You're the birthday boy or girl

[Update: Five Night's at Freddy's 4 has just recently been added to the Nintendo Switch listings on Nintendo's European site, with a release date of November 29. (Thanks, Nintendo News)]

I'm not quite sure anybody saw the phenomenal success of Five Nights at Freddy's coming. At first glance it was easy to dismiss Scott Cawthon's spooky indie title as another in a long line of independently-made jump-scare horror titles for the streaming crowd. But since its initial release back in 2014, Five Night's has undoubtedl??y become a household name, spawning several sequels, novels, a planned movie, and a glut of weird Rule 34 fanart... So I'm told.

And now, we have the opportunity to get freaky with Freddy Fazbear all over again, as publisher Clickteam has announced that the first three Five Nights at Freddy's games will be crawling onto Switch on November 29, bringing the camera-staring, door operating action to the Nintendo platform. Listings for these releases are now live on the Nintendo store, but it should be noted that there are currently no similar listings for third sequel Five Nights at Freddy's 4 or spin-off title Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location.

Five Nights at Freddy's, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 and Five Nights at Freddy's 3 will ??be available to download on Nintendo Switch November 29, costing ar??ound $8 each.

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Companies, release dates, and platforms have yet to be announced

It was only a matter of time, but it’s now official: the Five Nights at Freddy’s series is getting remade for consoles.

According to comments made by developer Scott Cawthon on the Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 Steam forum, he is currently in discussions with multiple companies to remake the original FNAF games (assumedly that’s FNAF 1-4, with FNAF World left out) for consoles:

“Actually, yes! It will happen. I'm talking ?with a few companies who are interested in ?doing console remakes of the original games.”

The Five Nights engine, Clickteam Fusion, isn’t the most robust thing in existence and is only able to build games for specific platforms. It makes sense Cawthon would need outside help to rebuild the games to get around that, but it’s interesting that he emphasises these games will be full-on remakes rather than just ports.

Which companies will be working on it, and what platforms they’ll be ?released on, are entirely up in the air at this point. All we know is it’s happening.

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Small run time, big spooks

Horror movie trailers always give away the best bits of the film, and this fan made short for Five Nights at Freddy's by Typhoon Cinema is no exception. You've got all the greatest hits, spooky music, fuzzy security cameras, and pants soiling jump scares. Basically the whole Freddy's package in a little over a minute.

I was skeptical when Warner Bros. bought up the rights to make a Freddy's movie. I thought to myself, “in the time it will take them to crank out a film, the hype for this series will be long dead.” Now, I'm not so sure. This fan short seems about as creepy as any other horror movie trailer out there. Maybe Freddy's could work as a ??perfectly serviceable horror flick, even for folks who never watched a hysterical Let??'s Player spill his drink (and dignity) all over his keyboard while visiting Fazbear's Pizza.

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In less than a year, there's four games and a movie planned

I consider myself lucky that I have a number of younger kids in my life (neighbors, local extended cousins) to help educate me on the latest trends. It's not that I feel like I need to keep up with anything per se, I'm past that point in my life, it's more like an intellectual curiosity. Along with Minecraft, one of the more obvious explosions I've noticed in the past year or so is Five Nights at Freddy's.

Like most crazes (watching other people play games instead of playing them, and so on), I "get" why they're popular. They might not be my thing, but I can see the appeal. Whenever a new Five Nights game is announced (which at this point could be any given week) I see a flood of "I don't get it" rem??arks in the hardcore gaming community, followed by an even bigger sea of "I ca??n't wait!" shouts from the general social media populace.

When it comes down to it, hav?ing actually played the games, I'm not really a fan of them. I don't think they're scary or particularly fun, and although they have that campy, hilarious feeling of "haha oh man it's an animatron??ic guy stalking me" that rush only lasted for one game.

But what about you? Is it more t??han a craze to you, or a silly joke you aren't in on?

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Developer donated $250,000 to children's hospital

Over this past weekend a Twitch streamer named Dawko, a huge fan of Five Nights at Freddy's, set up a twitch stream to r?aise money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. His lofty aim was to try and raise $15,000 in donations. Well, thanks to the game's devel??oper Scott Cawthon, the young streamer blew miles past his initial t?arget.

Donating $250,000 during the stream, Cawthon pushed the stream to becoming the highest number of online donations ever received by the charity during a single streaming event. Regardless of your feelings on these games, it is heart warming to see this huge charitable donation being made, as well as the effect it had on th?e young man who headed up the stream.

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Nope, not sleeping any time soon

Love them or hate them, the Five Nights at Freddy's games have been incredibly popular. Big surprise, people find slightly uncanny animatronic animals universally creepy. Now, thanks to Youtube user Dr. CreepyPasta, we get to see the next logical creepy evolution of this idea. Welcome to a physical anim?atronic replica of Freddy Fazbear.

