Five Nights at Freddy's: A Retrospective

Today, we’re starting a new set of videos, diving deep into each FNaF game, one by one. Today, is Five Nights at Freddy’s 1, the OG!

SOCIAL MEDIA

Opening: (0:00)
Gameplay: (1:14)
Appearance: (4:55)
Audio: (7:47)
Lore/Secrets: (10:59)
Community: (16:00)
My Experience: (20:54)
Rating: (21:33)
Inteview w/ Ben the Scoopist: (21:50)
Ending: (24:39)

[turtle]

Phone guy just calmly says 'oh no' before dying

[cobra]

I feel like the Models in the first game are the most creepy/realistic. The animatronics just feel like they are actually plausable.

[robinzaratecastillo]

Hearing markipler say "iS tHaT tHe bItE oF 87" will never stop being funny

[ratpatterson]

fnaf is honestly one of my biggest comfort series, it gives me so much nostalgia and continues to be interesting today

[snozer]

It’s so weird this first game is six years old now... feels like yesterday I was in 6th grade talking about this game on the playground with all my friends.

[gamebrojunior]

i’m so used to hearing the fnaf ambience in shitposts that it’s weird to hear it without meme sound effects

[rowanhawkes]

Fnaf at Freddy's thats where I want to go, fnaf at Freddy's underneath the mistletoe, yeaaah -Jack Black 2020

[streled]

The reason why Foxy doesn't jumpscare you is because Scott Cawthon's play testers were his own sons

[Betapvnk]

FNAF was creepier when there wasn’t so much lore, not knowing is much scarier than knowing

[BordieD]

Him going over all of the old debunked theories really just takes me back. I remember laying in bed on my phone watching these videos and then I went to school and there was this girl who would NOT stop talking about the game. So nostalgic.

[vobeyt]

10:41 Once you've heard that scream so many times it feels so weird to know it was from a actual person

[truman_hash]

The original animatronics are so fucking creepy, that even after 6 years, I have still shivers whenever I see them

[BTWelling]

The "feddy" fanart has me rolling 🤣🤣🤣

[Ellajjane]

My step brother was convinced for years that Sparky the dog was real and he never believed me when I tried to tell him it was fake

[K-]

It's both hard to believe and damn inspiring that this little indie game was meant to be Scott's last attempt at making games, and now it is a staple of the gaming community for better or worse

[typicalfella]

I still remember when there was Only 3 fnafs, before the lore got expanded and Game theory started getting insane trying to solve it, good times

[powertron]

The giving birth to an alien scream just sounds like the fnaf 1 jump scare it's uncanny.

[theladdo]

We all remember hearing those words for the first time...

“Hello, hello hello?”

[cognizant]

My first time finding FNAF, I was 10 years old. It was when the game first came out and became popular. I wasn't a youtube user and it was a Thursday night, so I was on my way to Parkour lessons. We picked up our family friends who were also going, and Aiden, who was slightly older than me, sat next to me.
I was a small, innocent kid. I wasn't used to horror or anything of the sort, and he was playing fnaf on his phone.
He was laughing about Chica coming closer to the east hall, and I wanted to see. He tilted his phone to me, and I remember just being haunted by the image of chica in the east hall, her head ajar, mouth agape.
I screamed at him to turn it off, I was terrified. He laughed and kept playing, but turned it away from me so I wouldn't see, although he updated me when I nervously asked what they were and if they were moving.
Mind you, this was not my first run in with violent or scary content. My father was a big fan of violent action movies and Jaws was my mother's favorite to watch when she needed a good fright. I wasn't allowed to see any of this of course; I was just very good at sneaking around and not being seen or heard. Still am, haha.
I anxiously talked about the game all through parkour lessons, to people who had just heard the game in passing to those who never heard of it.
My parents were out of town for the night, and my older brother, 15 at the time, was to look after me. Our family friends drove us home and as soon as we got through the door, I broke down. I told my brother that I knew Chica was coming for me and she wanted to kill me.
My brother is a very cynical person, but he did one of the kindest things he ever did for me that night - he closed the doors to the office, put a blanket around my shoulders, turned on the PS3, and let me watch him play Skate3.
It was nearly 1AM when he told me he had to go to bed, and although I had been feeling better, I felt my stomach drop. I begged him to stay and play a bit longer, but he told me he couldn't. He bid me good night, and it was a very long night for me. I spent the next 3 hours making my rounds around the house in the dark, trying not to wake my brother or little sister, opening closet doors and shower curtains, flicking lights on and off, I remember limiting how many times Id let myself blink, not closing my eyes until I was practically in tears. I felt as though the monsters were in my house, out to get me. My parents got home closer to 4 and were horrified to see me pacing around, terrified. It's because of that night I still have the entire floor plan for that house memorized.
After years of therapy and getting over only seeing the mobile icon and the one image of chica, I was slowly getting better.
It was nearly 2 years later (maybe 3) when I was at the height of my Undertale obsession, and I found a video that was 7 hours long of both undertale and fnaf fan music. I decided that I would listen, but minimize the screen at the fnaf stuff.
It was about 2 hours in when I finally felt curious enough to look. The lyrics were so interesting and I wanted to know what this was about.
I don't remember what the song was - I do remember it was something related to fnaf4 and it was a song addressed to the crying child. It was asking him to open his eyes (after the bite) and reminiscing on the things they used to do together. (Despite knowing virtually all the fnaf fan songs under the sun no matter the obscurity, I could never find this song again.)
That music compilation, now taken down, was what got me into FNAF and horror as a whole. I'm presently 16 and working on my own horror game. I've got posters and books for fnaf and even a signed copy of The Twisted Ones. The series helped me through the toughest years of my life and through my diagnosis of schizophrenia.
This series ignited my love for the horror genre, and without this series, I'm sure I wouldn't be alive today. It's a little hard to write that without crying.

Anyways, sorry for rambling. It's not a story I tell often, but I always hold that first night I found fnaf in a strange place in my heart - it's a memory filled with dread and fear (and also introduced me to liminal spaces, since now I can't look at pictures that remind me of the old house I lived in without remembering that night), but also one I look back on fondly, because although I still experience fear when playing horror games and fnaf especially, it was such a profound, animalistic fear I'm not sure I'll ever experience again. I could never put into words the adrenaline that coursed through my veins for hours.

Anyhoo, that's enough out of me. Just nostalgic, that's all.
I actually do a lot of fan art for fnaf that's been shared across a couple websites (and resposted... Grr.) If anyone would like to see. least I could do since you read my silly little story.

[hands_n]

Sad to know we won't get the "Five Nights at Freddy's Security Breach" Retrospective until years later