History VideoGame / FiveNightsAtFreddys1

* HarderThanHard: Night 6 is hard enough as the difficulty hits its peak, but using the LevelEditor for Custom Night can make the AI even harder. The definition of this? [[UpToEleven All AIs set to 20]], or 4-20 mode. It's practically impossible, what with the huge amount of micromanaging, countering Freddy, and nearly unbeatable likelihood of the game being rendered {{Unwinnable}} by sheer RNG.

** Also invoked, with Night 7, the Custom Night. Specifically, if the animatrons are run by an AI, why not just hack them and make them less aggressive? Turns out you can do that and it works, more or less. Still subverted, though, as even setting their AI levels to 0 still doesn't make them ''completely'' harmless[[spoiler:, not to mention hacking the bots gets you fired]].

** Night 7 makes this even more blatant, as the player tampers with the robots' programming and can make them either easier or even more difficult. In other words, making the robots safe can be effortlessly done by a random night watchman and yet the owners are ''still'' too cheap to bother fixing anything. In fact, they actually ''fire'' the protagonist for this.

* SecondLawMyAss: The animatronics get around this by assuming you're a fellow bot out of your costume. Or at least that's the reason Phone Guy gives you; no one knows for sure.
* ShaggyDogStory: Congratulations! You survived your first week at Freddy's. What does the paycheck say? "See you next week!". Thankfully, you get fired after Custom Night.

* SkewedPriorities:
** The management has known that Freddy and his friends are dangerous since at least 1987, but continue to run the family restaurant all the same. You get stuck with looking after the robots because it saves money.
** If you "tamper with the electronics" (read: make your own custom level) on night 7, you get fired. Yes, you can get fired for making the robots safe to be around. Then again, you could also make them more dangerous...
** Your character also has skewed priorities; either out of stupidity, desperation for money, a combination of the two, or for some other reason entirely, you'll return to the screwed-up restaurant up to six times after the initial day, despite the obvious dangers.

* TheTetrisEffect: In-universe, the protagonist starts hallucinating throughout the week, seeing suit faces and "[[ArcWords IT'S ME]]" when he blinks or changing camera views. Golden Freddy is the sole exception, being real.

* AIIsACrapshoot: According to the Phone Guy, the mascots aren't acting maliciously, they're simply taking a poor friend who forgot his suit and helping him to put it on. On the other hand, Foxy's behavior, [[BrainFood the Bite of '87]], and the Night 5 phone message seem to indicate something more sinister is going on with the lovable mascots of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

* CuttingTheKnot:
** If the player so chooses, on Night 7, he tampers with the electronics (aka uses the level editor) and can just reprogram the robots so that they don't try to murder everyone in sight rather than bothering with the resource management. Of course, this results in the management firing you. There are limits to this. While the player can even set the AI to zero, he's still not safe. Lower settings make the characters ''less'' aggressive, but they still try to kill you.
** On the robots' side, Foxy will simply charge you if you don't keep the camera on him regularly.

* FourIsDeath: Not counting Golden Freddy, there are four animatronics trying to kill you and the Phone Guy ends up that way on the fourth night.

* DudeWheresMyReward: Scott Cawthon didn't believe it was possible to beat 4/20 mode, so he never programmed a special ending or something like that for completing it. So, in other words, when you originally beat 4/20 mode (a nigh impossible night in which every animatronic is cranked to absolute max difficulty), your reward was...absolutely nothing. This was changed when 4/20 mode was beaten for the first time, to which Cawthon added a third (and final) star in response.

* FirstEpisodeTwist: Hey, spoilers are off on this page for a reason. There's not really much lore in the first game, but the lore that is given is so crucial to the entire series that it's impossible to not spoil it.

* TheReveal: The restaurant is planned to close down by the end of the year. Years ago, a man dressed in a mascot costume lured five children into a back room where he presumably killed them. The man got caught, but the bodies of the children were never found. Sometime after these disappearances, the robot mascots were reported to ooze blood and mucus from their bodies and smell like corpses, which implies that the children suffered the same cruel death you receive when Freddy and the other robots find you. Ever since these events, the restaurant has fought tooth-and-nail to become popular, but has seemingly failed to do so.

