Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach
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 "When fear takes hold and reality fails, the stage is set... and insanity prevails."
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Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is the ninth main installment and the eleventh game overall in the Five Nights at Freddy's horror-themed strategy franchise. The game is developed by Steel Wool Studios and Scott Cawthon, following up on the story of their previous work, Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted. The game was released digitally on December 16, 2021, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, with ports for other platforms planned to be released at later dates.[1] The physical release for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 was released on April 1, 2022.
Plot
In Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex, a large shopping mall centered around its animatronic mascots, Glamrock "Freddy Fazbear" Freddy, Glamrock Chica, Montgomery "Monty" Gator, and Roxanne "Roxy" Wolf is getting ready to perform for an audience. During the performance, Freddy suffers a technical malfunction and shuts down.
Freddy awakens back in his room where he discovers that a young boy named Gregory is hiding inside his stomach compartment. Around this time, the mall locks down for the night, trapping Gregory inside. Vanessa, the security nightguard, orders all animatronics and employee robots to search for Gregory (unaware that they are reprogrammed to be murderous); however, Freddy's malfunction causes him to disobey Vanessa's orders and instead decides to help Gregory survive the night until the exit doors re-open at 6:00 AM. He also gives Gregory a device called the Faz-watch, which allows for communication purposes. After eluding the animatronics and taking refuge in a security office, Gregory manages to gain access to the mall's surveillance system. To obtain high-level security badges to access certain areas of the mall, Gregory enters the mall's daycare and encounters the Daycare Attendant in his friendly Sun form. Gregory accidentally triggers a power outage, provoking the Daycare Attendant to transform into his evil Moon counterpart, who now hunts Gregory down as well. Gregory restores the power but is kicked out by the Sun.
Gregory is eventually captured by Vanessa and is later confined in a Lost & Found room. Suddenly, Vanny – a woman in a rabbit costume who was responsible for reprogramming the animatronics to kill Gregory – approaches him. After escaping through the vents, he is instructed by Freddy to rescue him as he is stranded and has depleted his power. Gregory and Freddy venture into the basement, where Moon ambushes them and captures Freddy. Gregory proceeds throughout the basement and avoids animatronic endoskeletons, eventually finding out that Freddy is being interrogated and threatened by Vanessa. Vanessa states that there is no record of Gregory in the mall database, meaning that – if found – his fate would be unknown.
After freeing Freddy, Gregory is faced with battling either Monty for his claws or Chica for her voice box to upgrade Freddy. After evading the DJ Music Man, a large spider animatronic, Gregory runs over Roxy at Roxy's Raceway with a race car and forcefully takes her eyes to further enhance Freddy.
6:00 AM arrives and the doors open, but Vanessa broadcasts a message urging Gregory to meet her for a reward. Gregory has the choice of either leaving the mall, meeting up with Vanessa for his "reward", or battling Vanny, who was also responsible for several missing children cases within the Pizzaplex. Finding Vanessa's "reward" results in a hunt of CDs around the venue which contain recordings of Vanessa and an unknown woman (hinted to be Vanny) talking to therapists.
Good Qualities
- This game's concept is pretty great and is very unique (for this series), in that you're not playing a security guard making a measly few bucks anymore, but instead a child who's been trapped in an indoor amusement park with a copycat child serial killer coming after you as well as the other animatronics and has a good animatronic (not like Circus Baby in Sister Location, where she leads you into a trap and you get scooped) on their side to survive until 6 AM.
- This game is a major shift from the usual formula in the series. Unlike most of the other games where you stay in one enclosed area and try to prevent animatronics from getting inside for a certain amount of time. Security Breach, on the other hand, is free-roaming with many of the mechanics centered around moving around the PizzaPlex without drawing attention to yourself, such as hiding inside a friendly animatronic, using various ways of stunning and distracting enemies, and using the series' trademark cameras, this time accessible on an item called the Faz-Watch, to plan out a path in advance.
