'Five Nights at Freddy's' franchise celebrates its 10 year anniversary
'Five Nights at Freddy's' franchise celebrates its 10 year anniversary
An interview with the game creator, new games, and special announcements
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It’s been ten years since the first “Five Nights at Freddy’s” video game was released, and to celebrate the horror animatronic franchise, there was a jam-packed week of festivities, which included an interview with the creator, a free interactive novel, merch drops, developer collaborations, and special announcements.
The FNAF franchise is known for its complicated lore1, sparking fan theories and a cult following. Even now, new theorists are breaking onto the scene, re-imagining widely accepted assumptions about the characters and plot.
The creator of the game, Scott Cawthon, spoke with YouTuber Dawko on Aug. 4, six years after his last interview. Scott discussed his favorite FNAF moments and what the franchise has to look forward to.
Fanverse content dominated the schedule. YouTuber MatPat explained the fanverse initiative as '“Scott basically being like ‘Hey, here’s a bunch of indie developers who are doing cool work that is vaguely adjacent to my franchise, if not very adjacent to my franchise. Come into the fold and I will help you in some small way.’”
The two most highly anticipated releases from the week were games “Five Laps at Freddy’s” and “Into the Pit,” which came out Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, respectively.
“Into the Pit” was described by MatPat as the “next official game in the franchise.” The game, developed by Mega Cat Studios, is based on a Fazbear Frights story.
“I do love that it really gets into…these kind of gritty graphics that I haven’t seen since, I guess since the late 90s when we had those point and click-type adventures, and you have that real kind of a pixelated art style that can be really creepy at times,” Scott said.
The FNAF movie & addressing critiques
Scott said his biggest highlight of the past couple years was watching the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie in theaters, which starred Josh Hutcherson. “I think we landed with just the perfect cast,” he said. “I'm perfectly happy with all the critics hating it and the fanbase reacting positively to it.”
The second movie is slated for December 5, 2025. Scott said he was trying to carry on the tradition of each movie being based on the next game in the series.
“The first one was really challenging because it's so much setup. It’s like, how do you establish all of this? But now that we have that launch pad, where to go from there came a lot just more natural,” he said. “We were able to really craft just a really great story I think and so I'm really excited about it.”
When it comes to lore, Scott admitted that he likes to be “elusive.”
“I do like there to be an air of mystery about things. Sometimes I do let things go on for too long, and I understand that sometimes things become not fun anymore, and things can become frustrating for theorists,” he said.
He also said he should have realized sooner he needed to “provide better answers to the fanbase” through official news feeds so that “there's not so much confusion” about what's confirmed and what’s not confirmed.
“I’m trying to get all that in place,” Scott said. “I really think it would just better serve the fanbase. I think everybody would be a little happier.”
For future FNAF spinoffs, Scott Cawthon hopes another Fazbear Frights book, “Fetch,” will be the next Mega Cat Studios project. He also said “there is another game planned with Steel Wool, but that's not going to be announced for a while yet, so I can't talk about that.”
“I think things are in a good place and like I said, I think that the things that are on the horizon are all things to to be excited about,” Scott concluded.
Read my last FNAF story: The 'Five Nights at Freddy's' movie adaptation is just satisfying enough
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