Highlights
- The Five Nights At Fredd y's franchise has evolved over the years, shifting from simple horror games to more complex and immersive experiences like VR and open-world settings.
- The challenge level of the games varies, with some being more accessible and suitable for younger players, while others provide a greater level of difficulty and receive complaints from gamers.
- The franchise continues to grow with new releases, including a film and upcoming games, and is known for consistently challenging players with jump scares and a wide range of challenges.
The Five Nights At Freddy’s franchise has varied greatly over the years, coming from the origins of a simple point-and-click horror game to the most recent entries, which have explored the worlds of VR and more open-world settings that make for complete shifts for the franchise.
The 25 Best Horror Games For Kids
It's hard to balance the scary with the goofy in children's horror games but these titles do it perfectly.
The idea of Five Nights At Freddy’s has been shifting for almost a decade now, and over that time, the challenge of the various games has also shifted. While some games aim for accessibility by lowering the challenge, others raise it further than expected and receive complaints from many players for presenting such a wide array of challenges featuring some of the scariest dolls in gaming history.
Updated on January 30th, 2024, by Chris Harkin: The Five Nights At Freddy's franchise continues to grow. With the release of the film and the upcoming release of several other games, there is no doubt that the franchise will still be producing new and challenging games for a long time to come. With so many different entries already, it is best to be able to see what sort of challenge every edition of the FNAF series has had. Filled with jump scares and a huge spread of challenges, this franchise is considered one of the more consistently challenging ones today.
11 FNAF World
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 2.75/5
Though no longer available on Steam, FNAF World was the first major spin-off from the FNAF franchise. Filled with colorful, amusing characters from the series, this RPG puts players in the place of the animatronics as they try to save their village from some villainous characters.
A complete change of pace for the series, FNAF World was purposefully made a much easier game than others in the franchise. This accessible experience was much more directed at younger fans and, therefore, was made a more suitable difficulty for younger gamers.
10 Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 3.1/5
Despite being one of the most played FNAF games ever, this recent entry in the long-running franchise was a huge departure in gameplay from many of the previous entries. Attempting to update the style of the previous entries to fit a bigger budget game, Security Breach introduced many new elements into the series.
The free-roaming style of the game changed a great deal about how it worked. It also removed much of the challenge that players found in the earlier games since there was no simple ramping up over several nights of the same mechanics. Though this entry was a huge step forward for the FNAF franchise, it very much changed the rules when it came to challenging gamers.
9 Five Nights At Freddy's AR: Special Delivery
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 3.33/5
Special Delivery was an augmented reality game that was released for phones in 2019. This was another departure for the franchise from many norms, featuring terrifying animatronics coming into the "real world" through the player's phone screen.
Players had to fight these various creatures off to win, delivering a unique and terrifying gaming experience. Due to the limitations of this style of game and retaining the audio-visual nature of monster attacks from the other games, Special Delivery was never as challenging as most of the main entries in the series.
8 Five Nights At Freddy's VR: Help Wanted
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 3.38/5
The idea of the Five Nights At Freddy's franchise entering VR was an absolutely terrifying one, and it was a huge success with Help Wanted. However, it wasn't an original story so much as a collection of mini-games, both from previous entries and new ones.
This style made Help Wanted a much easier game than many of the other entries in the franchise. The VR nature of the game made it harder to produce challenges since the VR controls aren't as exact as those in normal games. But players still loved this entry and are looking forward to the upcoming sequel.
7 Five Nights At Freddy’s 3
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 3.72/5
The third entry wanted to change things up from the first two games in the Five Nights At Freddy’s franchise, and so in this entry, there was only one animatronic that could actually finish the player. Other animatronics from the previous two games returned in this entry, but they were only ghosts that could hinder the player without ending their game, including the iconic Freddy Fazbear.
There was a significant level of challenge to FNAF 3, even though there was only Springtrap to worry about. He provided plenty of challenge, and the shake-up to the formula made it difficult to get used to the events of FNAF 3, even for veteran players of the other games. The franchise never returned to a style like this, with only one animatronic capable of killing, but it was a fascinating idea that was well worth exploring.
6 Five Nights At Freddy's
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 3.8/5
The original game in the FNAF franchise wasn't one of the hardest games looking back now, but it was a surprising level of challenge at the time, which frustrated gamers massively. Being employed as a security guard for the nights at the infamous Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, the player character had to survive five nights to earn their paycheck at the end of the week.