- Rather than going through five nights with the only difference being the increase in the animatronic's AI, this one takes place in a single night, and you run around completing objectives on your Faz-Watch, all the while hiding from enemies and collecting duffle bags, wind-up gifts, and retro CDs that are scattered throughout the Pizzaplex.
- While this could be debatable to some people since it could completely remove the fear factor, the animatronic characters themselves now actually have personalities and characteristics rather than just being lifeless machines that are possessed and/or trying to kill you. Glamrock Freddy in particular plays a more significant role here rather than being pushed aside from the rest of the cast as always ever since Five Nights at Freddy's 2, whereas in those games, he became pretty easy to deal with and was barely relevant to the story. Here he gets character development, noticeable changes to his design as the game progresses, and has an utterly wholesome father-son relationship with Gregory. As the night goes on, the cruel events of the night make him more and more cynical and uncaring about committing violence if that's what it takes to save Gregory. He also gets progressively more dingy-looking, covered in grime, and some of his bright paint fading and wearing off.
- Gregory can climb into Glamrock Freddy to hide from the other animatronics and can walk around most of the Pizzaplex without having to worry about getting caught, which is a cool mechanic and is very ironic when you think about it (since the series revolves around dead children that are stuffed into the animatronic suits, whereas in this one, you climb into the animatronic to hide from the enemies). To kinda balance this out, Freddy's battery runs out pretty quickly so you can't just walk around the PizzaPlex inside him the whole time.
- The entirety of the Pizzaplex is very impressive to look at and play in with plenty of cool areas such as the West Arcade which is the most fondly remembered out of all of them. The mission to turn on the power while avoiding DJ Music Man is well-remembered as having some of the tensest moments in the game, from the memorable scene of him reaching into the bathroom to grab the player to the climactic chase scene through the hall of arcades. To top it all off, you get to listen to quite possibly the best boss music in the series along the way.
- Since this is a stealth game, the animatronics patrol the Pizzaplex constantly and you always have to be on the lookout for them whenever necessary. However, the stealth mechanics aren't required to beat the game since you're just as fine evading the animatronics without being stealthy, which keeps the game from being slow-paced and makes it very much possible to speedrun.
- The music is awesome and has some of the most memorable songs in the FNAF franchise such as the aforementioned boss music in DJ Music Man's boss fight. The main theme is also notable for being a very catchy, 80s-inspired tune that one could never get sick of hearing, and has multiple reprises throughout the game.
- Voice acting in this game is top-notch, all of the characters never sound dull or phoned in and they only make the characters even more loveable. Special mention goes to Kellen Goff as Glamrock Freddy, who not only has a pretty deep voice but is notable for voicing the other incarnations of Freddy ever since Sister Location.
- Security Breach is also notable for having it being an open-world FNAF game, something that no other official or non-official game in this franchise has done so far, and the game world itself is full of details, secrets, and hidden collectibles that'll keep someone who's looking for everything in this game very occupied.
- The atmosphere in this game is fairly great, it makes the whole Pizzaplex feel giant and empty (basically having a liminal feeling to it). Hearing certain things running or machinery creaking as you're exploring creates a good sense of eerieness and adventure. It also helps that the place doesn't feel alive at all, the Pizzaplex is usually bustling so many of these sounds would normally be drowned out by the sounds of people, but since you're one of the only two people in this building, you can hear every little creak that echoes through.
- The visuals and graphics in this game are stunning, including the animatronics and especially the environments in the Pizzaplex. It's the type of game that you play through and just keep thinking "I wish I could be here in real life!". The neon lighting looks fantastic, the hallways leading to Fazerblast and the dimly lit glow of Monty's Golf are perfect, and the design of each of these areas is extremely accurate to something you would see in a mall or amusement park but amped up to another level.
- The game has 6 different endings depending on the choices the players made towards the end.
- If Gregory leaves through the main entrance, he is revealed to be homeless and returns to the cardboard box he has been residing in, only for Vanny to find him.
