The first thing any fan of Five Nights at Freddy’s knows is that the series has extensive, sprawling, and often convoluted lore. Beginning in 2014, the first FNAF game took the internet by storm with its hints of a tragic backstory hidden behind animatronics and game files. The rise of popular YouTube channels to explore this lore added to the fascination of fan communities.

The very first Five Nights at Freddy’s game was an overnight sensation, mostly due to what seemed to be a deeply hidden story behind the killer animatronics that roamed an old restaurant. However, after the first three games seemingly wrapped up the story of the original animatronics and their murder, the lore became needlessly messy.

Vague FNAF Lore Brought It Attention and Fan Theories

The First Three Games Had The Strongest, And Simplest, Stories

What made the first FNAF game so fascinating to players in 2014 was that it had lore that players needed to uncover through careful investigation and analysis. Looking deeper into in-game assets like the jump scare screeches that turned out to be a child’s scream and brightening teaser images to reveal hidden clues were all part of the fun early lore. Fans began to look everywhere for hints at either what was to come in future games or what had happened at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, especially regarding the Bite of 1987.

The initial lore was relatively simple. Some children were murdered in the 1980s by a serial killer and now haunt an abandoned pizza restaurant that a security guard (the player character) must keep working at to pay rent. Early theories used the limited information to speculate that either the Phone Guy or the Security Guard were the murderers, especially since it would potentially explain why the Guard was coming back night after night. This simple, but slightly vague lore brought attention to the series and created countless fan theories.

FNAF’s Biggest Strength Turned Into Its Biggest Weakness

Convoluted Plots Confuse Fans

The biggest problem for Five Nights at Freddy’s as a franchise is that it rarely, if ever, confirms what pieces of information are truly canon to the lore, what is a red herring, or what should be disregarded entirely. Any fans that want to create a clear timeline of lore for what happened to core characters like the Afton family, or who is even possessing which animatronics, must rely on an increasingly shaky mountain of evidence as more games, books, and other media come out.

The fun part of past FNAF games is that they included new secrets to uncover and more dots to connect. The problem now for more recent games is that every new piece of content FNAF spin-offs Sister Location and Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator, and potentially FNAF 3. The problem is that Michael was killed by the scooper in Sister Location and is somehow still alive later to be the player character in Pizzeria Simulator.

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 came out in 2015 and was d as "The Final Chapter."

There is no clear lore answer as to how he came back to life (or even possessed his own dead body) to be able to burn down the pizzeria with his family’s spirits inside. It’s unlikely that the series will ever give a clear explanation as to how Michael is still active after being used as a skin disguise for multiple combined animatronics, so fans must come up with their own lore to explain it. This type of lore is emblematic of how most of the lore in FNAF goes since the first three games.

Even FNAF Creators Seem To Not Know Answers

Constantly Changing The Plot Midstream

The issue with Five Nights at Freddy’s as a franchise is that its creator doesn’t seem to know what any of the answers are either, instead opting to keep asking more questions for a never-ending story. From the first few games in the series, the ending of each sequel hinted at what could be a final ending to the entire story. Five Nights at Freddy’s 3, with its focus on Springtrap, is especially guilty of this, as it’s the final game in the first trilogy and was very likely meant to be the final chapter.

The ending of FNAF 3 has two possible outcomes, depending on if players successfully finish all the 8-bit minigames throughout the main game. The minigames reveal the story of Springtrap/William Afton and how he was killed by his own suit after being cornered by his former victims in the backroom of Fazbear’s Pizza. If players do not finish the minigames and don’t discover what happened, then they get the bad ending.

The bad ending of FNAF 3 shows the heads of each of the main animatronic, including Golden Freddy, with their lights still on. This indicates that the spirits inside are not at rest, their full stories still undiscovered. The good ending shows the same heads, but with their heads dark to show that they are no longer possessed. Ideally, this would mean that the story is wrapped up, and the original spirits are at rest as their entire story was uncovered. The problem is that the games kept coming out, retconning the ending, and the lore only got more complicated from that point forward.

Ultimate Custom Night was announced on Steam by Scott Cawthon to be the final game in the series, though it was later removed.

As the games continue to come out, even in a more modern setting like in Security Breach, the confusing lore becomes only more complicated. Major villains in the new era, like Glitchtrap, seem to be some continuation of Springtrap, but past games confirmed that his spirit was decidedly in hell. That means players have no clear idea who Glitchtrap is or if it is even connected to the most iconic villain in the series. There are no answers in Five Nights at Freddy’s, only more questions and that’s become more frustrating than fun.