* NeverFoundTheBody: It's indicated that because Freddy and his friends don't leave behind a body when they kill someone (apparently no one ever bothers to check inside the suits), the Freddy Fazbear management can just clean up the blood and report whoever just got killed as a "missing person", thus shielding themselves from legal liability.
** The reason they NeverFoundTheBody is actually given to you by Phone Guy in the Night 1 message: "Upon discovering that damage or death have occurred, a missing persons report will be filed within ninety days or '''as soon as property and premises have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached and the carpet has been replaced'''..." In order to try and stay open, the [[SarcasmMode wonderful people]] at Fazbear Entertainment[[TradeSnark ®]] will happily clean and sanitize away every trace of your messy demise.
** Which admittedly raises the question of how the blood and mucus showed up around the animatronics' eyes… Given we see your character's eyes in the suit at the Game Over screen, it wasn't the children's blood and mucus. It was from the guards shoved into the suits. This is given added support by the end of ''Sister Location'', in which your character's body is taken over by Ennard. Which raises a different question — if the children weren't killed in the animatronics, what happened to them? The newspaper did say that the children's bodies were never found.
*** It was later confirmed that the bodies ''were'' stuffed inside the suits: The robots just use a spare Freddy suit for the guards.

* AloneWithThePsycho: Just you alone in a closed pizza joint with four and a half[[note]]because Golden Freddy[[/note]] murderous robots from midnight to dawn. [[SarcasmMode Great job, eh?]]

* ApocalypticLog: Though it's hardly an apocalyptic scenario, the Phone Guy's recorded messages are pretty nightmarish. It becomes more true to the trope on Night 4, when as things seem to be going horribly wrong for him, from Foxy banging on one of the doors, Bonnie and Chica moaning, and Freddy playing the Toreador Song, building up to a [[SoundOnlyDeath scream that sounds exactly like the one you hear when you get killed by Golden Freddy]].

* SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids: These are robots designed entirely for singing on a stage, and yet are capable of lifting a grown man and restraining them long enough to force a suit onto them. Hell, just moving around and running in general. Usually these things have cables, and there is ''no'' reason for them to be in the security room, or restrooms, let alone getting to the former in two seconds in Foxy's case. Owner must've bankrupted themselves twice over just buying the damn things.

CorruptedCharacterCopy: The main four animatronics are hostile, neglected versions of various mascots Chuck E. Cheese has had over the years. Freddy is modeled after Billy Bob, as both are brown bear band leaders who double as the main singer and face of thier franchise. Chica is based off of fellow chicken and back up singer Helen Henny, who also suffered from similar major, radical redesigns over the years. Bonnie is Mister Munch, another purple replacement for the original franchise costar. Foxy rounds out the group as Foxy Colleen Flanagan's male counterpart, both being side attractions that were left to rot immediately after surviving a rebranding deal.

* {{Expy}}:
** The four mascots are dark parallels of the original Chuck E. Cheese's characters, pre-redesign. Freddy is the face of the restaurant, with an iconic hat a la Chuck. Bonnie is similar to Munch in being a goofy-looking purple character with prominent teeth. Chica is a female avian like Helen, albeit a chicken rather than a hen. And Foxy is a canid with a theme, akin to Jasper, but a pirate fox instead of a cowboy/country singer dog.
** In a way, they're also the Rock-A-Fire Explosion, signature animatronic band of Showbiz Pizza Place. Not only are they full-figure animatronics — something Chuck and his gang didn't get until after the merger — but Foxy's positioning on a separate stage, and his possession of a unique accessory that takes up his right hand, actually brings him closer to the Rock-A-Fire's Rolfe De Wolfe.
** Eurogamer compared the mascots to the [[Series/DoctorWho Weeping Angels]].

* BigBad: The titular Freddy Fazbear. He's quickly [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 dethroned]] by [[TheManBehindTheMan a certain puppet]] and [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3 later]], [[AxCrazy someone]] [[SerialKiller even]] [[WouldHurtAChild worse]].

* EyeScream: {{Inverted|Trope}}. Your character's eyeballs and teeth are the only things that remain of their body after a game over.

* BringMyBrownPants: If you finish a custom level, you get fired for "general unprofessionalism" and "odor".

* TheTetrisEffect: In-universe, the protagonist starts hallucinating throughout the week, seeing suit faces and "[[ArcWords IT'S ME]]" when he blinks or changing camera views. Golden Freddy is the sole exception, being real. As for out-of-universe, we hope you enjoy sleeping with your doors and windows locked and all the lights on, or you'll be seeing the face of Freddy (or Bonnie, or Chica, or Foxy) everywhere.

