Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit Review

Another Five Nights at Freddy's title has come out!  Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit is the latest in the long line of FNAF games, and this one offers a brand new look at the ever-expanding story. Into the Pit is a story from one of the Fazbear Frights tales from the books Scott Cawthon, the designer of the original games, has been releasing over the past few years.

With the mixed reviews of Five Nights at Freddy's Security Breach, the FNAF series really needed a win. The move to a 2D art style left less room for the bugs that had plagued the Security Breach release, and hopefully, it will give a chance to focus on the story that Scott clearly has a passion for building.

 

In Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit, you play Oswald, a young boy in the 90s whose dad works long hours after his job at the local mill was terminated upon its closing down. Oswald stays at the local pizzeria, Jeff's Pizza, during the day, so he isn't home alone. This location allows many to be pulled directly from the original book, such as Oswald craving a cheese slice and an orange soda.

While at the pizzeria, Oswald grows bored and plans to teach his dad a lesson for picking him up late, hiding in the abandoned ball pit, and planning to jump out and make him worry. However, when he emerges from the pit, Oswald finds that he has been transported back in time. There are a series of context clues, alluding to films about busting ghosts or going back in time, which clue you into when you are playing, but if you miss these, you soon find a calendar open to the month and year of June 1985. If you are someone who knows every detail about the FNAF universe, this is going to ring a bell as a very significant date.

The pizzeria is thriving at this time, going by the name Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. While here, you meet 2 boys, one of which is called Mike, again a familiar name in the FNAF series. You play hide and seek with your new friends, hiding in the abandoned suit of a Golden Freddy. While in this suit, you are forced into a first-person view and see an animalistic creature move in front of you, looking into the suit you are hiding in. Whoever this is, they are in a yellow bunny suit, and when you finally leave your hiding place, the whole building is in chaos, with all the children fleeing the building and your new friends nowhere to be found.

For those caught up on the Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pitlore, either from the book or an in-depth knowledge of the series as a whole, you will know this is the missing children's incident and the yellow rabbit moving around the pizzeria is Springtrap. However, there is some debate online about his name in this context, as he can move through the ball pit. For simplicity, Pit Trap or Pit Bonny will be the names used in this review (although feel free to let me know in the comments if you have a different name!).

 

If you investigate what everyone is running away from, you will see a smiling rabbit luring you into a back room. If you follow him, you will be met by the haunting image of Pit Trap standing over the dead bodies of multiple children before he lunges at you, and you have to run away back to the ballpit. Once here, you appear free and back in your dad's safe arms. That is until Pit Trap leaps from the ballpit and pulls your dad into it. When he emerges, he has glowing, possessed eyes and appears to have been replaced by Pit Trap.

It is from here that the Five Nights start. Each night, you must escape your house as Pit Trap, as your dad, roams around. Once out of the house, you can go to a variety of locations, although you have to visit the pizzeria every night to enter the pit. These locations can be used to pick up collectables and unlock certain arcade cabinets and endings as you progress. Each night, there is a different objective: a new child to save from Pit Trap and finding a way to save your dad from the past.

Most Five Nights at Freddy's games have a strict structure they follow, with the player acting as the security guard, the mold only breaking with the more recent games with the protagonist taking on the role of a victim of Freddy's. Rather than sitting in a security office and trying to survive the night, this entry to the FNAF series brings a 2D world for you to explore. The last game in the series to attempt to have a full world to explore was Five Nights at Freddy's Security Breach, which is considered by many to be one of the worst additions to the series. Into the Pit, however, seems to have turned this curse around.

Moving around the game has simple controls while exploring; you can move around, sprint, unlock and open doors, and hide in various places. Pit Bonny will often spring out of a door and start pursuing Oswald, chasing him around the pizzeria, meaning you have to hide. He is drawn to the sound, and as you navigate the area, you have a meter in the corner telling you how much noise you are making. Walking is the quietest way to navigate, with sprinting being much louder and causing you to trip if you pass certain objects on the floor or run for too long.

