Five Nights at Freddy's- How FNAF 2 Complicated the Lore

By Mark Rodriguez

Five Nights at Freddy's.... a game series that started out by being a security guard trying to survive 5 nights at a pizzeria full of haunted animatronics that spawned lots of sequels. Now the latest one is looking like it's going to be about some of the animatronics actually trying to keep you safe from a serial killer that might have been brainwashed by a possessed VR game. What the hell?

FNAF.... how it started and where it's going......

 Here's a quick trip down memory lane over just how simple the story of FNAF seemed to be in the first game, and how the second game started the long path of the huge mess that we have now. Now when the first game came out back in 2014, creator Scott Cawthon had no way of knowing it would be a smash hit with lots of sequels. In fact, it was a bit of a last desperate attempt to make it in the gaming business. It's hard to believe nowadays, but had FNAF failed, Scott would have given up working on video games and moved on to whatever his Plan B would have been.

Five Nights at Freddy's- 

So from the start, the game has always had 2 stories; the one you're told in-game by the 'Phone Guy' and the actual story hidden in the background. Both of them have an ending that wraps itself in a clean bow at the end. Now before I go into this, please remember, we're going into this pretending only FNAF1 exists and ignore all the stuff we learned from all the sequels.

In-Game Story on the Surface-

So you're a security guard that got hired to work at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Now for whatever reason the animatronics are allowed to walk around at night, or else their servos would break down. They were apparently able to walk around during the day at one time, until one of them bit a customer hard enough to cause damage to the frontal lobe, an event called the Bite of '87. If the animatronics spot the security guard after hours, they will brutally murder him or her by cramming them into an empty spare animatronic suit in the back, full of sharp devices and whatnot. The company's only reasoning behind this is that the animatronics will confuse a human after hours for an animatronic without its suit so they will fix that by jamming you into one, apparently unaware that doing such will kill you. 

FNAF VR really put you right into the office. The original game relied on static photos, but now you actually see them wander the halls as Phone Guy said they would.

Lucky for you, the previous security guard, Phone Guy, noticed these things and made some recordings for you to listen to at the beginning of every night to explain what's going on and help you avoid the killer mascots. Sadly Phone Guy dies on the Night 4 recording, which means you've been listening to his final words the whole time. So assuming you survived, you last the week and get fired for messing with the animatronics on night 7, and the restaurant is shut down by year's end due to so many incidents and the robots being creepy as all hell.

The Real Story Hidden Underneath-

Aside from the fact that these Pizzeria Mascots walk around on their own trying to kill you, other weird things happen in the restaurant that seem more supernatural. Pictures change to newspaper clippings, you get weird hallucinations, and there's a Golden Freddy suit that just appears and disappears from your office. The newspaper clippings in particular pretty much spell out the backstory.

So on June 26th, two kids were reported missing somehow relating to the pizzeria. It seems an employee lured them to the back while dressed as one of the mascots but the bodies were never found. Later it was updated that it was actually 5 kids that were missing and while the guy was caught and charged the following day, the bodies were never found. Besides the Pizzeria having trouble keeping their business afloat after this tragedy, customers started complaining that the animatronics started to stink and drip blood and mucus and pretty much move around like the living dead. Finally by the end of the year, all of these events that seemed to happen over the years, missing kids, the Bite of 87, the animatronics stinking, the fact that all the security guards never seem to come back, as well as health violations will lead to the restaurant being shut down. Without any buyers, the restaurant is over.

So basically from all this, we can pretty much gather that someone dressed up as one of the mascots, would eventually lead 5 kids to the back and kill them. He'd then hide the bodies in the animatronics, who would start to rot and smell. The 5 kids would possess the 5 animatronics, Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Golden Freddy and that's the real reason they wander at night and why they kill the security guards. After so many years all they know is rage and they attack any adult they encounter because they can't tell who was the one that killed them anymore. All they know is the need for revenge.

While the game still left a few things open, such as who did the bite of 87, who was the guy that killed the kids, and whatnot, it was a pretty simple story. Guy kills kids, kids possess animatronics, you gotta survive 5 nights with them coming after you, and the restaurant eventually shuts down due to all the murders. But then we got the sequel.....

