Ten years after the release of hit indie game, Five Nights at Freddy’s, the franchise continues to capture the interest of its ever-growing fanbase.
From its humble beginnings in 2014 as a simplistic horror survival game, Scott Cawthon’s Five Nights at Freddy’s (or FNAF, as it’s usually referred to) has generated not only several sequels, but also a 2023 blockbuster film, with another set to come out in December 2025. If that wasn’t enough, developers released a new game called Into the Pit in August 2024, based on a novella of the same name—yes, there are FNAF books too—and it has received highly positive reviews so far. So, what is it about the series that keeps drawing fans in?
The First Five Nights at Freddy’s
The premise of the first game is very simple: survive five shifts as the night security guard in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a once beloved family restaurant from the ’80s now turned creepy and decrepit. All you, the player, has to do is watch the cameras to track the animatronics residing in the abandoned pizzeria, as—according to the pre-recorded phone message from your coworker— they ‘do get a bit quirky at night’. Easy enough, right?
That’s until you realise that the animatronic characters, once family-friendly entertainers, are intent on stuffing the player into a robotic suit filled with ‘crossbeams, wires, and animatronic devices’. This will, of course, result in a highly painful death.
Credit: Scott Cawthon
The game’s simplicity is what makes it scary—confined to a small security room with no place to hide, the only thing the player can do is check the cameras, shut the doors, and pray that the animatronics won’t get to their office before 6am. Each death results in a jumpscare, which is scary enough on its own. The overall dark and sinister ambience only adds to the terror, along with the crackling, VHS-style security cameras evidently from the restaurant’s heyday in the ’80s. And this is all without mentioning the limited electrical power, leading to a complete shutdown (and a visit from Freddy) if the player has used either the cameras or doors too much.
Internet Sensation
Viral Let’s Play videos posted on YouTube at the time significantly boosted the game’s popularity. It became one of the most uploaded video games in 2015 thanks to gaming YouTubers with massive followings, such as Markiplier and PewDiePie. To date, Markiplier’s first FNAF video has a total of 120 million views.
This success led to the release of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 in late 2014, which followed the same general premise as the first game with a few more challenging components and the removal of doors from the player’s office, making it arguably even scarier. More games continued to come out in quick succession, including the fourth and third instalments in 2015 (which followed a similar format to the first two), plus six more main-series games between 2016-2023 which began to diverge much more from the original, both gameplay and concept-wise.
Credit: Scott Cawthon
The franchise quickly gained a large fanbase, seen through the number of fangames developed over the years, as well as the many songs based on the game and its storyline. The Living Tombstone’s first FNAF song has an incredible 370 million views on YouTube, and it was featured during the credits of the 2023 film. Additionally, Game Jolt has even created a FNAF category due to the huge volume of fangames.
The Lore
Five Nights at Freddy’s embedded itself in internet culture in more ways than one. Aside from its originality and fear-factor, the mystery surrounding the game’s storyline remains an important source of its popularity today. Uncovering cryptic clues hidden across all the games in the form of glitches, puzzles and minigames results in a patchwork of the haunting and tragic backstory behind the game. Numerous FNAF theory videos on YouTube showcase the intrigue around this lore.
The Game Theorists’ videos on FNAF lore number tens of millions of views—among the most popular videos on the channel—and the now semi-retired creator of Game Theory, MatPat, even had a cameo in the 2023 FNAF film. Additionally, the game’s creator, Scott Cawthon, has responded to the fan theories over the years and did an interview with Dawko, another YouTuber known for FNAF theories and gameplay.
Five Nights at Freddy’s Film and Beyond
Blumhouse Productions acquired the rights for an adaptation back in 2017, and finally released a Five Nights at Freddy’s film in 2023. Notably, it starred Josh Hutcherson as the security guard, along with Matthew Lillard and Mary Stuart Masterson in supporting roles. Although critics gave it mixed to negative reviews, the film grossed over $297 million, becoming Blumhouse’s most commercially successful film worldwide. A sequel is currently in development for December 2025.
Credit: © Blumhouse
In the last three years alone, two main series games and three spin-offs have been released. For a series that began a decade ago, with a still-active fanbase across social media, there’s one thing we can all agree on about Five Nights at Freddy’s: it always comes back.
