5 Nights at Freddy's: The Downfall of Horror Games

As we progress further into the 2000s, games have taken on a new form, starting from simple pixelated games like tetris, all the way to games with great graphics, complex mechanisms, as well as developed characters. Starting from the early 2010s, people of different ages were introduced to video games. Video games in of itself have many different kinds of genres, one of the most popular ones being horror. When you think about 2010 horror games, you’d think of Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Dead by Daylight, or…

the hit 2015 horror game called Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Known for its unique gameplay as well as its complicated backstory, Five Nights at Freddy’s has garnered a large amount of attention from people of almost all ages. However, its uniqueness has lost its value due to other games made by other game developers, as well as the game’s creator itself, Scott Cawthon.

The backstory of this game follows five children going missing in a pizzeria called Freddy Fazbear’s; After the children were deemed "missing", the pizzeria was closed down. It turned out that the owner of the pizzeria had murdered them and stuffed their corpses inside the suites of the pizzeria’s mascots.

With popular Youtubers such as Markiplier and The Game Theorists covering this game’s backstory, it has gained so much recognition that over the years, more recent games have started to just “copy and paste” Cawthon’s idea, such as Poppy Playtime or Bendy and The Ink Machine. If we compare the three games together, of course they would be different due to each game’s own characters, setting, as well as concepts, but the outline of the hidden backstory is more or less the same: a famous company’s mascots being inhibited by the souls of adults or children due to a tragedy from years ago.

While Five Nights at Freddy's initially stood out as a unique and captivating experience, its influence has contributed to a trend where other developers attempt to replicate its success. As a consequence, some players have grown uninterested with the genre, wanting more innovative and diverse storytelling in the realm of video game horror. Despite this challenge, there remains room for innovation, and with time, game developers can revive interest by breaking free from these patterns and exploring fresh, unsettling narratives and gameplay mechanics.