The animatronic replica can apparently be programmed to do a variety of actions and say a number of dif??ferent phra??ses. Dr. CreepyPasta says he has more projects in the works, so we will just have to wait and see what he makes next.

?Now, I'm off to try and pretend I didn't see t??his monstrosity.

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The trap is sprung

While it has been a mere four months since the last sequel was released, Five Nights at Freddy's 3 is set years after the events of the first game. Crafty businessmen keen to exploit the gory legacy of the infamous Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant have assembled a slapdash haunted house attraction, Fazbear's Fright?, using real props and recovered animatronics from the infamous murder restaurant. What could possibly go wrong?

I can't help but wonder if one-man-band developer Scott Cawthon is being a bit cheeky with this setup, commenting on ??the popular accusation that he's cranking out sequels of his surprise cult hit to cash in. I suppose you can't bl??ame a guy for striking while the iron is hot.

Much like the attraction itself, Five Nights 3 is a grab-bag of recycled parts with some new gim?micks tossed in to liven up the experience. How much fun that is will depend on your tolerance for the now expected (but still embarrassingly terrify?ing) jump scares, and if you come to the series for its gameplay, or for its world.

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 (PC)
Developer: Scott Cawthon
Publisher: Scott Cawthon
Released: March 2, 2015
MSRP: $7.99 

If you've watched any YouTube in the past six months or visited any gaming image boards or tumblrs, you probably already know the basic gist of the Five Nights games. The player is cast as a night security guard watching over some spook??y animatronics who seem hellbent on ripping his face off and shoving his broken and bleeding body into one of the spare costumes, because they're possessed... Or something like that (the storyline has become increasingly muddled as the games pile up). This fate is avoided by monitoring security cameras, tending to emergency systems such as doors and flashlights depending on? the game, and clutching out split second “do-or-die” reaction tests.

Like the previous games, Five Nights 3 has its own twist on this basic concept, and it is the most fleshed out and professional take on the world's worst security gig yet. While the previous games featured a collection of plushy robotic fiends trying to creep up on the hapless guard, Five Nights 3 focuses o?n a single menacing antagonist, Springtrap -- a terrifyingly decrepit mascot that seems to contain the r??otted corpse of some unlucky (possibly evil) bastard stuffed inside of it.

The original cast still pops up from time to time, but only as “shadow” versions of themselves, non-lethal hallucinations that will nevertheless make you crap your pants at the worst possible moment (presuming, of course, that there is a good moment for pants crapping). The result is a much more focused and manageable survival horror experience, but it comes at the cost of some of the charm that's made Freddy's such a hit.

Five Nights 3 answers one of the most common complaints about the first two games by giving the player legitimate reasons to actually WATCH Springtrap on the cameras. Unlike the previous games where most of the time was spent watching the immediate office doors and checking in on one or two rooms intermittently, locating Springtrap and pinning down his movements on the static-fuzzed CCTV system is crucial to success. Any security guard that wants to live through the night will need to familiarize themselves with every darkened corner and crummy ventilation shaft in Fazbear's Fright so they can spot Springtrap and move him around the halls, preferably as far away as possible. This is done by remotely playing an audio distraction (the haunting voice of Balloon Boy from Five Nights 2 creepily enough) to lure Spring??trap into adjace?nt rooms.

Leading Springtrap around by the nose is easier said than done. In the fine tradition of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, the owners of Fazbear's Fright have spared every expense in its construction, leaving you to manag??e a bunch of rickety systems that constantly fail and need to be rebooted. The audio device will refuse to work and will occasionally emit an ear-splitting static scream just for kicks. The already fuzzy and cracked cameras can blank out completely, letting Springtrap romp about unobserved. To top it off, the building's ventilation system shuts down with alarming regularity, d??epriving those weak human lungs of oxygen and making you susceptible to hallucinogenic attacks from the shadow cast. Rebooting these systems with the maintenance computer takes an agonizingly long time in the hyper-accelerated pressure cooker of Fazbear's Fright where every second is precious, allowing Springtrap the perfect opportunity to sneak in and say “hi.”

Five Nights 3 strikes the best balance yet between tension and control. Springtrap is a sneaky bastard and the hallucinogenic nightmares of the old cast make sure you never get too comfortable, but what needs to be done to survive is generally clear. More than any of the other Five Nights games, I felt it was my own fault when I failed, rather than the game deciding to screw me over. While the second installment was overly frustrating and teetered dangerously close to overstaying its welcome, the third provides a more digestible and concise stay, and is better for it. That is for the titular five nights (and, of course, the expected bonus sixth night). If you want to see everything the game has to offer though, yo?u're in for a much l??onger, and less enjoyable ride.