- If Gregory leaves through the loading dock, he manages to escape with Freddy in a van and uses its battery to recharge Freddy after he runs out of power. A newspaper article reports that Freddy has been replaced with a Glamrock Mr. Hippo, while Monty replaces his position as lead vocalist.
- If a certain number of collectibles are collected and Freddy is upgraded, Gregory and Freddy decide to burn down the mall using flammable plushies before they are confronted by Vanny on the roof. Freddy tackles Vanny off the roof, destroying them both; Gregory unmasks Vanny, who turns out to be a human who looks like Vanessa. Vanessa escapes and looks at the bodies of Freddy and Vanny from the roof. A news article reports that the Pizzaplex has burnt down and that flammable Fazbear toys have been recalled.
- If Gregory and Freddy decide to fight Vanny, Vanny will order the S.T.A.F.F. robots to disassemble Freddy, forcing Gregory to face her alone. He manages to grab Vanny's device and orders the robots to disassemble her. Gregory approaches the damaged Freddy, who gives words of comfort before he shuts down. A news article reports that the Pizzaplex has closed due to health concerns and plans to reopen next season.
- If Gregory completes the three sentient Princess Quest arcade games instead of deciding to destroy Vanny, he finds the mall's robots have shut down and Vanny's suit emptied. He escapes with Freddy's still-living head, with a remorseful Vanessa joining him. The three rest atop a hill, enjoying the sunshine from the next morning.
- If the player backtracks to defeat either Monty or Chica to fully upgrade Freddy, Gregory and Freddy find the ruins of the burned-down Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place, which had sunk underground through a sinkhole. Freddy remembers that he was brought there by Vanny on the day he suffered the malfunction to clear a path to an unknown location. They encounter a monstrous amalgamation of older animatronics dubbed "the Blob." The spirit of William Afton, Fazbear's co-founder and an undead serial killer who had been manipulating events behind the scenes after previously brainwashing Vanny, emerges in a partially restored "Burntrap" body and attempts to take control of Freddy, forcing Gregory to fight Afton, the Blob, and the remains of Chica, Monty, and Roxy alone. The battle causes the ruins to burn down and forces Gregory and Freddy to flee. The Blob drags Afton away, leaving their fates unknown, enabling the two's escape from the Pizzaplex. The two find rest atop a hill, enjoying the sunshine from the next morning.
- There are noticeable parts that take inspiration from Alien: Isolation and The Joy of Creation: Story Mode. For Alien: Isolation. You have save stations all around the Pizzaplex that you have to use to save and you have to keep an eye out for other animatronics while you're saving (although 98% of save stations are in safe locations where you wouldn't get caught), and for TJOC: Story Mode, there's a point where you're underground and you have to deal with a bunch of endoskeletons that act like the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. This is the basement level in Story Mode where the four enemies are endos, with one of them called Endo B "Angel".
- The game is having its cut content put back in, for example, the newest update added back some of that cut content, such as Comedy Bot's proper model being back (it also routinely switches from that to Magician Bot), there's fog in the Pizzaplex now, and Fazfacts now play in the elevator, along with the Fazer Blast intercom playing and Glamrock Freddy commenting on it.
- "Rule-Breaker, Rule-Breaker! You are BANNED from the daycare. SECURITY ALERT SECURITY ALERT! WOO WOO WOO WOO!"
- The new DLC, Ruin has been released for free and adds many elements and is a massive improvement over the actual game.
Bad Qualities
- The game has many jarring bugs, missing dialogue, cut content, and basic quality-of-life issues that plague its release, making it obvious that the game was rushed to be released or at the minimum needed more time in development to be fully polished. It also features opportunities for innocent players to accidentally break the game's sequence nearly beyond repair. Another issue is that the game is not compressed, explaining its giant 80 GB file size. When unpacked and repacked with a simple compress command, the game still works, but now the game takes up about 30 GB instead of 80, although the most recent update has reduced the overall disk download size from 52GB (82GB uncompressed) to 41 GB (65 GB uncompressed).
