Five Night’s at Freddy’s has long been one of gaming’s strangest success stories.
How did it become so popular?
The success of theSuper Mario Bros. Moviein 2023 is a hell of a thing.
BothThe Banana Splits MovieandWillys Wonderlandwere extremely blatant attempts to eat Chicas lunch before the real deal could hit theaters.
How did we get to this point?
Why is this game series such a phenomenon?
People razzed him for the visuals, talking about how outright creepy the characters appeared.
Released on Windows on August 8, 2014,Five Nights at Freddyswas simple, but incredibly effective.
At night, the animatronics are free-roaming and incredibly dangerous.
Mind you, electricity is a finite resource thatwillrun out if you misuse it.
Its a plate-spinning situation where failure means a heart-stopping jump scare and game over.
What made that formula so appealing in the first place, though?
All the vicious stuff is either implied or shown in primitive pixel form during cutscenes.
Its all about the tension.
That approach opens these games up to a wider fanbase.
Yes, the big plot point involves multiple child murders, but even Disney ownsStar Wars.
Theres also something to be said for how that approach has impacted the games marketing.
Its a franchise that operates on different planes of existence.
and it all represents different layers of what these characters are supposed to be.
Are they lovable corporate mascots?
Somewhere in-between, laced with irony?
Its a versatile property.
ThoseFive Nights at FredysLets Play videos were aboutempathy.
They were about connecting through an experience.
Its like showing somebody a funny video off your phone and getting enjoyment out of their laugh.
I cannot overstate how valuable those types of empathetic videos were during the pandemic.
The Lore
On the surface, the world-building ofFive Nights at Freddysis complicated and ill-defined.
Most ofFive Nights story exists under the surface in increasingly abstract ways.
That put a new layer on the story, but there was still so much left unexplained.
The third game seemed to terminate the door on the franchise, though without explaining every lingering question.
By the fourth game, things gotreally weird.
From there, the series really started to go off the wall.
Not to mention the many, many novels that gradually became more important.
Youd think it would be too much, but believe me, the fans go nuts for this.
Ultimately, thats the point.
Thats what just about any passionate fanbase does.
I guess they dont believe in magic.
One thing that setsFive Nightsapart from other fandoms is the excessive amount of fan games and ripoffs out there.
Its unusual but it makes sense.
Successful or not, the original games were no AAA affair.
They were low-budget efforts that used limited resources to optimal effect.
Whats great is that Cawthon was really supportive of all of this.
Some people went a bit over the line by usingFive Nightsassets and trying to make it seem official.
Seriously, though, there used to be just four dead kids back in 2014.
Ive lost track of what the body count is at this point.
I think there are enough murdered children to put together a haunted orchestra.
Now, hes owning it and asking everyone to celebrate it with him.
A simple game based around pointing and clicking played its strengths so well that its now hitting theaters.
And hitting theaters at the right time, too!
See how easy that is, variousHaunted Mansionmovies?!
But you know what?
