Hello, ladies, gentlemen and those of a non-binary nature, my name is Daibhi and this is the Gamerhub community. You might have noticed that our output has been more horror-based recently. This is for good reason: A film adaptation of Five Nights At Freddy’s” is due to be released into cinemas shortly, and Halloween isn’t too far away. So, over the last week, I’ve sat down and got a whole bunch of horror games played so I can review them for you. I’ll admit, the creepy aesthetic and the fandom of “Five Nights At Freddy’s” slightly intimidated me, so I wanted to be as thorough as possible here. If you’re one of the edgy gamers that would have rioted over the Szechuan sauce because Rick and Morty absorbed your personality, bear with me, and please be nice. I slept on this game for a lot longer than I probably should have done. Anyway, I’ve got a new job as a security guard at this disused restaurant nearby…
Five Nights At Freddy’s is a brilliant lesson in how to make atmospheric horror in a video game. From the moment I started my shift as the night security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, I got plunged into a world of tension and dread that didn’t let up until the sun rose for the next day. Everything about this game seems to have been designed to get your blood pounding and keep your heart racing furiously, and honestly, this game enters Outlast territory in terms of the scares. I know kids watch playthroughs of this on YouTube, but if you’re a parent reading this: Do not get this game for your kids to play.
The premise of this game is surprisingly and deceptively simple: Survive five night shifts at this family-oriented restaurant, watching the cameras and keeping things running as smoothly as possible. Armed with only a small set of security cameras and a few doors that you’ll have to close, your job is to keep a watchful eye on animatronic characters that roam the dark and badly lit environment that is the restaurant at night. Seems simple enough to follow.
The gameplay, though, is something else. It’s a nerve-wracking dance of strategy and survival that stressed me out to near Jurassic World Evolution 2 levels, and in the best way. As the night security guard, your tools are the cameras and the doors. You have to constantly monitor the cameras and flip through them, watching for what can only be described as “nightmarish versions of the Chuck E Cheese robots” as the go about their business. These robots are eerie, and have their own unique behaviours as they traverse the place. All you have to do is keep them away from the security office, but that’s a fiendishly hard task. There is something of a safety net, as you can close the security doors should you fail at it, but this has a drawback. It drains you of power, and if there’s no power, then you’re left vulnerable to the animatronics’ sinister advances.
The genius, in my less than humble opinion, is in the simplicity. In other horror games, you can outsmart, or try to outrun the monsters, but in this game, it’s simply monitoring and keeping vigilant. Each night becomes progressively more challenging with quite the difficulty curve. The robots get more aggressive and adapt to your gameplay style throughout the game, making them completely unpredictable. To survive, you need to keep a watchful eye on your power usage, balancing your need to keep doors closed with the necessity of conserving power to make it through the evening’s shenanigans. The real horror is not knowing when or where these animatronics will strike next, as you’re forced to weigh up your options and make split second decisions that could potentially mean game over. It’s a nigh-on constant battle of surveillance and self-preservation, that really does get nervous gamers biting their nails.
What really makes this game so good is the jump scares. If you’ve heard of this game before, you know about the jump scares. I know in rational concept, it’s the equivalent of a man shouting “boo” at you, but when you’re playing this game, no matter whether it’s the first or the five hundredth time, they really do make you leap out of your proverbial shoes. The slow drip of anticipation as you monitor the cameras, with the silence only broken by either your breathing or the animatronics creaking as they move. The tension caused by worrying about the security doors while paying close attention to your power usage that usually crescendos in one of the murder robots making you jump out of your skin as your character gets murdered by the robot. I cannot praise how this game works as a horror masterpiece enough. Sure, the concept’s a bit weird to explain, and the lore behind this game is completely fucked up, but this game just knows how to scare the living shit out of you, in a way that the Telltale Walking Dead games I’m working through does not. When I compared this game to Outlast earlier on, I’m not being hyperbolic. This game really is up there for creepy aesthetic and jump scares.
My only serious gripe with this game is the spike in difficulty. My god, this game is almost torturously difficult at moments, and each night spikes the difficulty higher, like X squared on a graph if the Y axis was difficulty and the x axis was time (where are my maths nerds at?). It does add to the sense of accomplishment when you complete a night and the sun rises, but honestly, if I didn’t have to complete this game for work purposes, I’d have powered the computer down a long time before completion. Because of the way the AI used in the game makes the robots behave, repeating your strategies is rendered moot, and these things are almost completely unpredictable. There’s only two things that you can be sure of with Freddy Fazbear and his group of murder robot pals: They’re coming for you, and they’ll learn and adapt to your tactics quickly.
In summary, this genius game spawned a franchise that involves multiple games (which I’ll review over the next week), a major Hollywood film, lots of merchandise and graphic novels based around the lore encapsulated in one game. It’s not the best game I’ve ever played by a country mile, and it certainly isn’t perfect, but this game is definitely a good horror game for the adults in the room. It relies on psychological horror instead of gore, which I deeply appreciated. Instead of watching Markiplier or whoever it is you watch playing through this game, pick up a copy yourself and prepare to lose a five nights of good sleep.
I therefore give this game a rating of…
4/5 Joysticks
For the Gamerhub community, I’ve been Daibhi and you are all legends.
Be careful of animatronic robots designed to get kids to like them. People in the UK of my generation learned this the hard way with Mr Blobby.