 

Most of the game is about escaping from Pit Trap, a stalker enemy in both the pizzeria in the past and the present at home, where he possesses Oswald's dad. He moves around the area he is in, attracted to the noises you make, and when he finds you, you have to run as fast as you can into the next room and find a hiding space. In the pizzeria, there are also other animatronics, a new one coming to life each night and helping Pit Trap catch Oswald. Pit Trap is the only animatronic that can kill you outright (that I have found; remember, this is an FNAF game, and there is always more to find).

The other animatronics that wake up can do different things, such as call Pit Trap or hold you in place until he gets to you. Chica is a huge noise maker. She will stand in place and scream while you run away, and Pit Trap will be drawn to the noise. Bonnie will hide in one of the places Oswald often tries to hide and jump out to grab you. This is probably one of the biggest jump scares in the game. Bonnie can be seen in his hiding spots, but it is hard to see him until it is too late.

There are also minigames throughout the whole game. Some of these are unavoidable, such as the ones that pop up as you try to stay hidden, and others you have to discover yourself or are near impossible to find. There are also some arcade cabinets that can be fixed and used to unlock tickets from the machines. These are very helpful if you are on the hunt for some of the secret endings.

In addition to the minigames when hiding, there are also some quick-time events that can interrupt the cutscenes. These are fairly forgiving, which is very good as you are not expecting them at all most of the time. They pop up in the cutscenes and when hiding, which can be surprising.

 

Like many horror games lately, and the FNAF games recently, Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit has multiple endings. Major spoilers for these endings ahead. If you play through the game just once, without worrying about collectables, and you hit the final QTEs in the cutscene that plays, you will reach the 1-star end. In this ending, after escaping the pit, Pit Trap follows you through and grabs Oswald, killing him.

If you don't get the final cutscene QTE, you will be grabbed by Pit Trap, and the screen will fade to black. Oswald will then wake up on the stage where the animatronics once stood. Each animatronics blocks a door, smiles, and waves at Oswald as he walks to where Pit Trap is standing. As Oswald asks what is happening, his name becomes "???" in his text block. It is implied that Oswald has become one of the missing children and has been stuffed into a suit. He is probably Foxy, as he is the only one not there, and Oswald is standing by Pirates Cove.

Another ending is to simply leave while trapped in the past. It is assumed that Oswald is then lost in time and simply lives as a lost child on the streets in 1985. The other 2 endings require collecting every collectible in the game, unlocking every arcade cabinet, and completing all the hidden minigames. It takes a while, but it will probably be worth it if you are a fan of FNAF lore.

The atmosphere of  Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit is fantastic. The locations are creepy, and the jump between the desolate present and the full past is amazing. The lighting changes between the two are amazing, and the way the past can switch from full of life to full of terror is amazing. There are also constant figures that look like Pit Trap. There is a pile of balloons, a broken Freddy unit, and cardboard cut out. Every time you run into one of these rooms, you will think you have run into Pit Trap. Every single time. It is terrifying.

 

While playing any of the FNAF games, you will notice the horrible wine that plays when you boot up the game. It is unnerving, a mixture of human gurgles and electronic wiring. This sound can be heard in  Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit, both at the pizzeria while you are being stalked around the home by Oswald's possessed dad. There are also a lot of children screaming throughout the game. A FNAF game will be a FNAF game, and all of them are suitably horrifying.

The story of Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit is self-contained; if you are an avid FNAF theorist, there is plenty to find in the game, but the simple story told is great and fulfilling without a huge breadth of wider knowledge. The gameplay facilitates this story perfectly; the tension is built as the nights get harder, and the chilling atmosphere is great. There is a lot of backtracking, as is the case with many horror games, although this is an opportunity for more scares, so it is a pro or con based on preference alone. Overall, it was a fun time and a really fun addition to the FNAF roster.
 

Mariella Deadman (@MariellaDead)
Editor, NoobFeed