Five Nights at Freddy's: A Non-Review

Somebody made it past Night 1.

I haven’t played it. I won’t play it. But I am obsessed with it.

I’ve mentioned the game in a previous post about “Let’s Play” videos on YouTube. Five Nights at Freddy’s is a simple game conceptually. You’re a security guard watching over a small Chuck E. Cheese-knockoff called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The restaurant is complete with its own team of animatronic mascots, only there’s one hitch: they all run rampant at midnight. Left to their own devices, they’ll kill anyone they don’t recognize as their own. Armed with a CCTV system, hallway lights, and doors all powered by a shitty battery, you must survive for six (in-game) hours five nights in a row.

I refuse to play the game mainly for my own inability to handle jump scares that the game relies heavily upon. Give me a creepy atmosphere and some disturbing images and I’m ready to roll; have a zombie girl pop out of a closet and I’ll exit the room and go off the grid. I can’t handle it. And since most of Five Nights’ tension draws from the threat of a ratty animatronics getting up in your grill, I’m not about to install the game on my hard drive.

That’s not to say the game doesn’t do a creepy atmosphere or disturbing images. The fixed perspectives of the video cameras give snapshots of each of the different rooms in the restaurant, which are all what you would see at a children’s restaurant. Tables lined with party hats, a stage populated by anthropomorphic bandmates—these are images that starkly contrast the stories we hear on the answering machine from the previous guard. He alludes to a “bite” by one of the animatronics that left one guest brain damaged. Then there’s the news clipping of children being lured and killed by someone dressed as Freddy himself. The game doesn’t depend entirely on the jump scare; it’s pasted together with a macabre atmosphere and sparse lighting.

There’s a reason I still haven’t completed Dead Space on the Xbox 360 or the Resident Evil remake on the GameCube. Or the Amnesia: The Dark Descent demo. For some, jump scares offer a euphoric after-feeling that I don’t experience. Instead, I feel the heart-jostling shock and lingering dread that makes every step all the more difficult. Why do I want to progress when I know there are more things to jump out at me and make me question if I no longer need to go to the toilet anymore. It’s the same reason I don’t see horror movies in theaters or duck my head down when the trailer for whatever Paranormal Activity sequel is playing. Then again, seeing horror movies in the theater is more of a social experience and the presence of friends can soften the scares. This is not a luxury afforded by playing a horror game. Survival horror games especially exploit your solitude. They know that you’re not in a room full of people. They know you’re sitting on a couch or a computer chair. They know you might have someone sitting close by, but they’re not there to help. You’re in this alone.

That being said, I’m genuinely considering giving money to Scott Cawthon, the game’s developer who made the game thanks to Steam Greenlight. All of my experience of the game is once removed via the magic of YouTube and user Markiplier’s channel. The game only costs $5—an impressively low cost for the experience the game offers. Even though it hasn’t been me at the controls, watching someone else play it has been a genuinely thrilling experience, even if Markiplier’s commentary does ease the tension significantly. Just don’t expect me to spend a few nights at Freddy’s.