* BaitAndSwitch:
** Both the trailer and the Steam summary of the game conveniently leave out Foxy. So, until you get the call from the previous guard about the Cove, you're left believing that there are only three animatronics to look after. And even then, you've got absolutely no indicator that there is a Golden Freddy lurking about.

* ShaggyDogStory: Congratulations! You survived your first week at Freddy's. What does the paycheck say? "See you next week!". Thankfully, you get fired.

* StalkedByTheBell: If you spend too much time off of the monitor, Foxy will arrive at your office and kill you. This is to prevent players from trying to avoid a JumpScare by the other animatronics, who (besides Freddy) only attack ''after'' you put your monitor down, if the player suspects that an animatronic has gotten into the office. In later nights, Freddy can also get into your office and immediately kill you.

* TacticalDoorUse: Your sole concrete defense. You can only survive via barring access to your station. Of course, the ideal solution is "all doors closed at all times," so this is combined with ResourcesManagementGameplay to ensure your lack of safety.

* TheEighties: The year [[ArcNumber 1987]] is commonly referred to throughout the first two games. The first game mentions the Bite of '87, in which an animatronic bit off someone's frontal lobe.
* TheNineties: Although the year when the five nights take place is listed as [[YearX the year XX]] in-game, the game is set in 1993 if the minimum wage rate ($4.00 per hour) is of any indication.
* AgentScully: The Phone Guy's explanation for the animatronics attacking you is that if they see you, they mistake you for a bare endoskeleton and shove you into an animatronic suit. It is unknown if the Phone Guy genuinely believes in what he says or if he is trying to hide the fact from the Mike that the animatronics are haunted.

* BehindTheBlack: One tactic they use is to slip into the room ''when your monitor is up.''

** Even after seven years, the Bite of '87 has absolutely no lore significance beyond explaining why the animatronics no longer wander the restaurant during the day. Phone Guy's deadpan explanation of the aftermath really sells it.
--> '''Phone Guy''': It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, y'know?

* SpiritualSuccessor: To titles such as ''Project Guard'' (if it was a horror game), ''VideoGame/NightTrap'', and ''VideoGame/DoubleSwitch'', minus the whole "trapping" part.

* ObviousRulePatch:
** Foxy serves this role to Bonnie and Chica. Bonnie and Chica only attack when you lower your camera, leading to the obvious solution of simply never bringing up the camera at all. To counter this, Foxy forces you to bring up the camera to prevent him from rushing you, which also gives Bonnie and Chica the opportunity to attack.
** Same thing with Freddy, who exists to force you to keep you from constantly looking at Foxy on the camera.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath:
** If Freddy and friends catch you, you get shoved into a suit filled with sharp bits of metal, live wires, crossbeams, and animatronic devices. All that remains when it's over are your eyes and teeth. You can see the aftermath on the game over screen.[[note]]The sheer horribleness of that may not be particularly evident to some people. Then you realize that would be ''excruciatingly painful.''[[/note]]
** Phone Guy suffers the above fate on the fourth night. Then the fifth night's call gets… ''[[BlackSpeech weird.]]''

* TooDumbToLive:
** The protagonist for staying on a job like this past the first night, considering the fact that ''death robots designed as humanoid animals'' are after his blood, his co-worker ''dies'' before his first week is over, and the fact that he's only paid minimum wage. You can potentially wise up on the seventh night and use the level editor to make the robots not murder you. Or, if you're the suicidal kind, [[ChallengeRun you can crank up their AI to the max.]] Changing the robots' AI results in you being fired for tampering with the animatronics, but honestly, that's the best thing that could happen to you.\\
\\
There is actually a little logic at work here. The only hint you get that the robots are dangerous comes from a recording made from a man who is clearly covering up something. And even after you verify that the animatronics do indeed move at night and try to reach your office, you still don't have real proof that they are going to kill you (the fact that a couple of robots are malfunctioning and acting in a creepy way is easier to believe than the fact that said robots can and ''will'' kill you). At least until the final night, the protagonist could have just decided to keep the robots out anyway, possibly as part of his job, without really believing that the risk was real.
** The restaurant's management in general seems to be unbelievably incompetent and completely unaware of how to properly run a business. In fact, they're ''going out of business''. You find out near the end of the game that by year's end, Freddy's Pizza is going to shut down.
** Played With with the Phone Guy, who has stuck around with his job for more than a week. However, he's probably not outright stupid to survive for so long, presumably without the same tips he gives you, though he does eventually get killed right before retiring.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: For ''Videogame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3'', Phone Guy's line "I'm gonna try to hold out until someone checks" foreshadows that the animatronic suits ''can'' actually be worn without getting lethally maimed, and that Phone Guy knew that. Evidently, he was hoping that he could use that knowledge to avoid dying when he got stuffed, so that he could eventually get rescued. Considering that it wasn't a springlock suit, he most likely didn't last very long.