FNAF 2 enters the scene- 

Released a few months later, we got the FNAF sequel as we got a new and improved restaurant, now with more advanced animatronics designed to keep criminals out and also twice as many killer robots coming after you.

In-Game Story on the Surface- 

You're hired as a security guard to work at Freddy's, but the new animatronics suffer from the same 'shove a human into a suit' glitch as before. On top of that, you work at an office without doors and the animatronics are designed to be where the noise is at, so at night when things quiet down, they'll surely head towards you. Phone Guy is still around, and he gives you valuable tips to survive, such as how to use the new Freddy mask to trick some of the animatronics into leaving you alone, how to use the flashlight to keep Foxy at bay and also to keep the music box wound up to keep the Puppet away. Oh yeah, the older animatronics are still somewhere in the building, and even though they've been decommissioned and broken down, they'll still come after you alongside their newer replacements. 

Now the first question is, whoa, didn't the Phone Guy die? Turns out the game is a prequel. Throughout the week, the phone calls suggest that you're actually working the same week the mysterious guy from the first game took one of the mascot suits to start killing kids. And to top it off, not only does the pizzeria shut down for investigation while you're there, it's heavily implied the game will end with you attending the birthday party in which the bite of 87 will take place. Either you'll be the bite victim, or you'll be a witness to it. This will shut down the restaurant and the Toy Animatronics will be scrapped while the older models will be redesigned into their FNAF 1 designs. 

The Real Story Hidden Underneath-

While the story isn't that different, the animatronics are still haunted and out for blood, and all the events are explained during actual gameplay via the phone calls.... this game started the trend of mini-games that explain more of the lore. And this is where things get complicated. These cut scenes do not just go into the backstory of FNAF 2.... it goes into FNAF 1 and other events that took place even before that.

The cut scenes show the actual child murderer, portrayed as who we call 'The Purple Guy', so we get to see, in a sense, the guy who was only mentioned in the first game. We also find out that The Puppet was the one that helped the kids possess the animatronics so they could get their revenge. We find out that there are other restaurants before the events of this game. It's heavily implied that the Purple Guy claimed his first victim not at the current pizzeria, but at an older restaurant called Fredbear's Family Diner, where that kid would possess the Puppet. 

And thus the lore got all out of whack. Of course, with a part 2, we can assume there would be a part 3, so now we can leave more things open for a sequel. Are the Toy Animatronics also possessed? What do you mean there were other restaurants besides Freddy's? What is the Purple Guy's deal? Which one committed the bite of 87? What's the deal with Shadow Freddy and Shadow Bonnie? 

Hell, what about the FNAF 1 animatronics? They're already walking around in this game despite being broken down. If they were already possessed then, then were they possessed the whole time they were redesigned into the FNAF 1 designs? How did they not find the bodies of the dead kids when they were rebuilding the animatronics? Each new game complicates things as not only do the games sometimes take place further in the past, the cut scenes can take place anywhere in the timeline. There have been countless attempts to make sense of the exact order of all the restaurants, all the events and all the ever-growing number of animatronics and not all the pieces fit perfectly. To this day we still have many unanswered questions, such as who did the Bite of 87, the deal with the Shadow Animatronics, and later on, the exact deal with the entire Afton family. 

The Story thus far-

Despite the exact timeline and everything else still being up for grabs, we can all agree the official 'end' of the original FNAF story happened at the end of FNAF Pizza Simulator where all the haunted animatronics got burnt down and their spirits can finally rest... except for that of Afton, the Purple Guy, whose soul is stuck in the purgatory represented when you play Ultimate Custom Night.

The FNAF saga continues with FNAF Help Wanted in which the Fazbear Franchise released a VR game in-universe to pretend all the events of the previous games were just nonsense in an attempt to clean up their public image. However the game is infected by William Afton, who somehow exists as a computer virus and gains control of the player. 

FNAF Security Breach continues the story with the possessed woman now out to kill you, and as of right now we have lots of questions. Why are the animatronics helping you? Is Vanny the only villain or are some of the animatronics also after you? What makes some of them good and some of them bad? Are these new Glamrock Animatronics also possessed or just super smart AI? How does the new security guard fit into all this? Like, will the game switch gameplay between the security guard, the kid and the animatronics protecting him? Like, what exactly is going on? What other bizarre twists and turns will this franchise take?