7.March.2015

We've all seen it, heard of it, played it and had nightmares due to it. It is the nightmares of children and it has brought back the horrors to adults with every game that is made and developed by the cruel Scott Cawthon. I thought the days of me waking up in a sweat because I was being chased by animated objects were finally over when I was seven, but Freddy and his gang brought them crashing back with a passion. The game series takes the initial fear you feel from playing the first game and increases it after every new release. Why is the game series so horrifying though? Is it the graphics, is it the characters or is it something deeper?

Five Night at Freddy's started its' franchise just last year with the first game being released on the 24th of July 2014 - just in time for the school holidays! You play as a security guard sat monitoring cameras from midnight until 6am at the pizzeria, watching the evil animatronics come to life to torture you ever so slowly. Foxy would sprint to be at your side if you gave him a chance whilst Bonnie, Freddy and Chica just mocked you by glaring down the camera lens as if to say "Get ready to die". The Golden Freddy may even make an appearance, as if you weren't already considering sleeping with a nightlight. The fate of every player is practically set. You will, at some point during your five days of employment at the torture dungeon that is the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza be trapped inside an animatronic suit. The problem gets worse nightly, as the owners of the pizza place don't feel the need to top up the electricity generators often for the people on the night shift. By the end of the first game, you are crying for the final night to end whilst you're sat in the dark praying they won't come for you whilst you have an hour left.

Five Night at Freddy's 2 added to the original horror when it was released on the 10th of November. You are taken to the past, before any of the events of the first game, where you play as Jeremy Fitzgerald just starting his job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Unlike the first game, where you have to watch out for just 5 freaks of nature terrorizing your evening shift, you now have no doors, a torchlight, a Fazbear mask, a music box and 11 animatronics causing nightly havoc. The game goes into more detail than the first, giving you more of a backstory about the characters who are keeping you up every night and the restaurant itself. Just like the first game, you can't leave the security office and have to watch the surveillance cameras from the safety of your seat. There's now also 3 entrances to the office - the hallway door and two air vents - all of which lack doors. At least you now have the torch and the mask - both of which can keep the animatronics from stuffing you into a suit of metal. The mask does not work on every animatronic, but the torch can reset some of the animatronic beasts with strobing. Another hazard has been placed in the midst of this deadly job position - a music box that needs to remain wound throughout the shift. As long as the music remains playing throughout the shift, The Puppet does not appear to kill you. If you make it through the five nights successfully, you have the chance to complete a sixth night so your character can get a daytime position at the restaurant when it reopens. Completing this sixth night will allow to create the custom level, like the first game's custom level, where you can change the level of the animatronics. This game took the nightmares that existed from the first game and extended them with the new threats - it may be brighter with the unlimited power supply, but the jump scares are just as powerful when you can see them clearly.

There is not much known about the third game of the series to date, other than the reviews that have come out during the last five days since it's public release on the 4th of March. Scott has teased at the game's existence and release since December last year with pictures and trailers uploaded to his site. From what has been seen in streams and videos since the third part of the horror fest was release, we can already seen this game is more horrid than the last. It is set in the future, thirty years after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed its' doors, and the restaurant has been turned into Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction, where the owners want to revive the legend that was the animatronics to make the experience authentic for its' patrons. After finding handfuls of neglected and ruined animatronic parts, they were able to bring just one animatronic back to life. This animatronic, known as Springtrap, comes with new issues such as illusions - that's right. Springtrap may not be in that room on the other side of the building when you see him now - he could really be lurking just outside the room, waiting for you to lower the cameras before he leaps at your head, thanks to ventilation issues in the building.

The reason the Five Nights at Freddy's games are so haunting is simple, which makes it even scarier as the series goes on. Unlike other horror games, you can't move from the position you're in. There is no way to protect yourself constantly without in some way ruining it in the long run. In the first game, you can't keep the doors locked as you'll run out of power almost instantly. In the second game, not every animatronic has the same reaction to the torch or mask, making it pointless to sit there all night with the mask on. In the third game, closing the ventilation and the doors will eventually take its' toll. By not being able to protect yourself at all times, like in games where you have unlimited bullets, there is the constant fear that this is the second you will die. Whilst that fear is what keeps you playing, hoping that now isn't the minute when the animatronic pops it's head through the door with that terrifying noise, that fear of having no control is always there. The jumpscares will always be there in the game, no matter how many times you play it, there is no definitive movement of the animatronics - you can't make a note of which one will come for you first, or how long it will be before all the power is gone. There is no guaranteed way you will survive a night at Freddy's, and that's scarier than a zombie mob charging in your direction whilst you've only got a melee weapon.