As in the first game, Five Nights at Freddy's, the player must survive a night shift at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, from 12 A.M. to 6 A.M. game time (approximately seven minutes and six seconds), without being attacked by any of the animatronic enemy characters that wander from room to room. The player cannot leave the security office, but can track the animatronics' movements via a network of surveillance cameras placed throughout the building. The office has three entrances, a hallway and two side air vents; in a departure from the previous game, none of these can be sealed off to block enemies from entering. Each vent is equipped with a light that can be used to check for any characters that are about to crawl into the office.
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The player character can put on a mask to ward off approaching animatronics, however, this strategy will not work on certain characters, who must be repelled by other means. A flashlight is also available, used to check the hallway and darkened areas of the camera feeds, as well as to reset certain animatronics via strobing. Unlike the previous title, the power supply for the cameras and vent lights is unlimited, but the flashlight does not have an infinite battery life; if it runs out, the player becomes vulnerable to attack. In addition, a music box has been placed in one room and must be remotely wound up through the camera interface, to avoid being attacked by an additional animatronic that appears when the music stops.
Unlike the first game, after the player is killed, there is a chance that rather than the Game Over screen one of four low-resolution mini-games will appear, with instructions given at the start of each. These mini-games contain insight into the lore of the game series. The game consists of five nights, increasing in difficulty. Completing all five unlocks an even more difficult sixth night, which in turn unlocks a "Custom Night" upon completion. In the Custom Night, the player can adjust the AI difficulty of the individual enemy characters or play one of ten pre-set challenges. |
Taking place in 1987 and before the first game, the player character, whose name is later revealed to be Jeremy Fitzgerald,[8] has started working as a night watch security guard at the family restaurant Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. As in the previous game, a specific Freddy Fazbear's Pizza employee calls Jeremy on the phone in the office at the beginning of each night to explain both gameplay and the story. He explains that the animatronics, which have special facial recognition software to protect the children from potential harm, were not programmed with a proper night mode, so when they do not hear any noise, their programming tells them that they are in the wrong room and they seek out the nearest source of noise to find people to entertain, which happens to be in the office.[9]
As in the previous game, the animatronics' programming also tells them that there should not be people in the restaurant after hours, so if they encounter Jeremy, they will assume he is an animatronic endoskeleton without a costume and will try to stuff him into a spare Freddy Fazbear suit, killing him in the process. The man on the phone (Known by the players as Phone Guy) also explains that this restaurant has an unlimited power source at night, unlike the restaurant in the previous game, but there are no doors blocking access to the office, requiring the player to use a spare Freddy Fazbear mask to trick most animatronics into thinking he is not an endoskeleton. The player will also be instructed to keep a music box wound up to keep an additional animatronic, Marionette, from leaving its box and attacking the player.[9] The player is also informed their flashlight will cause certain animatronics to reboot and leave the room, but does not have a permanent power supply. As more enemy characters appear as the player advances through the game, the man on the phone informs Jeremy of the characters' presence, their movement patterns, and some background information. For example, the man on the phone explains that the older animatronics are in the new restaurant, and have been retrofitted with the new technology, but as they did not work properly they are kept for spare parts.[10] As the game progresses, it is hinted that something is going on during the day, as the man on the phone mentions that rumors are going around and, later, that a police investigation is going on. Exactly what is happening is not specified, but the man informs them that someone had apparently entered the restaurant and "used one of the [animatronic] suits" for unknown intentions.[10] The man also notes that the animatronics have become strangely hostile towards adults, mentioning that they interact with children just fine, but will unblinkingly stare at adults; it is implied that someone has hacked the new animatronics' predator identification software. The rare "Death Minigames" (an occurrence in which if the player dies, there is a chance of an 8-bit style minigame appearing) reveal that there were previous locations of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, which were shut down after a purple figure murdered children and stuffed them in animatronic suits (and is apparently the one who hacked the new animatronics' software). On the game's fifth night, Jeremy is informed by the man on the phone that the restaurant has been put on lockdown due to an event that he will not describe but which is in place to make sure no employees, present or former, can come in or go out. The man also mentions that the position of the restaurant's day shift security has a vacancy and Jeremy may be promoted to it, and that the owner of the older restaurant named "Fredbear's Family Diner" will be contacted for more information on the animatronics.[11] On the sixth night, the man on the phone, sounding noticeably disturbed, informs Jeremy that the restaurant has been closed for unknown reasons, but he does mention that someone used a "spare yellow suit" for the animatronics and now none of the animatronics are "acting right" and warns Jeremy not to leave his station under any circumstances. He also tells Jeremy that he will be taking over as night shift security guard when the restaurant reopens. If Jeremy is successful in surviving the sixth night, he is promoted to day shift to cover a birthday party on the next day to make sure the animatronics do not cause any problems. A newspaper that is shown in the winning screen of the sixth night says that the restaurant will close down and the newer animatronics will be scrapped, but the older ones will be saved when the restaurant reopens, leading to the events of the first game.[8] In the Custom Night level, Jeremy is replaced by a new player character named Fritz Smith due to Jeremy's promotion. If the player manages to win the Custom Night, they discover Fritz has been fired for "tampering with [the] animatronics" and "odor", a call back to the previous game's Custom level message.[12] |
Gameplay deviates from the previous games in the series slightly. In keeping with the first two installments, players are once again tasked with surviving a week of night shifts, lasting from 12 AM to 6 AM (4 minutes of real time). The difference this time being that there is only a single animatronic present (though some of the animatronics from earlier in the series return in the form of phantoms, which are unable to harm the player directly, but can impede efforts to survive during the night shifts). The game takes place in a horror attraction named Fazbear's Fright, which is referred to in-game as residing on the site of a former Fazbear Entertainment restaurant. The attraction aims to capitalize on the previous incidents that occurred at the various restaurants formerly operated by Fazbear Entertainment. Players must monitor two different camera systems (security cameras within the building, and cameras within the ventilation system) and three subsystems: Audio (which is used to lure the animatronic away from the player's office), Security Cameras (used to observe and track the animatronic's position), and Ventilation (which the player is told must be kept running in order to avoid seeing hallucinations during the shift). The subsystems can, and will, fail periodically, and must be rebooted immediately to avoid undesirable effects.
