Universal Pictures have dropped the first teaser for their Five Nights At Freddy’s film adaptation, based on the hit horror series. Ten years ago, I’d hear schoolmates chatting about the games’ ghosts, purple people, and dismembered heads stuck in animatronics. Now, we’re old enough to buy R-rated cinema tickets, and Hollywood’s ready to capitalise on some teen nostalgia - essentially the film industry’s version of min-maxing. Check out the first teaser here:
]]>You know what Christmas was missing? The unmatched fear of being chased by terrifying killer robots through a shopping mall. Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach launched last night, inviting players to fend off a whole new crew of animatronics. This is the eighth mainline game in the long-running pizzeria-based horror series (I know, there are loads of spin-offs too), and for the first time it will let players properly roam free, rather than be tied to a desk monitoring cameras.
]]>Scott Cawthon, the creator of blockbuster indie horror series Five Nights At Freddy's, has announced he's retiring. He says he wants to focus his attention on his kids. This comes a few days after many fans were upset (particularly some LGBTQ fans) by the discovery that he had donated large amounts of money to politicians who have repeatedly opposed rights, protections, and support for queer and trans people. He and his family were also then doxed and threatened, which is obviously horrifying. But while he's retiring, the series will live on.
]]>Sad news: the next Five Nights At Freddy's Game, Security Breach, has been delayed again. Glad news: you can instead hang with Freddy and friends in a surprise new free game - a side-scrolling beat 'em up, of all things! Series creator Scot Cawthon yesterday released Fury's Rage, which gives the gang a rude 'tude 90s makeover and pits them against punk gangs in Streets Of Rage-style violence. I do like all the things Cawhton does for fans.
]]>It's strange seeing Five Nights At Freddy's grow from a simple jumpscare fest into a fully-fledged first-person horror game where you have to run and hide from deathbots, yet here we are. During Sony's State Of Play live stream last night, they revealed Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach would launch in 2021, and we got our first proper look at its gameplay. Players will be exploring a shopping mall at night, diving in ball pits and sprinting through closed stores to avoid being hunted by bloodthirsty animatronics.
]]>It's a common, fun thought experiment to imagine how you might go about explaining a television or a phone to a medieval peasant. The prospect is challenging, but feels ultimately achievable through the fundamental commonality of the human experience. The thought of explaining "the pending release of a Nicolas Cage film that is legally distinct from the PC game Five Nights At Freddy's, but which is also 100% an adaptation of said game", however, makes me want to burst into tears. There are just so many layers of pop culture context accreted in that concept, so much information that is meaningless without a full understanding of the rest, that I just can't think where to begin.
But you know what? Let's try. You be the peasant: I'm going to give this my best shot.
]]>I hope you're ready for a huge animatronic horror-fest, because Five Nights At Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon has launched a project to help fund a bunch of the games made by fans inspired by the series. The Fazbear Fanverse Initiative will invest in some of the more popular fan games that have appeared over the years, including a remake of the first FNAF.
"There have been some great fanmade spinoff universes created in this community, and I want to see them keep going," Cawthon says.
]]>There's a long, dark future ahead of Scott Cawthon and his Five Nights At Freddy's series. In a blog-post on Steam today, the creator of the teen jump-scare horror phenomenon announced everything he could speak about regarding the future of the series. There's an upcoming VR game made in collaboration with Steel Wool Studios, an Augmented Reality game (presumably only for phones), and a new free game planned called FNAF: Into Madness currently on the drawing board, but still, nice of him. Plus, a big-budget game, although still also only in the planning phase.
]]>Scott Cawthon is an odd fellow. He started out making offbeat genre-blending RPGs before stumbling into wealth and fame with the Five Nights At Freddy's series. Several indie horror hits about surviving the night watch at a haunted animatronic pizza parlor, a line of official toys and a film in production later and what does he do? He goes back to making stuff for free.
Ultimate Custom Night, released today, is the third free Five Nights game and by far the most ridiculous. It mashes together fifty series antagonists into a claustrophobic horror playground for the screaming YouTube face-cam crowd.
]]>Horror is one of my great obsessions. Comics, movies, literature, I don’t care what form it comes in as long as it has a chance of scaring me half to death. But what about films based on games? At this point, those of us who occupy the obscure section of the Venn diagram of life that includes fans of horror game-to-movie conversions are so artistically starved we're practically skellingtons. Having said that, Silent Hill was alright, I suppose.
Perhaps a movie adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s can nourish us. Blumhouse, the studio that most recently garnered critical acclaim for Get Out, following earlier spooky success with Paranormal Activity and Insidious, acquired the film rights about a year ago, and a tweet has revealed that they’ve given the director’s chair to Chris Columbus.
