Hello, Enthusiacs.  I am your Lord of Shadows and today we delve into the world of Five Nights at Freddy’s, here after simply called FNAF for the sake of writing speed.

The game FNAF itself is fun enough.  The plot sees you as a night security guard at a pizza joint, however, the twist is the animatronics are kept running at night so they don’t freeze up.  Also, if they see you, they will naturally assume you are a mechanical skeleton out of its suit and will force you into one, killing you horribly.

That’s it. It’s all about keeping safe from the animatronics. It’s simple and yet a fun enough idea to keep you playing and trying to get better.

This is a game that likely would have remained a cult favorite with a small fanbase if not for one Youtuber: Markiplier.  His playthough of the game absolutely exploded both his own popularity as well as that the game.  He is, in fact, so connected with the game that the developer reportedly offered him a role in the FNAF movie currently in development.

However, he highlighted one of the more gimicky aspects of the game and that are the jumpscares. These are what make it so popular because, if you don’t know it’s coming, it does make you jump.  The issue is that as the series goes on, this will become one of the more annoying aspects of the game.

Once FNAF exploded, the developer found himself with tons of money and a massive fanbase, thus was born FNAF 2.  This is where its fanbase slowly began to ruin the game. You might wonder what I mean by that?  Well let me explain.

This is when the “what it all means” online debate was started and is literally still raging to this very day.  This wouldn’t be so bad if the bulk of the fanbase wasn’t so my-way-or-go-fuck-yourself with it.  Those jackoffs aside, this was when the game was more complicated while still having the exact same mechanic: avoid the animatronics and don’t die.

What made the first game fun and unique slowly became the FNAF same-old same-old when FNAF 3 came along. Something was needed to shake things up in the stores before it became the Assassin’s Creed of indie titles.

Enter FNAF 4, where you play as child in his bedroom.  It was the exact same idea again, only this time, it involved nightmare versions of the animatronics. It was at this point when began to get tired of the same formula.

Where the main series of FNAF goes from here, I don’t know, but one thing is clear. If nothing changes soon this may well go back to the cult from which it came.

I am your Lord of Shadow saying…

Stay Scared.

Have a topic you’d like to see covered comment below and let me know.