Good news, Five Nights At Freddy's fans: the latest game in the popular series, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, is coming out soon - Oct. 7 to be precise. However, there is some bad news: it might be delayed - what's more, it might be for the most ridiculous reason: it might be too scary.
On Tuesday, Oct. 4, series creator Scott Cawthon took to Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location's community page on Steam to announce the possible delay.
"Hey guys, I wanted to post an announcement that this game might be postponed, and I'm not really sure when it would be released," he announced. "There are certain plot elements that are very dark, to the point where I sometimes feel sick. There would be no easy fix to this. I either release it Friday as it is, or I delay it by several months to completely rework the plot into something kid-friendly ... I'm unsure what I'm going to do. As always, thanks for your support."
At the very least, Cawthon did announce the game could be delayed, so credit should be given where it's due. However, his reasoning behind that delay might actually be the most ridiculous thing ever considering that Five Nights At Freddy's is a horror series.
Five Nights At Freddy's debuted in 2014 on Steam, receiving critical acclaim almost instantaneously. Part of what made the game such a success was how it took the most kid-friendly place, an entertainment center called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, and turned it into pure nightmare fuel.
The premise was simple: you play as a night security guard who must look after the restaurant when it closes. Unfortunately for the player, the night makes the animatronic robots kind of screwy, and if they happen to find any humans on the premises while they wander around during that time, they'll "stuff" him/her into an animatronic robot - killing the player in the process.
The other reason why this game was such a hit was that the player had no real means to defend him/herself. Throughout the five nights that the game takes place (hence the name), the player is confined to a single room where s/he must utilize security cameras to locate the roaming robots, as well as lights and security doors to "protect" themselves. However, the lights and security doors both use a shared source of electricity and can run out if mismanaged. In the chance that happens, the robots will enter the room the player is stuck in and it's game over.
If that doesn't read like a horror game, then what genre is it?
However, there might be more to this announcement than meets the eye. From a certain standpoint, it's easy to write this off as a publicity stunt - the original game and its three successors continue to be held in high regard, but it has been quite some time since the series saw a new release (the last one came in July 2015). So perhaps this is merely a "remember me" type of announcement to get the hype train out of the station.
On the other hand, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location could actually be too scary too handle and this possible delay might actually be necessary. In the end, we'll have to wait until Friday to find out.
[Oct. 7 update: The game is not delayed, after all. View Cawthon's announcement here.]
