Games: Five Nights at Freddy's | Five Nights at Freddy's 2 | Five Nights at Freddy's 3 | Five Nights at Freddy's 4 | Five Nights at Freddy's World | Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location | Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator | Ultimate Custom Night | Five Nights At Freddys VR Help Wanted | Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery | Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach
Novels: Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes | Five Nights at Freddy's: The Twisted Ones | Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet | Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights
- Accidental Aesop: The game's use of power conservation as a gameplay mechanic can be interpreted as a Green Aesop — how much you conserving energy is a matter of life and death. If you waste it, robots will kill you.
- Cheese Strategy: It's possible to beat the first night by simply waiting until 2 A.M., closing the left door, and doing nothing else the rest of the night. Because of how the game's A.I. works, none of them are active before then and Freddy never activates, Bonnie can't get in at all, Chica can't get into the office if she appears at your door if you never use the camera, and Foxy is inactive prior to 3 A.M. and most of the time will only attack once. This doesn't work on later nights, where Foxy is active from the start and will run down your power very quickly if you never use the cameras to freeze him.
- Complacent Gaming Syndrome: A sort of "basic strategy" has evolved to get through the nights where Freddy is active, including 4/20 mode. Check the right hall camera (4B), then check one of the door lights. Close a door if Chica or Bonnie appears in the light, and check on Foxy whenever Chica forces you to close the right door. Rinse and repeat. Freddy will be completely immobilized by this strategy and Bonnie and Chica won't have enough time to slip in the room if you are quick enough on the lights, leaving Foxy as the only unpredictable element. However he is lucky to get off a single attack given the frequent camera usage.
- First Installment Wins: While the succeeding games are roughly just as popular, the original game is by far the most well-known and most-parodied of the series. It was considered by some to have utilized the concept of being alone in a seedy Suck E. Cheese's with Hostile Animatronics perfectly, while later games "try too hard" to make the animatronics more like generic robots/monsters and drift farther away from the original run-down pizzeria aesthetic. The plot is also much simpler and easier to comprehend (once you find it, that is) unlike the Kudzu Plot that the series would become infamous for.
- Spiritual Successor: To titles such as Project Guard (if it was a horror game), Night Trap, and Double Switch, minus the whole "trapping" part.
- That One Achievement: Both on the console ports.
- "No Running", which involves keeping Foxy from running down the hallway on Night 4. Even ignoring the fact that Foxy is That One Boss, you need to check the cameras extremely often so he won't run down the hallway (because, as Markiplier learned, Foxy can kill you before Phone Guy finishes talking) which will end in running out of power and, by extension, leaving you at Freddy's mercy.
- "No Laughing" on the console ports, which involves keeping Freddy from coming to cams 4A and 4B (the East Hall and its corner) on Night 5. Freddy truly becomes active on this night, and keeping him from moving is gonna be a challenge that will consume a lot of power, just like No Running. However, a lucky player might keep Freddy from even leaving the Show Stage if they look at him often enough.
- That One Boss:
- Foxy is the cause of death for many players. Sure, the Phone Guy tells you what angers him, with not viewing the camera enough, but what he doesn't tell you is that Foxy immediately runs for the player's position when he leaves Pirate's Cove. He also forces the player to look away from the other animatronics, which can spell death, especially in later nights. Ironically, he's also generally considered the least scary of the animatronics since he's the only one who doesn't get up in your face when he kills you.
- Freddy is pretty difficult when he starts moving in later nights, due to him not waiting by the doorways before killing the player and having unpredictable patterns.
- That One Level:
- Night 3 is a pain in the ass as well, because this is when Freddy starts to move. All four robots' patterns are completely random; sometimes they'll leave you alone for a while, other times they'll start moving five seconds into the level. To top that off, both Bonnie and Chica become Demonic Spiders, as they have a bad habit of popping up at your door and not leaving for over thirty seconds, thus forcing you to drain your power. Sometimes they'll do this simultaneously.
- Night 4 is where the robots unite all their forces and start to move simultaneously. So you must be very fast on your reflexes in order to close the doors in time. The fact that, according to the phone messages, the Phone Guy (apparently) didn't survive the night makes the level more unsettling.
- 4/20 mode. Good god 4/20 mode. All four of the animatronics are cranked up to absolute maximum difficulty. In case you don't understand how hard that it is, Scott Cawthon, the creator of the game, could not beat it, and apparently had such difficulty in attempting so that he genuinely believed it was impossible. The strategies for beating it are very specific, and even a SINGLE mistake in executing them will lead to your death. Even though it's technically the final stage in the game (it gives you the third star), unless you have perfect tactics and execution along with a HELL of a lot of determination and time, don't even bother with it.
