Five Nights at Freddy’s has established itself over the past few years as the indie horror game, and the new edition to the saga, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach, released on December 16th, 2021, has not disappointed fans. Security Breach has the well-known but glammed characters of Glamrock Freddy Fazbear, Glamrock Chica, and the new characters Glamrock Monty, Montgomery “Monty” Gator, and Glamrock Roxanne “Roxy” Wolf, who form the group of mascots that host performances. They do shows in the new Mega Pizza Plex, which has an arcade, a theatre, a daycare, and more. The edition takes a new 80s retro twist to the horror game about fending against animatronics as the setting is much more colorful and lively.
For some background, the first Five Nights at Freddy’s was released in 2014 by ScottGames. The general storyline to most of the games has been that you are an employee at a pizza company called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. You work the night shift and have security duty to watch over the mascots of the pizzeria, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, who roam around at night. You do this by using security cameras and locking the doors. However, both take up your limited amount of battery charge. Your goal is to stop the animatronics from getting to you by not having your electronics run out of charge by the end of your shift at 6 am for seven days. There have been a total of 8 installments since then with spin-offs like FNaF World and Ultimate Custom Night. There was even a spin-off for Security Breach called Security Breach: Fury’s Rage
The new security breach game’s storyline starts with your character Gregory, a boy who gets locked up in the Mega Pizza Plex. You first find yourself in the room of Glamrock Freddy, who will be helping you do different missions to escape the Pizza Plex when the doors open back up at 6 am. Some primary missions include having Freddy Fazbear upgrade and getting higher-level security badges, which you need to execute while avoiding the patrolling robots and the security guard Vanessa. If they discover you, they will call the animatronics to help deal with you. While advancing in the game, you gain different gadgets like the faz-watch (to communicate with Freddy), the laser shooter from Freddy’s Fazerblast game (to stun anatomic by shooting their eyes), and more. Some of these weapons are ineffective on some enemies like Monty since he wears sunglasses.
Many popular YouTubers like Markiplier have made videos playing the game. In the eighth episode of his series regarding the game, he mentioned that the game has felt very different from what he has known of FNaF in the past, but the new game is still enjoyable. While there were many glitches and bugs and some parts that he took a painstakingly long time to figure out, there were some missions that were genuinely very thrilling and fun to watch. He noticed that the map of the entire game and the Mega Pizza Plex was well made and very detailed, almost as if the developers had more ideas in mind for missions but didn’t put them into the game. While I don’t have much experience with horror games, I would also say that there were many jump scares and a creepy vibe, making the gameplay much more engaging and adrenaline-inducing to watch.
An interesting phenomenon I have noticed with the game gaining popularity is the investment of the general audience in content related to the game. As someone who has used YouTube for multiple years, I remember seeing FNaF content when I was younger but purposefully avoiding it for the scary content. Now, as someone well into their teen years, I feel like I can finally indulge in the internet culture behind this game and its lore, a feeling similar to how many people felt the nostalgia tied to the resurgence of Minecraft. FNaF is a game that many know and love since when we were younger, many YouTubers would make let’s play or collaborative videos with their friends, having fun playing the game. Even though many people our age might have only heard of a game like FNaF when we were younger once or twice, there once was a large number of people who watched creators like Pewdiepie, Markiplier, and Jacksepticeye play FNaF. Now, these YouTubers feel the same nostalgia with Security Breach.
Overall, Five Nights at Freddy’s is a video game franchise that has cemented itself into gaming culture online, and with the new Security Breach edition of the game, the franchise has increased the expectations of upcoming horror games.