- The PlayStation release had an issue that rendered the retro-themed minigames outright unplayable at launch — this wouldn't have been that big of an issue if it weren't for the fact that three of the minigames are required to unlock the best ending.
- The AI tends to... break and thus makes it easy to take advantage of.
- Elevation completely breaks the enemy AI. The animatronics' view is a straight, horizontal line of sight. If Gregory is approximately his height above or below any animatronic, then the animatronic can't find him, even if Gregory is right in front of the animatronic. This oversight, for example, can be triggered by having Gregory jump on a desk or box while roaming the PizzaPlex (Gregory is too high for the animatronics to find him) or returning to the ball pit in the Superstar Daycare (Gregory is too low for the Daycare Attendant to find him). The elevation issue may also be why, before the February 2022 update, Monty has trouble functioning unless you walk right up to him; his head is close enough to the ground that Gregory is above his line of sight by default.
- The game will sometimes teleport the animatronics closer to you if it thinks they've gotten lost, and it's possible to manipulate it into teleporting them into closed and inaccessible areas, leaving them stranded.
- Moon can get stuck on the geometry in the Daycare if at least 2 distractions are knocked down in a certain way. Once stuck, Moon will hop around in place and won't pursue Gregory.
- The final fight in the True Ending can be completely cheesed with good enough agility and eyesight, and a bit of luck; once Roxy shows up, you can keep her from either leaving or catching you by hiding behind the nearby cot, preventing more troublesome opponents from showing up. It's entirely possible to leave the cot, hit a button to light Burntrap on fire, and return before she catches you; once you've done that enough times, you get the ending without having to deal with Monty or The Blob.
- Plenty of fans feel that the story in this game is a lot weaker compared to the previous FNAF games in the series. This is partially because having a game of this scale (and being an open-world game to boot) clashes with having the extremely hidden lore and lack of clarity in the story that the franchise is heavily known for.
- Despite this being the most directly narratively driven game in the franchise, the actual plot is rather bare-bones and regulated to "escape the Pizzaplex." You learn very little about Gregory the protagonist (why was he in the Pizzaplex, why did he lack a guest ID, and what did Freddy mean about him being "broken?"), those unaware of previous FNAF games will be completely lost about Vanessa or Vanny, given how Security Breach basically tells you nothing about them, and the newfound sentience of Freddy and the other animatronics is more or less glossed over.
- While the characters are lively and have tons of charm oozing out of them, some feel that a few of the characters are very underutilized in the final release.
- Some people feel Vanny is criminally underused in proper gameplay, despite being the primary antagonist and receiving top billing. To explain, she is the first direct human threat, with an inherently disturbing concept and explanation behind it. The Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery emails do a good job illustrating her deteriorating mental state. Combined with a legitimately creepy design and notably false polite behavior, she became a quick fan favorite before release. Despite all this, she barely makes an appearance, and is seemingly absent from the apparent true ending, despite being Glitchtrap's servant (she's accounted for in other endings, where she either dies, is expressly still active, or freed from Glitchtrap's influence). Ray McCaffery (the executive producer of Steel Wool Studios) says there originally was a "Vanny Meter" game mechanic planned in which lingering in one area for too long would have eventually spawned her, but this was scrapped in development, though Ray has expressed interest in adding it back in a future update.
- Gregory, despite being the protagonist, has had some people wishing he'd get a bit more development. Besides his desire to survive, his eventual bond with Freddy, and his snarkier moments, he remains pretty much a blank slate throughout the game, not growing or changing at all. Heck, the game itself frequently hints that there is more to Gregory than meets the eye, given the repeated mention of his missing personal records and the question as to how he got into the Pizzaplex in the first place without a guest profile. Also, the one-star ending hints at Gregory possibly being a homeless child, which adds an extra layer to the game's story. But none of these plot points are ever followed up on, leaving Gregory as a rather run-of-the-mill protagonist with no past.