]]>Oh, Scott Cawthon, you sneaky, sneaky man. Yesterday, we reported that the Five Nights at Freddy’s designer was working on a spin-off -- a pizzeria tycoon game. The announcement was accompanied by a single screenshot of a FNaF 8-bit arcade game. It’s out now on Steam, and it’s free to boot. It’s also not what it seems. Read on to have the surprise ruined for you.
]]>When Earth has become an empty wasteland waiting to be consumed by the sun, Scott Cawthon will still be making Five Nights at Freddy’s games. Since 2014, Cawthon has released six games in the series, and while he shelved the latest installment back in July, he’s already returned with a new one. Details are slim at the moment, but it looks like a… pizzeria simulator.
]]>Several years ago, I went through a list of over 1,000 fan-made games inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's. And that was before the jumpscare 'em up series really took off. Several games (and one troubled spin-off) later, creator Scott Cawthon has confirmed that he was working on a Five Nights 6 of sorts - but confirmed this by announcing its cancellation. The pressure of fan expectations was too high, he says, so he's stepping back to spend more time with his family and make something else. Sounds sensible.
]]>BOO!
You thought you were safe for a good few weeks but no, the spookening has begun. The spooky-spoos are out and they've come a-spooking. By which I mean Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location [official site] launched over the weekend. The latest in Scott Cawthon's smash hit jumpscare 'em up ventures to a new children's restaurant overrun with new animatronic monsters, and it also shakes up the old sitting-at-a-desk-all-night routine. It'll have you roaming around (well, not free-roaming), completing tasks and minigames and no, no thank you.
]]>Third on the RPS Summer Games agenda is Five Nights At Freddy's [official site]. The cult favourite horror game challenges you to spend five nights in the security room of a building populated by animatronic horrors. Some people find it dull/daft and some people find it unbearably tense. For the Summer Games we're just trying to last as many nights as we can (or, if you're as bad at horror as me, work up the courage to install the game at all)...
]]>I have the cold today which means I'm irritable and sniffly and struggling with the Monday morning blues more than usual. Perhaps the first trailer for animatronic scare fest Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location [official site] that snuck out of the shadows over the weekend can scare the sickness out of me?
]]>Well, despite creator Scott Cawthon's suggestion that Five Nights At Freddy's 4 would be "the final chapter" of the juggernaut of jump scares, it seems things are going on. A new game is being teased on his website. The title, written across a robotic toy face, appears to be Sister Location, and that's joined by the tagline, "There was never just one." A spin-off? That's the implication, certainly, unless this is simply FNAF5.
]]>FNaF World [official site], the RPG spin-off from animatronic scare 'em up Five Nights at Freddy's, has returned and is now free. Creator Scott Cawthon released it in January, a month earlier than he'd previously planned, and some responses to the game made him rethink that. Really rethink that. He pulled the game from sale, decided to refund the $10 of everyone who bought it, and said he'd work to improve it before re-releasing it for free. Which he now has. That's fondness for one's players. Happy almost-Valentine's-Day!
]]>Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon has pulled his newly-released RPG spin-off FNaF World [official site] from sale and plans to refund all buyers, then re-release the game later for free. He's unhappy with its reception, he says, and wants to do better. He had released it a month earlier than planned and, apparently, that hasn't quite worked out.
]]>Five Nights at Freddy's World [official site] may be taking the animatronic cast of the smash-hit jumpscare 'em up into a retro-style JRPG, but creator Scott Cawthon still likes to throw a surprise a two out. For example, BOO! It's out right now!
FNaF World was due on February 19th but it's out a month early, right here right now right up in your face please could you step back I don't want to ruin your beautiful smile but I will tear your teeth clean out and set them in rings.
]]>I have never played a Five Nights at Freddy's [official site] game. This is nothing to do with loathing the art style or having no patience for jump-scares, and everything to do with an ancient prophecy that states the entire population of the world will spontaneously sprout weeping facial sores should a 5'6", quarter-Jewish man born in Upton Snodsbury, Worcestershire ever play a game about a scary teddy bear. I'm doing this for you, you understand. As such I will never know if the impending series finale/JRPG spin-off Five Nights At Freddy's World, is a fitting conclusion to these tales on animatronic horror. I can, however, tell you why it's not out yet, and when it will be.
]]>Five Nights at Freddy's [official site] creator Scott Cawthon has confirmed that while there won't be a fifth game in the main series - "the story is complete" - there will be another FNAF game soon. It's an RPG:
"The new game that I'm working on will be called FNAF World. It will not be a horror game, but a role playing game where you create a party using the huge selection of characters from the FNaF games, including the classic, withered, toy, phantom, and nightmare versions."
Cawthon had planned to release a demo in time for Halloween but the game's "significantly larger" scope means that won't be possible. There will be a demo, however, as soon as possible.
