eyes and voice are the only warning you get to back up before he rushes you to end your game.
• Bowling for Ratings: "Bonnie Bowl" has you bowl in a Glamrock Bonnie-themed bowling alley.
• Burger Fool: The "Food Prep" minigames have you assume the role of one. "El Chip" takes place in the Pizzaplex's titular El Chip restaurant, "Pizza Pizza Pizza" takes place in the Pizzaplex's kitchen, and "Fazbear Theater" takes place in the titular theater's concessions stand.
• Can't Move While Being Watched: In "Office: Job Interview", the PlushBabies will stop moving if you shine a light at them.
• Collection Sidequest:
  • Like in previous game, the player can collect gold coins, which can be used to activate Candy Cadet and make it tell stories.
  • Collecting six dolls scattered throughout the minigames causes a glitched purple coin to appear in the hub. The player can use it to activate the Princess Quest arcade cabinet, and beating it will trigger the Secret Ending.
• Cosmetic Award: Beating the minigames rewards the player with animatronic figurines that can be viewed on the Stage, as well as various props, posters, and plushies for the Pizza Place hub.
• Crappy Carnival: The Fazerblast levels are set in a carnival run by a new animatronic called Carnie (who is mostly just a recolored Rockstar Freddy). Failing on any level causes a game over, courtesy of Carnie himself.
• Creepy Circus Music: The music that plays during the Carousel level, especially towards the later stages, definitely qualifies.
• Elite Mook: The PlushBabies in "Bonk a' Bonnie" take three whacks instead of one, and can jumpscare the player if they take too long to whack them.
• Foreshadowing: There is a poster in the storage room which shows a person taking off a VANNI mask. If you look closely, the room lights cast off the silhouette of a VANNI mask from your figure. Both of these hint that your character has been wearing a VANNI mask, as well as the fact that you can take it off. Another hint towards this was actually shown in "Capt. Foxy's Log Ride" where you can find alternative paths that reveal that you are in augmented reality with the glitches in the back being visible.
• Gainax Ending: Once you beat all of the game's challenges, you can complete the mecha action figure set, which leads to another box to appear on the stage. Opening it will lead to the game's normal ending. A Pizzaplex charging station suddenly appears on the stage, which opens to reveal a hand (presumably Glitchtrap's). Then you're suddenly surrounded by a bunch of S.T.A.F.F. Bots, who slowly creep up to you. Then the game cuts to a scene from Security Breach: Ruin, where Mask Bot gives Cassie the VANNI mask, albeit this time from the perspective of the robot instead of Cassie, heavily implying that the player character's consciousness has somehow been trapped in Mask Bot. Roll credits.
• Golden Ending: Possibly. Following the clues hinted at by the graffiti in the ruined Pizza Place will earn you six dolls. Once you collect them all, you'll earn a token allowing you to play the Princess Quest (Alpha) minigame, which seems to lead to Vanny killing the last remnant of the Glitchtrap code.
• Heroic Mime: After Security Breach and the Ruin DLC broke this series-wide trend, Help Wanted 2 returns to it with a completely silent player character.
• Lockdown: "Fizzy Faz" has a lockdown button which can be used to close the door to your room and seal the whole facility off, though this will also halt the production of the ingredients. This is used if the S.T.A.F.F. Bots turn into their Nightmare variants, or if Glamrock Chica breaks into the facility and tries to enter your room. Note that in the final level, all of the S.T.A.F.F. Bots are modeled after the Nightmare variant, even if they are not hostile.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The game is actually set within the simulation created by the VANNI mask introduced in Ruin. The "lotus-eater" part is that the location the mask transforms is a ruined Pizza Place, but the mask shows it in a fixed, friendlier state.
• Meatgrinder Surgery: The First Aid sections only avoid the literal definition by being performed on a robot bear. Treatments include "Hitting the patient's knee with a carpentry hammer", "Giving them a tracheotomy with a pen and said hammer", "Treating a cataracts by spraying disinfectant in their eyes", "Fixing a fever by shoving chewable tablets in their mouth", and "Somehow having a cure for rabies. "
• Memory Match Mini-Game: "Endo Warehouse" has the player teaching the newly built Glamrock Endos by flipping pairs of matching tiles.