- The other Glamrock animatronics get hints of hidden depths that aren't explored much: Roxanne is a narcissist with an inferiority complex, Monty has a hair-trigger Temper, and Chica is not just a big eater, but experiencing the robotic equivalent of an eating disorder. Glamrock Freddy frequently alludes to them being as nice as him and that something must be seriously wrong for them to be acting as violently and erratically as they are. Add to that the interesting hints at their aforementioned hidden depths and the fact that they do genuinely seem to care about Freddy, and you have all the pieces for a potentially great character arc. Instead, the Glamrocks remain brainwashed and crazy for the entire game, with the player getting no option to get to know them beyond that. Some fans wish there was an option to free them rather than destroy them to use their parts to upgrade Freddy, perhaps even as it ends.
- Security Breach continues the tradition of including obtuse secret gameplay actions, which is fine, but several parts of the main game come off as similarly obscure by accident, with sequences not always having enough information and scenes having required navigation or actions that aren't very intuitive. The map system doesn't always help much either, since it merely depicts a floor plan for each level. The game also isn't transparent about the abilities available to the player, like upgrade items hidden in gift boxes scattered around the map being present, or the fact that Chica's voice box lets Freddy open certain gates. This also pops up during the encounter with William Afton, as while Chica and Monty can be shut out, you are told to hide from Roxy, who doesn't go away unless Freddy stuns her (which you are never told to do at that moment). While the boss fight still ends in a set amount of time, confusion over how to deal with Roxy prevents most players from dealing with Monty and avoiding the Blob until the cutscene is reached.
- While the game looks really good, the art style is sometimes off since some things will fit the more cartoony art style while others don't. This includes Burntrap who looks a little too realistic compared to the more polished look of the game.
- Burntrap's fight with the Glamrocks at his disposal isn't a particularly long or complicated boss fight (some issues aside from the fact that the game doesn't give you any kind of hint to use Chica's voice box to lure Shattered Roxy away) and is found as considerably underwhelming.
- While the voice acting is good, Marta Svetek seems to be having a hard time voicing Gregory and she sometimes slips, making him sound more like a grown woman TRYING to sound like a boy at times.
- Many long-time fans have mentioned their distaste for this new direction for the franchise with many of the horror elements being toned down to appeal to a more kid-friendly audience, even though the whole series was based around dead children haunting animatronics.
- Old dialogue left in code reveals that some of the dialogue was toned down in the final release to tone down several mentions of Gregory getting physically hurt. For example, Gregory originally said that Vanessa was going to kill him (not just "get" him, as in the final release), and, instead of Freddy discovering that Gregory is somehow broken, Freddy would have sensed that Gregory was bleeding while inside of Freddy and that Gregory had badly cut his arm while traversing the vents. There is also dialogue hinting he could've likely become an enemy in one route, as the dialogue used for Freddy sounds very hurt, as well as dialogue telling the other animatronics to fight off Vanny's influence.
- Throughout the promotional material and merchandising, you can see Vanny with a knife, however, her knife is absent in-game.
- The game makes it clear that you need to manage when you use your flashlight since it requires the batteries to be recharged at a charging station, not that dissimilar to the Outlast games. However, the Faz-Cam, which has a light included, breaks this idea. While the camera flash has a cooldown, the light is infinite and has a wider spread than the standard flashlight.
- Ass Pull: The True Ending reveals that Springtrap/Afton is still alive below the Pizzaplex, with Afton being a very quick final boss with a little actual plot about how he survived the fire, or how Vanny/Vanessa (who completely disappears from the plot in this ending) connects to his survival. There is also the matter of the mysterious, gigantic "Blob" who appears out of nowhere in the ending to attack Afton and is given no explanation for it doing as much as existing. It's implied to be Molten Freddy, but how he survived the fire is left up in the air.
- Like Help Wanted with William Afton returning in the form of Glitchtrap, this also ruins Pizzeria Simulator's true ending and thus makes Henry's efforts to destroy all the animatronics utterly pointless.