The Atari-like interstitial mini-games are back and more important than ever. The end of every night is marked with a nightmare-like videogame representation of the original murders that started the whole mess in 128-color glory. Hidden in these games are a series of fairly obscure clues that give hints on how to uncover the real story behind the haunted animatronics, which lead to yet more Atari mini-games with even more convoluted hidden steps for breaking ?them and revealing more secrets.

Like an incredibly tedious onion, there are layers and layers of mediocrity to peel through before revealing a bitter and unpleasant core of truth (that may or may not make you cry). The secrets and easter eggs of the first two games rallied the fanbase together, so it is understandable that Five Nights 3 would want to carry on the tradition. Secrets and?? riddles are best doled out sparingly though, and there are too ?many piled on here for the game's own good.

The Atari games worked in Five Nights 2 because they were creepy, short, and only occasionally popped up. In Five Nights 3, so much time is spent steering around a ponderous pixelated version of one of the Fazbear cast members that it quickly leeches out all of the fun. While entirely optional, these mini-games are a chore to slog through for anyone who really wants to absorb all the Freddy's lore available.

I was one of those people who became strangely invested in the original Five Night games. I spent some time trying to parse out the mystery of “the bite of '87,” the identity of the murderous Purple Man, and tried my best to make sense of the late-game twist in the sequel. Five Nights 3 adds more convoluted layers to the story while? offering no real explanations, even after sticking it out through all the interminable mini-games. The “true” end of the game seems to mark the probable conclusion of the franchise, but I'm still not sure what happened??, or why this particular haunting was any different than the many that came before it.

It doesn't help that Five Nights 3 largely drops the series' best asset, the personality of the Fazbear cast. For all of the affection and (occ?asionally distressing) fandom surrounding Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, and Freddy, they are almost entirely absent this time around. The shadow versions of them are dull and lifeless, and Fazbear's Fright lacks any iconic rooms like Foxy's Pirate Cove or Chica's unnervingly mysterious kitchen to set the mood. While focusing on just one antagonist makes for better gameplay, Springtrap and Fazbear's Fright lack the charm of the original cast and locations. Considering how simple and repetitive the core gameplay of the series is, and how ridiculously beloved those silly animatronics have become, I don't think that trade was a strong bargain.

In some ways, Five Nights 3 represents the best of the series. This is by far the most technically proficient and mechanically satisfying installment yet, striking just the right balance of pressure, jump scares, luck, and skillful management of the tools provided to make it through the night. Sadly, it is also the least personable entry in the series, dumping the little touches that were so endearing about the original titles and getting mired in self-indulgent mini-ga??mes with litt??le payoff.

People who have followed the Fazbear saga up to this point will likely want to close out the story, and they'll find enough to enjoy about Five Nights 3 to make it worth their time. New players curious about all the hype and considering a visit to Fazbear's Fright would be ill-advised to choose this as their jumping-on po?int to ??the series.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Send the kids to bed

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 is out now on Steam for $7.99.

No, you didn't miss any big release date announcement -- this just h?appened suddenly. That's how developer Scott Cawthon rolls. As someone who's grown increasingly impatient with long marketing plans that stretch out countdowns, teasers, videos, and screenshots for months on end, I'm a fan of his quick and dirty approach. Then? again, not everyone can pull it off.

From teaser to release in, what, two months? I respect that urgency.

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One night looks like too much

Not sleeping's kind of the point of Five Nights at Freddy's. After a??ll, a conked-out security guard defeats the whole purpose. But, at least other night-time employees have the underrated luxury of not being murdered by the things they're supposed to guard.

That's not how Five Nights at Freddy's 3 looks like it'l??l play out. This trailer serves as more official confirmation that the game's in development, and (surprising no one) will feature those damned animatronic animals. There's a very go??od reason we panicked at the idea of holding our birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, mother.

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In production now but the developer isn't saying anything else

A third installment in the popular animatronic horror series Five Nights at Freddy's is in production at Scott Games, according to a??n auto-response email obtain??ed by PC Gamer:

"Five Nights at Freddy's 3 is in production! Please do not email me asking any questions about it; NO questions about FNaF3 will be read or answered!"

If there's any good left in this world, the new game will be titled Five Nights at Freddy's 3: Season of the Witch and veer off into a weird new direction. Given the developer's rapid production schedule on the last two tit??les, I don't see that happening. Why risk screwing up a good thing?

(Because it'd be interesting!)

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 appears t??o be on its way [PC Gamer]

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