• Multiple Endings: The game has two endings. One is unlocked by simply beating all of the game's minigames. The other is unlocked by finding six hidden dolls throughout the minigames, then beating the Princess Quest (Alpha) arcade game in the storage room.
• Mythology Gag
  • At the end of "Office: Job Interview", Circus Baby rewards the player with an ice cream cone. If they are hesitant to take it, she tells them "Go on, take it." "Go on, eat it.", which is word-for-word how HandUnit encouraged the player to eat the complimentary pizza at the end of Chica's Parts and Service level in the original Help Wanted.
  • One of the items that can be served in the "Fazbear Theater" Food Prep level is a Meat Pretzel (and it's what is won from completing the level). A meat pretzel was what Gregory mentioned he worried he'd be turned into if Glamrock Freddy wasn't careful towards the beginning of Security Breach.
• No OSHA Compliance: Once again, Fazbear Entertainment seem to love putting profits over the wellbeing of their staff. Animatronics that don't take kindly to failure, a waiver form encouraging employees to prioritize profits, difficult work environments... the list goes on. It veers even further into this after the VANNI mask is taken off, showing that Fazbear Entertainment had the bright idea to integrate a whole VR experience in a really unsafe environment like the ruined Pizza Place.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • "Capt. Foxy's Log Ride" is a direct throwback to "Pirate Ride" from Help Wanted: Curse of Dreadbear, right down to having a few secret paths that can be revealed by hitting Helpy standees throughout the ride.
  • The Office levels in the Sister Location section are modeled after the Private Room from Sister Location (which in turn is an Unexpected Gameplay Change that references the first four games of the series).
  • The third and fourth Fazerblast levels are themed after Five Nights at Freddy's and Five Nights at Freddy's 2. There is also a hidden fifth Fazerblast level themed after Five Nights at Freddy's 3, where the player is tasked to bring down Springtrap.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The First Aid levels serve as this towards the office gameplay of Pizzeria Simulator, with the enemy animatronics lured by Helpy's screaming rather than the noises made when doing tasks on the computer. The ads from the game that also lure animatronics still have a chance to appear, albeit on a TV screen instead.
• Secret Level: "Fazerblast: FNAF 3" can only be accessed by shooting rockets in the first three Fazerblast levels, then shooting all of the animatronics' balloons in "Fazerblast: FNAF 2". Doing this will trigger a scripted event that sees the theater being set on fire, setting up "Fazerblast: FNAF 3", where you spar against Springtrap in the destroyed Fazerblast theater. The level is not necessary for the Normal Ending, but you do need to beat it if you want to get one of the six dolls to access the Secret Ending.
• Shout-Out: A Trophy on the Play Station version of the Game achieved by applying all Dark Green Makeup in all of the Salon Levels is called “It’s Not Easy”
  • The Fazforce action Figures bring to mind Voltron or the various Megazords
• Stealth Sequel: The normal ending for the game implies that it takes place in between the ending of Security Breach and the beginning of its Ruin DLC with the player character heavily implied to be Mask Bot from the latter. The Roxy makeover Salon minigame that takes place in the real world also reveals that Roxy's face looks the way it does in her Ruined form because it's actually a mask given to her by the player while the Arts and Crafts minigame that takes place in the real world has Sun struggling to keep Moon in check after the Pizzaplex was destroyed.
• Tech-Demo Game: Mystic Hippo's card game exists to show off the PSVR2's eye tracking and very little else.
• Timed Mission: Some of the minigames are this, including the "Arts and Crafts", "Salon", and "Food Prep" level types.
• Tomato Surprise: It's only when you access the storage area behind the locked door using the Faz Wrench that you realize your character has been wearing the VANNI mask the entire time, and has been seeing a simulated environment. You can take it off, at which point the whole area reverts back to what it actually is: the ruined Pizza Place below the Pizzaplex.
• Whack-a-Monster: The Bonk-A-Bon minigame plays this pretty straight.
• Worst Aid: Let's just say the First Aid levels involve... Questionable first aid practices. One of them involves stabbing a pen into Helpy's throat and then smacking it with a hammer for good measure. And then there's procedures like organ replacement that the player is wildly unqualified to perform. Good thing it's only "practice" being done on Helpy rather than an actual child...