Reception
Five Nights at Freddy's Security Breach received mixed reviews. Praise was directed at its open world, gameplay mechanics, characters, and introduction of boss fights and cutscenes. Criticism was directed at its tone being too bright and upbeat compared to previous entries which were dark and gritty. Its messy gameplay was also criticized due to the many bugs and glitches that considerably ruined gameplay. The game was also criticized for being far too large and having many unnecessary aspects. Vanny's short amount of screen time in the game was widely criticized due to her being an important part of the game's marketing from before its release.
The Steam store currently holds a "Very Positive" 82% rating for the game.
The game is nominated with PlayStation's Player Choice crown as December 2021's best new game on January 13, 2022.[2]
Trivia
- Thanks to the game's delays, the Funko plushies based on the characters of the game were released long before the game itself was given a release date. Details of the plushies were also leaked months before they were released, revealing the names of five characters (Glamrock Freddy, Glamrock Chica, Montgomery Gator, Roxanne Wolf, and Vanny).
- Two arcade games called House of the Bear both feature what is quite clearly Ignited Bonnie and Ignited Freddy on its case, suggesting that The Joy of Creation games exist as games within the FNAF universe.
- Vanny was originally voiced in Help Wanted by Jessica Tang, and her voice can briefly be heard in the original Security Breach trailer, but in the actual game, as originally teased by Freddy & Friends: On Tour!, she was recast to Marta Svetek.
- The second big trailer for the game featured voice lines for William Afton, who never speaks in the actual game, but sounds differently from his usual voice actor P. J. Heywood. Matthew Curtis (who voiced Nightmare BB and Music Man in Ultimate Custom Night) was revealed to have recorded these lines via a tweet.
- Due to leaks from Funko's list of upcoming merchandise products before the reveal of the game's official title, Five Nights at Freddy's: Pizza Plex was believed to be the game's actual name as evidenced by the "FNAF-PizzaPlex-" text. Scott Cawthon later disconfirmed it on his Reddit post.
- It was later revealed that "PizzaPlex" was part of the name of the main building in which the game takes place.
- This is currently the biggest game in the franchise to date, far surpassing Help Wanted which previously held the title as the largest game in the series. The game's file size at the time was almost 80 gigabytes rivaling and nearly surpassing enormous games like Grand Theft Auto V and God of War.
- This is the second game in the series to be free roam, the first being Help Wanted.
- Most of the locations and structures in Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex were based on places where the developers spent their childhood.
- The game was first teased back on August 8, 2019, during the fifth anniversary of the series. It was given a tentative release window of Q4 2020 during the PlayStation 5 Showcase event in September 2020, but Scott Cawthon later admitted that it had been delayed to early 2021 because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was later further pushed back to late 2021 before it was given a release date in October of that year.
- In an interview with Dawko, Steel Wool revealed that originally, an elderly night guard was supposed to have been Gregory's guide/protector through the Pizzaplex. However, both Scott and Steel Wool found they liked the idea of Freddy "being the good guy for once", which resulted in the character being scrapped and replaced with Glamrock Freddy.
- Fans have pointed out that the game’s main theme sounds very identical to Van Halen’s “Jump”. (These comparisons were being made back in Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location.) It's also worth noting that it sounds extremely similar to the countdown music from the old Chuck E. Cheese show, not surprising since one of the employees from Steel Wool Studios has said that they worked at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.
- There are removed strings of text in the game's files that suggest that the in-game clock would progress in real-time like in previous games instead of the time only advancing during scripted events in the final game.
- The achievement/trophy for finding every collectible is named 'Very Important Person', with its description also drawing attention to the VIP term. In the game files, you can discover an unused VIP room taking the form of an adult-oriented nightclub and lounge, along with lines for a Staffbot that would've stood guard outside and prevented you from entering. Going by these details, it appears that access to the VIP room was originally intended as a reward for 100% completion.
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