* FirstEpisodeTwist: Hey, spoilers are off on this page for a reason. There's really not too much lore to this entry, but the lore that is given is so crucial to the entire series that it's impossible to not spoil it.

* WalkingSpoiler: The Killer mentioned in the backstory, later revealed to be called William Afton.

* WhamLine: The entire Night 4 phone call.
* WhamShot: Pretty much all of the hallucinations for someone new to the series.

* YouAreAlreadyDead:
** If either door jams on you, it means Chica or Bonnie have gotten into your office and will attack the next time you open and close your monitor. You can try to avoid they monitor, but this will just doom you to be killed by either Foxy or Freddy. If it's the final hours of the night and Freddy or Foxy are far enough away, then you have a fighting chance, but in any other scenario, it's best to just get your death over with.
** If you're on the monitor and start to hear raspy groans. This not only means that an animatronic have made it into your office, but that they will pull down the monitor and kill you at any second.
** Foxy just barely averts this. If you see Foxy running down the hall through your security feed, you have only a second to shut the door. It's possible to hit it, but quite difficult, exacerbated by the fact that you'll probably be panicking.
** If you run out of power, Freddy will stand outside the left door, staring at you, as if he's cherishing your last moments. If it's 5 AM, and if the RNG is forgiving enough, you ''might'' be able to hold on until 6 AM and survive the night. Any other time, kiss your ass goodbye.

* NothingIsScarier:
** There will be many moments where the robots are nowhere near your room and there's merely dead silence.
** The kitchen. All you get is an audio-only feed, with no way of determining what's going on in there. There's supposedly not even actual assets for what it looks like. But Chica and Freddy like to visit it as a blind spot to your cameras, and sometimes you can hear Chica knocking over pots and pans.
** No information is given about Golden Freddy at all in game. The only things we know are that he's an empty costume, he can teleport, he appears when you set 1-9-8-7 on the custom night, and makes his presence known by appearing on a certain poster.
** The game uses all three versions of this trope, all to the scariest possible effect:
*** It uses the "Wait for it" version, in that using the cameras littered around the facility, you can always tell where the enemies are, either through simple deduction or being able to see them. There are blind spots around your room, and since you can usually tell when an enemy is there... then you press the light, you're treated to an Uncanny Valley, still picture of the animatronic abomination, and then you slam that "shut door" button like there's no tomorrow. Then there's Foxy, who [[http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140815104916/five-nights-at-freddys/images/c/ca/Satan_be_runnin.gif rushes]] down your position, but it can be hard to tell when.
*** It uses the "Nothing at all" version, in which you are peacefully sitting in your room, flicking through all the cameras, and you see all the animatronics are scattered around, and nowhere near you. You put the monitor away, and... nothing but the fan. No sound, no monstrosities to defend yourself against. Nothing.
*** It uses the "He was there all along" version in that the animatronics can sneak into your room and not be noticed until it's too late, [[HopeSpot which is equal parts terrifying and frustrating]].
*** This version is also used with Foxy. It is (rarely) possible for him to get you on the first night, but he most likely won't and you won't be told about him until the second night. So by the time that rolls around and he's specifically pointed out to you, you realize there was a fourth potentially deadly animatronic the whole time and ''you had no idea.''
** After Freddy finishes his song after you run out of power, everything goes pitch black and dead silent for a painstakingly long time before Freddy kills you. ''However'', if you're incredibly close to 6 AM, you have to sit there and wait for Freddy to decide your fate.

->[-Good job, sport! ''[[HereWeGoAgain (see you next week)]]''-]