Five Nights at Freddy’s

Is Five Nights at Freddy’s suitable for children?

Five Nights at Freddy’s is a jump-scare heavy horror franchise aimed at teenagers and adults. As such, it’s not suitable for young children and the video games are generally considered best for 12 years and up, with the films being rated for 15 years and older in the UK.

While not gore heavy, it does feature some unsettling themes and relies on intense atmosphere to drive its narrative forward. The confusion often comes from the fact that the storyline centres around animatronic children’s characters come to life but its this subversion of innocent norms that make it so scary.

What's the story behind Five Nights at Freddy’s

Acting as a security guard at a pizza parlour, Freddy Fazbear’s, you take on the night shift but as the lights go off and everyone else leaves, the animatronic characters start to come to life and terrorise you. The film also follows this storyline for a similar and spooky feeling.

Despite this creepy premise, many have fallen in love with the franchise’s characters, and you can get soft toys and figures of the possessed anthropomorphic animals alongside other gaming memorabilia.

What is the core mechanics of the game?

The Five Nights at Freddy’s games revolve around resource management, environmental surveillance and reacting to threats. In short, you must monitor surveillance cameras and audio cues to know when a threat is approaching and then employ your limited resources to hide from or distract the threat.

Usually involving a timeframe, you must survive your shift (often around 10 minutes in game time) with different enemies being harder to deal with. The gameplay loop is juggling multiple threats and using defensive tools to block them.