5 Secrets You Might Not Have Known About the Five Nights at Freddy's Universe

Please note: this article contains spoilers for the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise. Additionally, please be advised that this series and the article contain references to child death, murder, screaming children, possession, and other difficult topics. Please use your best judgment and do research before playing the game to decide if the series is right for you.

If you’ve never picked up the game Five Nights at Freddy’s, or any of the games within the franchise, you might just be missing out on a very intense horror series that’s bound to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. The jump scares, the dark lore, the tiny details that add an extra chill factor… it’s all plenty to give you your fair share of nightmares after you play.

But if you’re new to the series, or to the story behind the series, there may be some details you missed. Here are five of our favourite little secrets in the games:

Chronological Order and Release Order Are Different

If you’re planning on playing the FNAF series for the first time, it makes sense to tackle the games in release order - all of the games are released between 2014 and 2021, with Security Breach being the final instalment. But if you’re looking to dive into the lore of the story, there’s actually a better playthrough order.

Our recommendation is to play through the games in release order first, so you get a feel for the game mechanics, then play back through in the canon chronological order, unlocking secret endings and special easter eggs along the way. If you’re looking to play in the chronological order according to the story canon, here’s how:

We will note here that there are several non-canon spinoffs to the game, like Ultimate Custom Night and Freddy in Space 2, which don’t have a specific slot in the chronological playthrough, but they’re also fun to tackle and well worth playing when you get the chance!

Don’t Take the Villain At Face Value

If you’ve been around the FNAF games a time or two, this won’t be news for you, but if you’re brand new to the series, you may be tempted to think the characters jumping out at you - like Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie - are the villains. After all, they’re scaring you! But the actual franchise villain is someone so much worse… Springtrap.

But who is Springtrap? None other than William Afton, the original owner of the Fazbear franchise. William Afton is a cruel, evil man who not only killed multiple children, but stuffed them inside of animatronics, making the souls inhabit the very characters that are jump scaring you. No wonder Freddy and friends are so jumpy!

Honk Honk

With the darkness of the last secret, maybe it’s time to cheer you up a little. If you have your hands on the PC version of Five Nights at Freddy’s, you’ll want to head into the office and boop Freddy’s nose on the poster on the wall. Trust us, it’s well worth it.

Most of the games in the series also have some variation on this, so it’s safe to say if you see Freddy Fazbear hanging out on a poster somewhere, it’s worth giving his nose a little poke. And yes, that includes Golden Freddy, Funtime Freddy, and more.

Hearing William

Unfortunately, the series does grow increasingly dark, and a little happy honk can’t fully distract from that fact. As we know, William Afton is behind most of the darkness that happens in the series. In Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator, he finally meets his end. Or, he dies yet again, in the form of a fire that destroys the pizzeria. But while the ending cutscene is a little vague about this, there’s a much, much more horrifying audio that gives a stronger picture of what happened in the fire. In Ultimate Custom Night, playing the Old Man Consequences easter egg path makes it more clear. In that, an ambient sound plays. Speed it up and you’ll hear Afton screaming for his son Michael, and Henry, the former co-owner of Fazbear’s, and the father of one of William’s first victims. They’re responsible for his firey fate, after all. But is Afton really, truly dead this time? You’ll have to finish the series to find out. But as you’ll see in this next fact, the game itself isn’t sure you can.

Super Secret Articles

If you’re a fan of Patch Magazine, you probably love reading articles in your free time. But what about the hidden articles in FNAF 3 that you almost certainly missed? When your eyes were on the IT BURNS! newspaper article at the end of the game, you may not have noticed the blurred articles on each side. After all, they’re blurred because they aren’t important, right? But the truth is, the articles hold some secrets from the creator of the game about the process of creating it. And that’s not the first time blurred articles hold secrets, either. In Five Nights at Freddy’s, the Help Wanted ad is clearly visible, but right beside it, the game itself tells you you’ll probably never make it past three. Well, did you make it? Let us know how far you got in the Five Nights at Freddy’s series!