Highlights

  • "Tales from the Pizzaplex: B7-2" is an important entry in the Five Nights at Freddy's lore, answering long-standing questions and providing critical information.
  • The Mimic, a central character in the franchise, has a traumatic history, being created by Edwin Murray and learning violence through unfortunate circumstances.
  • The conclusion of the Mimic's story is revealed in the epilogues of Tales from the Pizzaplex, as Lucia outsmarts and traps the Mimic in a springlock jester costume.

This year, the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise pulled back the curtain on a series of major revelations. In July, FNAF: Security Breach RUIN revealed The Mimic as the series' new antagonist, marking the convergence of the book and video game canons into one. The character has been a central figure in the various stories and Epilogues of the Tales from the Pizzaplex book series, which has become a critical source of canon information in 2023. The most recent entry in the series, B7-2, included other major reveals, canonizing the events of Five Nights at Freddy's 4 and giving an in-universe explanation for the animatronics' hostile nighttime behavior. Most importantly, the entry's Epilogue completes the history of the Mimic, finally getting the Five Nights at Freddy’s lore caught up to RUIN.

Five Nights at Freddy's lore is a complicated matter, as it bends and refines itself with nearly every multimedia entry. Books have become an important part of the lore, their prior role as "parallel truths" now giving way to their current place as a critical source of context and canonical lore. No entry in the series has revealed more critical information than Tales from the Pizzaplex: B7-2 with each short story contained within directly addressing some of the franchise’s most critical and longstanding questions. However, the novel’s Epilogue does quite the opposite, revealing the events that led to Cassie’s discovery of the Mimic under the Pizzaplex only three months after its reveal in Security Breach: RUIN.

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FNAF's Mimic Has a Traumatic History

Five Nights at Freddy’s Mimic storyline is among the earliest events in the series canon, as detailed in the Tales from the Pizzaplex series. Created by Fazbear Engineer Edwin Murray, whom many fans believe to be a parallel to Freddy’s co-founder Henry Emily, the Mimic was an animatronic consisting of only a head, torso, and arms, designed to mimic best practices. The animatronic learns through observation before mimicking the behavior, providing Fazbear Entertainment with the technology to program all of its animatronics and systems through teaching, streamlining their development. The very first individual that the Mimic learned to parallel was Edwin’s son, David.

However, David’s death saw Edwin turn on his creation, as the Mimic continued to impersonate David after death. In a grief-stricken outburst, Edwin began beating the animatronic, damaging it physically. Unbeknownst to him, the Mimic's core program, mimic1, learned violence through the experience, creating a virtual entity whom many believe to be a predecessor to Glitchtrap, the mimic1 Virus. Sometime later, Tales from the Pizzaplex’s Epilogue #1 resumes the story, as a crew of Fazbear employees recover Edwin's work.

Upon arriving at the facility, the Fazbear crew discovered that another team had already been there and that they “fixed” the Mimic by attaching legs. The crew decides to program the Mimic to aid in cleaning up the location, tasking it with removing the limbs and heads of other animatronics, before placing them in neat piles. As the crew begins their work, The Mimic starts to impersonate their voices. Eventually, it uses this skill to lure them one-by-one to their deaths, dismantling the human crew while hiding among the locations’ many animal-mascot suits. Later, The Mimic was successfully recovered by Fazbear Entertainment and used in the development of animatronics.

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Tales' Newest Epilogue Reveals How the Mimic Got Trapped Below the Pizzaplex

Prior to the release of RUIN, Tales from the Pizzaplex Epilogues #2 - 7 revealed the story of a group of teenagers that snuck into the long-abandoned Pizzeria Simulator location, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place, where they encounter the Mimic. From the outset, this narrative sets the stage for The Mimic's reveal in Security Breach, as the title's Burntrap ending revealed that the Mega Pizzaplex was built atop the Pizza Place. As before, The Mimic utilizes its ability to copy human voices, claiming to be someone trapped in the backstage area of the Pizza Place. When the teens investigate, the Mimic ambushes each of them. At the time of RUIN's release, only one Epilogue remained, and all but one of the teens, Lucia, had been killed by the Mimic.

Tales from the Pizzaplex: B7-2 reveals the conclusion of this story, pitting Lucia against The Mimic as she attempts to escape the Pizza Place. Epilogue #7 left off with the Mimic crushing Lucia's friend Kelly as it forcefully entered the mascot costume in which she was hiding, before wandering down the hall. Epilogue #8 picks up at this exact moment, with Lucia hatching a plan to trap the Mimic in a springlock jester costume. Upon arriving at the Pizza Place’s costume room, Lucia decides to destroy the other costumes, ensuring that the Mimic will enter the springlock Jester. However, she soon learns that the Mimic has beaten her to the room, and is hiding within a Gopher costume on the wall.

Lucia continues with her plan, hiding in the only other costume, a Rodent. Springing from the Gopher, the Mimic attempts to enter the Rodent and crush Lucia, as it did to Kelly, but she escapes through the back of the costume. Noticing a trend, Lucia does the same with the springlock Jester costume, tricking the Mimic into entering the suit as she escapes. She then uses a metal rod to activate the springlocks before the Mimic can escape, eventually proving successful. As the Mimic writhes in the Jester costume, Lucia finds its off-switch, completely shutting it down. Lucia escapes the Pizza Place and is found by a construction crew that later seals the Pizza Place's exits.

Unfortunately, The Mimic doesn't remain inactive, as Five Nights at Freddy's: Tales from the Pizzaplex previously revealed the mimic1 virus' use in the creation of the Pizzaplex. The virus had been installed into a large mechanism called The Storyteller, which fed information, songs, and stories to the location's animatronics, including those below the ground. Eventually, the virus takes over the venue, manifesting in a variety of ways, like when a virtual animatronic emerges from the Pizzaplex's VR attraction and rips off a child’s arms and legs. RUIN reveals that the virus awakened the long-dormant Mimic within Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place, where Cassie finds it in the DLC's ending.

With the completion of the Tales from the Pizzaplex Epilogues, Five Nights at Freddy’s lore has finally caught up to RUIN. Fans now know how The Mimic became trapped below the Pizza Plex, and why it remained inactive until the events of Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach. However, the Mimic's presence within the early lore leaves room for exploration, as its use in the programming of animatronics and overarching systems could see it having played a major role in other major events. With another major release, FNAF: Help Wanted 2, set to arrive next month, fans may see the franchise tackle this question, as its early footage teases a return to the FNAF: Sister Location facility.