]]>It is a truth universally acknowledged that a game in possession of a release date, must be in want of a delay. When Mr Ubi or Miss 2K (no known connection to Mis-Teeq) tell us that their next sequel will be coming out on May 12th, we're inclined to make like Kyle Reese and ask "WHAT YEAR?" Delays are common but when did a game last release before an announced launch date?
By doing precisely that, Five Nights At Freddy's 4 [official site] may have pulled off the biggest jumpscare of all. Checking Steam releases last night, I saw the bothersome old bear staring back at me. The game was originally supposed to release on August 4th, the one-year anniversary of the original, but here it is...
]]>Over eleven months and three games, Five Nights at Freddy's [official site] has terrified more children than I could hope to in a lifetime. Imagine their snotty little faces peeking out from beneath blankets at night, bottom lips quivering. The fools. Five Nights at Freddy's 4 will despoil this final sanctum, bringing animatronic jumpscare horrors into a normal home and a child's bedroom. Let's see you sleep now, kiddies. Creator Scott Cawthon may be my new hero.
A new trailer shows off this setting and brings word that the game's release date has been bumped up from Halloween to August 4th - the one-year anniversary of the first game's release.
]]>Horror fans: you can stop mourning the cancellation of Silent Hills now. Developer Scott Cawthon has teased "The Final Chapter" of his Five Nights At Freddy's series, which suggests that Five Nights At Freddy's 4 [official site] is on the way. And if the teaser image is to be believed, it'll arrive on October 31st, 2015.
]]>Will I never learn?
RPS Towers, two days ago
Pip: Oh look, a new Five Nights At Freddy's game [official site]*.
Adam: There are so many. I can't play them all. There isn't enough liquor in the world.
Pip: This isn't one for Alice's Encyclopædia Animatronica. It's Five Nights At Freddy's 3.
Adam: OK. I'm going in.
I shouldn't have gone in.
]]>Update, September 14th: Shortly after this post, Five Nights fan games really took off. At one point, I had hoped to compile a new list of the 2362 games on Game Jolt, but, well, there were 2362 of them. I certainly did start, though, so now I've boshed another 922 games onto this list. I know, right? Game Jolt chose to section Five Nights fan games away from the main stream, as they were flooding everything else out, and currently hosts over 4,712 in various stages of completion.
My readme file obsession has tailed off in recent months, replaced by a fascination with fan games for Five Nights at Freddy's [official site] - a game I've only played for ten minutes in the demo. Every morning I check Game Jolt, and every morning I see several new Five Nights games.
I realised how big it was when Fazbear and friends usurped Slender Man as the most popular fan game subject on Game Jolt. As I write this, the host-o-community has at least 217 entries that are clearly FNAF fan games. And that 217 is only on one site. And only since September. I didn't know what to do with my obsession beyond compile it into one huge list so that's what I did, okay.
]]>I've not played Five Nights At Freddy's or its similarly horrorsome, animatronic sequel, but Adam came to appreciate its well-crafted tension and I do enjoy its commonly-used, lazy-sounding acronym. What's that game you're playing? "Fnaf," you say, and slip down your chair. What's that game that got a sequel just a few months after its first release at the tail end of 2014? "Fnaf," you say, head lolling to one side, tongue protruding, eyelids heavy.
What's the game that's now getting a second sequel? Yeah - fnaaaa-- Five Nights At Freddy's 3 is being made.
]]>I hadn't played Five Nights At Freddy's until Saturday night and when I finally got around to it, the game made me angry. I stomped around my flat, complained loudly about how much I hate jump scares and screamers, and told anyone who would listen that the whole thing is terribly designed.
Stress can make liars of us all.
]]>Let's all be quite clear about one thing: I am still young and cool and vibrant. Good. Obviously I know about all the cool things young people like myself are up to, and those small jumpscare horror games we all enjoy with our cool friends. Slender Man is so 2012, SCP games are over, and creepypasta hacks were too goofy to ever catch on. No, now we're all into Five Nights at Freddy's and being a night watchman stalked by horrifying animatronic animals come to life to murder you. Or they were a few months ago. We were. Us. Me too. Oh I don't know, I just don't know any more.
But I do know creator Scott Cawton has announced Five Nights at Freddy's 2, and it looks frightful.
]]>I almost don't want to know what Five Nights At Freddy's really is. I feel like it can never live up to the bemusing insanity of its in-game trailer. A trailer that made an actual l come ol from my mouth at the end.
Freddy Fazbear's Pizza is some sort of grotesque cut-price Chuck E Cheese, where the kids are entertained by animatronic life-size puppets of Freddy the bear and his robot friends. And, well, at night time they seem to come to life. You're hired as an overnight security guard to... do something about it? Prepare to NOPE.
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