Players must survive against several animatronics who come to life and try to get into the security office where the player resides. Using cameras to watch while also listening for sound cues, and figuring out when to close the doors to stay alive. Though harder games would follow, the first FNAF game is well-remembered for causing both fear and rage in gamers.
5 Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 3.82/5
Also known as FNAF 6, this entry in the franchise was another switch-up from familiar formulas, and indeed, whereas every other entry up to that point had a similar formula throughout the nights, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator was completely different. The worst part about this game is that even looking up guides online won’t really help. The difficulty and challenges are too unique to explain.
Players simply have to keep trying, sometimes for a ridiculously long time, if they wish to defeat the Pizzeria Simulator. Other FNAF games require patience, but this entry requires something more, as the randomization of the animatronics and challenges go beyond almost anything the franchise has ever seen. There are no specific timings or mechanics to save players or help them learn how to win. They have to figure this one out slowly, all by themselves, making it one of the most difficult horror games ever.
4 Five Nights At Freddy’s: Sister Location
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 3.83/5
The fifth game in the main franchise releases was Sister Location, which shifted from previous entries in some significant ways. Firstly, players were able to move about in a variety of fashions. This was because the style of puzzles and challenges that had to be completed each night changed drastically from the fashion of the first four games but added some of the series' most iconic characters.
Five Nights at Freddy's: 10 Popular Fan Theories
Five Nights at Freddy's often leaves fans with more questions than answers; here are some popular theories that fill in the gaps.
This left players with a frustrating time as they attempted to figure out how to work within the limits of each puzzle, adding challenge because the previous games only required them to figure out the mechanics and improve upon their skills with each night. In particular, some challenges, like the spring lock suit, made for huge frustration that many gamers couldn’t deal with.
3 Five Nights At Freddy’s 2
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 4.02/5
One of the scariest and best entries, the original sequel game to the first Five Nights At Freddy’s tried to keep many of the same mechanics from the first game while adding some of its own. The main upgrade in the challenge was reaction time needed to be incredible for players to survive, with players needing to put on their masks to avoid being attacked and killed by the animatronics almost immediately.
The surprises and shocks ramped up viciously as this game went on, providing very little challenge in the first two nights but adding extreme difficulty to the later ones. While many fans enjoy the challenge presented in trying to find a way to beat the fourth and fifth nights of FNAF 2, there are a lot of players who will admit to never having beaten this one at all due to the lack of even a tiny slip-up that is allowed later on.
2 Five Nights At Freddy’s 4
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 4.18/5
Many fans will call Five Nights At Freddy’s 4 the very hardest game in the history of the franchise, and it was undoubtedly the hardest seen up to that point when it was released. Sound became a lot more important than it had ever been in this entry, and players had to learn a very specific formula for survival that, to be fair, stayed relatively similar throughout the nights.
13 Scariest Five Nights At Freddy's Animatronics
The Five Nights at Freddy's series is famous for its terrifying collection of animatronics. These monstrosities are the scariest of the bunch.
Unlike other games in the franchise, there was some level of challenge right from the start. Part of this came from the change in style, setting itself in a child’s bedroom instead of at one of Freddy’s franchise locations. The child that players take control of has to try and flash their light to keep away creatures, managing the breathing mechanic and engaging in challenges not seen before in the franchise, or since. FNAF 4 is truly one of a kind, even by the standards of this franchise.
1 Ultimate Custom Night
Game FAQ Difficulty Score: 4.61/5
The hardest Five Nights At Freddy’s game doesn’t actually come from one of the main entries in the franchise but an unusual spin-off. Many fans will know something about how the mechanics work with the animatronics attacks in the regular FNAF games, but in Ultimate Custom Night, players can create their own challenges featuring many of the franchise's terrifying horror villains.
For this reason, Ultimate Custom Night is both the easiest and the most difficult FNAF game ever. It gives players the choice to make an easy or near-impossible challenge, and beating the most demanding difficulties available almost requires AI-like precision. Players and fans of the FNAF franchise are still finding new and intriguing ways to challenge themselves in Ultimate Custom Night to this day.
Every Five Nights At Freddy's Game, Ranked
No matter how one feels about the original game and its many sequels, it seems fair to say that FNaF has forever changed the indie horror genre.
