Summary
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 is the latest mainline game in the series, introducing new animatronics and revealing deeper details about the story.
- Mystic Hippo is a new character in the game who guides players, hints at their identity, and helps them progress, ultimately leading to the secret ending.
- Carnival Nurse and Carnie are two new animatronics with distinct personalities that interact with the player, and their presence may have ties to significant events in the FNAF canon.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 is the newest mainline game in the Five Nights at Freddy's series. The title is the third entry since developer Steel Wool Studios re-established the FNAF franchise's canon, leading fans to delve into its various minigames, secret locations, and original features as deeply as possible. Among these fresh features are some never-before-seen, or heard, animatronics, each of whom brings new details to their respective locations. While its setting and place on the timeline are presented by the story's end, Help Wanted 2 introduces quite a bit of brand-new information through players' interactions with these animatronics. By exploring each character's role and personality in detail, fans have begun to piece together some of the deeper and darker details that Help Wanted 2 has to offer.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 firmly takes place between the events of Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach and FNAF: Security Breach RUIN. The title follows a former Fazbear employee, the father of RUIN's Cassie, as he makes one last attempt to discover the source of the glitches plaguing the Pizza Plex and free the Princess trapped within the Princess Quest arcade cabinets. The character first appeared in collectible security logs found throughout the main story of Security Breach. Help Wanted sees players experience the string of events that lead to his disappearance and their connection with Cassie's arrival at the Pizza Plex years later. Featured among the title's various minigames, technician tasks, and employees-only locations, Cassie's Dad encounters a variety of new animatronics and familiar faces that seem to interact with him directly, helping characters learn more of his identity.
Five Nights at Freddy's Lore: A Comprehensive Timeline - Part 2
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Mystic Hippo
Mystic Hippo makes her debut in the opening moments of FNAF: Help Wanted 2, acting as a fortune-teller, hint-giver, and passive narrator during players' completion of the title's various minigames. She shares a similarity to Mr. Hippo, a fan-favorite animatronic from various pre-Steel Wool titles, but is not a variant or re-color. Rather, she is a full-fledged entity that exists within the “digital” Pizza Place that players find themselves in while wearing a V.A.N.N.I. Mask. During crucial points in the story, Mystic Hippo speaks directly to the player character, hints at their identity, helps with progression, and, most importantly, delivers a crucial item that allows players to operate the Princess Quest IV machine and unlock Help Wanted 2’s secret ending. The character is also featured in a PSVR2-exclusive minigame, which uses eye tracking to read the player’s fortune.
Carnival Nurse
Carnival Nurse is a new animatronic entity that addresses the player during Help Wanted 2’s First-Aid minigames. During these games, players must tend to a variety of “simulated” injuries to Helpy, which exist to prepare an employee to address those same injuries to visitors of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place. However, Carnival Nurse’s personality is anything but that of a caregiver, as she sarcastically celebrates each time the player is successful and has them forcefeed legally binding documents, in the form of candy, to the patient. Carnival Nurse is never seen, but her addressing of the player includes myriad references to the events of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator, aka FNAF 6, seemingly implying her presence within the fully operational pizzerias of that era.
How Five Nights at Freddy's RUIN Finally Establishes the Series' Canon
Five Nights and Freddy's: Security Breach RUIN establishes the framework for an official canon while addressing longtime lore misconceptions.
Carnie
Carnie is an antagonistic new animatronic, who appears in each of Help Wanted 2's Fazerblast levels. In typical carnie fashion, the animatronic bear offers snide remarks and jeers as players attempt to complete each minigame. However, he also shares crucial identifying information about the player character, such as them being an adult who likely has kids. Carnie appears to feature a near identical animatronic shell to Lefty and Rockstar Freddy. However, Carnie's general aesthetic seems significantly older.
While not explicitly stated in Help Wanted 2, some fans and theorists believe that Carnie may hold direct ties to the FNAF series' inciting event. Fazerblast and a select few other minigames all appear to share a similar aesthetic - a carnival - and performing a certain set of actions results in each experiencing the same catastrophic outcome. Fans believe these similarities are tied to a new event, referenced in an unlockable poster, which predates anything seen prior in the FNAF canon. If so, Carnie may prove to be among the most pivotal additions to the series' cast since developer Steel Wool Studios took over the franchise.
Honorable Mention: Jack-O-Moon
Jack-O-Moon is a unique variant of Sun and Moon, who functions as a minor antagonist in Help Wanted 2. It’s design mirrors that of other Jack-O animatronics, as parts of the animatronic have been replaced with an Halloween textures and a Autumnal color scheme. In Captain Foxy’s Log Ride, players encounter a Jack-O-Moon, featuring a large glowing mouth, in various secret areas, mirroring the roles of both Jack-O-Bonnie and Jack-O-Chica in the original Help Wanted. However, the animatronics second appearance is much more significant.
Jack-O-Moon functions as the main enemy in the Cinder Carousel level, a "nightmare version", aka final challenge, of the original Carousel minigame. This Jack-O-Moon differs slightly, in that its mouth now features a carved out "pumpkin smile" around its normal smiling teeth. The Carousel is among those minigames thought to connect with the “Carnival” narrative in Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2, and, as such, is thought to hint at the earliest tragedy in the series’ canon. Despite being a variant of Sun and Moon, who are original to FNAF’s modern era, Jack-O-Moon’s appearance in the midst of an apparent depiction of that tragedy has fans questioning the connection between Help Wanted, Security Breach, and a mysterious event known as Fall Fest. Fans are hopeful that this event, and its connection to modern FNAF, is the next major event explored by Steel Wool’s mainline titles.
Five Nights at Freddy's
- Created by
- Scott Cawthon
- Creation Year
- 2014
- Developer(s)
- Scott Games, Mega Cat Studios, Steel Wool Studios, Illumix
- Publisher(s)
- Scott Games, Clickteam LLC USA, Illumix
Five Nights at Freddy's is a first-person survival horror and resource management game from Scott Cawthorn that raced to popularity thanks to its creepy animatronic enemies and its array of panic-inducing jumpscares. Bringing life to a cavalcade of well-known characters like Freddy Fazbear, Chica, Foxy, Bonnie, and more, Five Nights at Freddy's has seen immense success, spinoffs, and fan games.
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