Summary

  • Five Nights At Freddy's has forever changed the indie horror genre with its unique gameplay mechanics and created a sub-genre of fan games.
  • Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator offered a fun and easily playable game but was criticized for being too easy and lacking the difficulty of earlier horror games in the franchise.
  • Five Nights At Freddy's: Ultimate Custom Night was a free-to-play addition that was extremely difficult for many players and provided a challenging gameplay experience with its "custom nights" mechanic.

Five Nights At Freddy's is a franchise that has flourished and forever changed the genre of indie horror games since the first game was released in 2014. The original Five Nights At Freddy's was the first of eight main games as of 2022, with the most recent installment being Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach in 2021.

Scariest Five Nights At Freddy's Animatronics: Nightmarrione Bots, Daycare Attendant and Montgomery Gator
13 Scariest Five Nights At Freddy's Animatronics

The Five Nights at Freddy's series is famous for its terrifying collection of animatronics. These monstrosities are the scariest of the bunch.

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No matter how fans or critics feel about the original game and its sequels, it's an understatement to say that Five Nights At Freddy's has forever changed the indie horror genre, including creating its own sub-genre of fan games inspired by the gameplay mechanics of the original.

Updated on August 8, 2024, by Jake Fillery: All FNAF games have a special charm, and as Five Nights at Freddy's celebrates its 10-year anniversary, it's time to celebrate the series for all its weird, wonderful, and terrifying entries. The best games in the FNAF series offer mystery, horror, and a bout of fun, and with more FNAF games on the way, fans can look to the official games of the series in canon and through the Fazbear Fanverse Initiative that brings fan creations into the series through official means.

19 Youtooz Presents: Five Nights at Freddy's

Augmented Reality Involving YouTooz Figures For Mobile Devices

foxy, chica, freddy, bonnie youtooz
  • Release Date: 29 April 2022
  • Platforms: iOS/Android (removed)
  • Developers: Youtooz
  • Genre: AR

The world of FNAF only gets weirder as the years go by, and that's not just in terms of lore. One game that saw a release from the franchise was Youtooz Presents: Five Nights at Freddy's, a spin-off title in collaboration with Youtooz, a company that makes vinyl figures of popular characters and influencers. When Youtooz joined Five Nights at Freddy's, they released a free game for iOS and Android.

This game was an augmented reality mobile game where players needed to use their phone camera to watch active threats of famed FNAF characters in Youtooz boxes and stop them from leaping out until 6 AM. It was essentially a cuter promotional version of Special Delivery but wasn't the most popular.

18 Five Nights At Freddy's AR: Special Delivery

An Augmented Reality Game That Was Shut Down

poster for Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery
  • Release Date: 25 November 2019
  • Platforms: iOS/Android
  • Developers: Illumix
  • Genre: AR

The series goes to augmented reality for the first time thanks to this 2019 release. The game itself promised to immerse players in a scary and thrilling AR game, where audio and visuals would be key to harnessing the potential of each animatronic. Players could use the game in real-time locations to play wherever they are, and the collect elements allowed players a more personal experience with their animatronics.

However, the game didn't last all that long and was shut down with the app removed from stores in February 2024. There was a reasonable amount of content for an AR game for fans to enjoy, even if the microtransactions and in-app purchases were a tad much for something so minor as the game itself.

17 Freddy In Space 3: Chica In Space

A Bizarre Entry Involving Sci-Fi Animatronics With Guns

chica in space
  • Release Date: 18 October 2023
  • Platforms: PC
  • Developers: Scott Cawthon
  • Genre: Side-scrolling

An elaborate troll by Scott Cawthon, Freddy in Space 3: Chica in Space was a surprise reveal that was actually released under the title FNAF: The Movie: The Game. With fans expecting a side-scroller movie-tie in, they were instead given a sequel to one of the more bizarre official entries in the game's franchise with this free fantasy adventure game.

Five Nights At Freddy’s, Resident Evil, Silent Hill
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The gameplay itself was standard, and extremely similar to its predecessor, where players could take on icons of the FNAF franchise and level up to get stronger. This game is mainly just a joke, so the villains that players fight will be more inside jokes about the franchise and the fandom, leaving it with no real staying power in the main series.

16 Freddy In Space 2

A Fantasy Adventure With Classic 2D Shooting Mechanics

fnaf characters in space
  • Release Date: 3 December 2019
  • Platforms: PC
  • Developers: Scott Cawthon
  • Genre: Side-scrolling

Whilst some may immediately look at Freddy in Space 2 and just wonder what is going on, they might want to know some context first. Scott Cawthon created the game as not just a spin-off sequel to a minigame in FNaF World, but to also bring awareness to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's fundraiser, and in memory of a fan who passed away, Skylar Ginn.

In terms of gameplay, Freddy in Space 2 is pretty unique, as it's a fantasy adventure set in a side-scrolling universe, where entirely 2D assets must fight and shoot their way to some pretty interesting boss fights. As a free-to-play side-scroller, it's rather cute, and for a good cause.