The game consists of five nights, increasing in difficulty, and completing all five unlocks an even more challenging "Nightmare" night. Between nights, the player is able to play one of several low-resolution minigames as the animatronics from the first game, with several vague hints scattered around the minigames for players to decipher. Players who decipher these hints will unlock the "good ending", as well as bonus content such as additional minigames and a cheat menu.[3] If the player completes the "Nightmare" night, they will unlock the cheat menu. The cheat menu offers a range of options including a mode to make the animatronics act more aggressive and therefore, make the game harder, depending on the player's skills. Five Nights at Freddy's 3 is set 30 years after the closure and demolition of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.[4] The player assumes the role of a newly hired employee, who works at Fazbear's Fright, a horror-themed attraction based on the unsolved mysteries of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, constructed using artifacts and remains salvaged from the original restaurants. During the week before the attraction is scheduled to open to the public, the player must watch over the facility from the security office during the night shift (12:00 am to 6:00 am game time), using a network of surveillance cameras placed in the rooms and air vents.[5] In addition, the player must monitor the status of three operating systems — cameras, audio, and ventilation — and reboot them whenever they begin to malfunction. Camera problems cause the video feeds, already poorly lit and distorted, to become totally obscured by static. System failures can occur on their own or be triggered by the appearance of phantoms of animatronics from the previous games. After the first night, the staff at Fazbear's Fright uncover a deteriorated, heavily damaged rabbit animatronic, which they refer to as Springtrap. The player must now prevent it from entering the office and attacking; if this happens, the game ends. The player can seal off the air vents at certain points to block its progress, but cannot seal the door or air vent that lead directly into the office. The audio system, when functioning properly, can be used to play sound effects that draw Springtrap away from the office.[6] If the ventilation system fails, the player's field of vision begins to fade, allowing Springtrap to reach the office and attack more easily; the player may also begin to hallucinate seeing more than one Springtrap on the video feeds before the real one may attack. As the nights progress, the player hears a series of instructional cassette tapes, similar to the telephone calls from the first two games, that instruct employees how to operate Springlock suit, which can be worn by both humans and animatronic endoskeletons. However, later tapes discourage usage of the suit by employees due to a series of fatal accidents involving the failure of the suit's spring-lock mechanism.[7] Low-resolution minigames between nights hint at the restaurant's troubled past, with the first four nights' minigames depicting the original animatronics following a dark purple version of Freddy before being attacked and violently destroyed by the 'Purpleguy', previously seen in the minigames of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, as the man responsible for the various murders that occurred throughout the franchise's history. In the fifth night's minigame, the ghosts of the five children who inhabited the animatronics corner the purpleguy, who attempts to protect himself by hiding in the Spring bonnie suit. However, the suit's faulty spring-lock mechanism fails, and the purpleguy is crushed as the children fade away, leaving their killer to bleed to death.[8] It is then implied that the suit, still containing the man's rotting corpse, became possessed by his soul, and thus, became Springtrap. Unlike the previous entries, Five Nights at Freddy's 3 contains two endings, depending on whether the player has found and completed all of the hidden minigames within the main game. Some of these are only available on specific nights, while others can be accessed during any night. The "bad ending" is attained from completing the game without completing all the hidden minigames, and shows a screen depicting the heads of the five animatronics from the first game with lit-up eyes, showing that the ghost children are still trapped. Completing all the hidden minigames before completing the game earns the "good ending", which is the same screen as described previously but with the animatronics' heads turned off, indicating that the ghost children are freed. Completing all five nights unlocks a bonus night, "Nightmare", which boosts the game's difficulty, similar to "Night 6" in the previous titles. While playing the mode, an archived recording states that all Freddy Fazbear Pizza locations' safe rooms, an additional emergency room not recorded in the animatronics' AI or security systems,[9] will be permanently sealed, instructing employees to tell no one of their existence.[10] When this night is completed, a clipping from a newspaper is shown which states that Fazbear's Fright was destroyed by a fire, and that any salvageable pieces from the attraction are to be auctioned off.[11] However, if the player brightens the image of the clipping, he/she discovers that the image reveals Springtrap in the background, which suggests he somehow survived, leaving his fate unknown. |