15 myPOPGOES

Fazbear Fanverse's Pixel Chix-Inspired Entry

MyPopGoes Minigames
  • Release Date: August 1, 2024
  • Platforms: PC
  • Developers: Kane Carter, ClickTeam
  • Genre: Resource Management, Survival

The FNAF series can often be unpredictable, and one such entry involving said unpredictability is the release of myPOPGOES. It's short, somewhat sweet, and very simple. Players are tasked with managing resources and taking part in simple minigames to maintain the needs of a weasel named Popgoes.

This entry in the series doesn't do much for the lore, and isn't official in the canon, but acts as an official FNAF title thanks to the Fazbear Fanverse Initiative set up and produced by Scott Cawthon. It's a cute and simple game for those who like minimalistic controls and satisfying results, but it's entirely avoidable.

14 FNaF World

An Experimental and Rather Broken RPG

Animatronics from FNaF World
  • Release Date: 21 January 2016 / 8 February 2016
  • Platforms: PC
  • Developers: Scott Cawthon
  • Genres: RPG

The curious case of FNaF World, the lighthearted, yet still somewhat horror-themed entry into the FNAF universe that has since been brushed under the rug. FNaF World was Scott Cawthorn's attempt to create a softer entry into the franchise and an RPG. Whilst the game is brimming with lore from its steady stream of updates and hidden secrets, it's one that was quickly removed from Steam, and later ports were soon canceled.

FNaF World brought about an animated adventure with over 48 animatronics and more. Whilst FNaF World is indeed an interesting entry and a colorful one at that, the game is pretty unbalanced and chaotic, leaving many fights a carnage of numbers and animations, a far different fear than fans are used to.

13 One Night at Flumpty's

A Humorous Paradoy of the Original FNAF GamesOne-Night-at-Flumptys, Grunkfuss the Clown

  • Release Date: 22 August, 2020
  • Platforms: PC, Android, iOS
  • Developers: Jonochrome
  • Genres: Horror, Point-and-Click

Facing off against Flumpty and his friends isn't going to be easy. Especially when the titular Flumpty Bumpty is an egg that is immune to the plot and can transcend time and space itself. If that premise confuses FNAF fans, then they're on the right track, as One Night at Flumpty's aims to be weird and humorous in its attempts to parody the original Five Nights at Freddy's games.

The gameplay will be very familiar with the point-and-click style, and each wacky character is capable of their own misdeeds and mechanics. The game itself is bizarre, with a unique style in terms of art and comedy, but it's also a Fanverse game that can be taken or left.

12 Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator

A Surprise Lurking in Horror

Freddy Fazbear Pizza Simulator (1)
  • Release Date: 4 December 2017
  • Platforms: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
  • Developers: Scott Cawthon
  • Genres: Horror

Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator was the sixth main game in the Five Nights At Freddy's franchise. Released in 2017, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator was unlike any other game in the series, aligning itself more with the format of Five Nights At Freddy's: Sister Location than any of the previous games. Although this change in the gameplay format was necessary for the series' linear, and at times predictable, style, many fans found the difficulty of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator to be much easier than earlier horror games.

This significant shift in the game's difficulty made it extremely easy to complete quickly, especially for those who have mastered previous games in the Five Nights At Freddy's franchise. Having said that, it still makes for a fun, easily playable game, as the atmosphere is haunting and the writing manages to be self-aware, funny, and satirical at times.

11 Five Nights at Candy's

Freddy's Fazbear Fanverse Competitor From An Alternate Universe

five nights at candys (1)
  • Release Date: 18 July 2015
  • Platforms: PC
  • Developers: Emil "Ace" Macko
  • Genre: Point and Click, Survival, Horror

The Five Nights at Candy's series is designed as a meta-competitor to the Five Nights at Freddy's series. Despite the competition, FNaC was welcomed with open arms into the community and by Scott Cawthon, as the series now holds the title of one of a few Fazbear Fanverse Initiative games. This means whilst not officially canon, it's still an official FNaF spin-off.

The game itself plays similarly to the classic point-and-click horror style of the original FNAF games, but with a few revisions and twists to keep a unique identity. The game series doesn't shy away from the creepiness, and the new animatronics serve nightmares well.

10 Five Nights At Freddy's: Ultimate Custom Night

Create Custom Horror Experiences With an Overwhelming Amount of Animatronics

fnaf ultimate custom night (1)
  • Release Date: 27 June 2018
  • Platforms: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
  • Developers: Scott Cawthon
  • Genres: Horror

Five Nights At Freddy's: Ultimate Custom Night is a free-to-play addition to the Five Nights At Freddy's series. Five Nights At Freddy's: Ultimate Custom Night entirely bases itself on the mechanic of "custom nights," which is a feature that all the Five Nights At Freddy's games have as an unlockable gameplay mode after players have finished the main portion of the game.

william afton reveal, balloon boy, police officer vanessa
Five Nights At Freddy’s: 8 Things That Made No Sense

There are some things in the Five Nights at Freddy's movie that don't make much sense, even for a series about haunted animatronics.

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The game pits up to fifty different animatronics against the player, each with its own mechanics to keep them at bay. Easter eggs that are hidden in the game point to Five Nights At Freddy's: Ultimate Custom Night being a metaphor for the eternal suffering of William Afton. Known as the "purple guy" and creator of the animatronics, he is being tortured by his own creations in his own personal hell. Many players found the game extremely difficult and near impossible to fully complete.