10 years ago, a little horror game terrified a generation — and changed gaming forever

Symbiotes have a bad rap. For those who first think of Venom, Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis made famous by the incomparable Tom Hardy, it’s understandable that symbiosis conjures up images of a harmful or dangerous relationship. In reality, most symbiotes exist precisely because they’re a good opportunity for everyone. The billions of bacteria in your gut breaking down that slice of pizza is a perfect example, or maybe an oxpecker bird pulling and eating ticks from a hippo’s body is more your style. But symbiotic relationships aren’t limited to nature. Our media landscape is full of them, too. And 10 years ago, an iconic video game series took off because it found the perfect host to find an audience.

Five Nights at Freddy’s Released on August 8, 2014 as a low-budget independent survival horror game from a one-man studio. Developer Scott Cawthon created the perfect horror concept. Players take on the role of a lone night security guard who must survive five nights in a haunted Chuck E. Cheese-style children’s restaurant called Freddy Fazzbear’s Pizza. Players are stuck in a single room, monitoring cameras and various remote-controlled doors. The evil robots will not move if someone is watching them, forcing players to go back and forth to different channels to try to keep the robots at bay until morning. The gameplay is fueled by tons of jumpscares, a gimmick that proved essential to FNaF’Its success is thanks to an army of YouTubers who discovered the game and made it a huge hit with Gen Z audiences.

History of the creation FNaF is as unlikely as the game’s success. Scott Cawthon is a devout Christian who spent his early years in the games industry trying to create family-friendly titles, with limited success. One such game, Chipper and Sons Timber Company was widely panned by critics. The art style was the subject of the most hatred, with some comparing Cawthon’s cheerful creatures to terrifying animatronics. Cawthon took this to heart and, undoubtedly after serious reflection on his values, decided to stick with the look and Freddy Fazzbear was soon born.

Working as a one-man studio, Cawthon didn’t have access to a ton of resources. He built the game engine using Clickteam Fusion, a relatively unknown development toolkit, and approached his ambitions humbly. Confining players to a room with just a few switches to interact with meant the game had to be driven by atmosphere and story. As a result of these constraints, Cawthon transformed jumpscares from one of the oldest and least popular game mechanics into a genre-defining feature that remains popular to this day. How did he accomplish this feat? With a little help from the Let’s Play streaming boom.

Let’s players like Markiplier, PewDiePie, and Jacksepticeye have created content showcasing their reactions to the game’s intense jump scares and incredible atmosphere. Markiplier, in particular, has dubbed himself the “King of Five Nights at Freddy’s” and has amassed millions of views on his FNaF videos. His enthusiastic and often horrified reactions resonated with his Gen Z audience. One of his earliest FNaF videos, WARNING: THE SCARNIEST GAME IN YEARS, currently has 120 million views.

The horror and mystery elements of FNaF were particularly well-suited to the Let’s Play format. Anyone with a younger sibling will have experienced being asked to play games that were too difficult or too scary, and the Let’s Play format allows viewers to experience the game vicariously through their favorite characters—a way to play the game that also takes some of the edge off. The game’s design, with its tension-building mechanics and unpredictable animatronic attacks, provided plenty of material for fun and suspenseful content.

A rabid fandom emerged, and the game’s story sparked extensive theories and speculation among fans and content creators. Channels like The Game Theorists, led by MatPat, provided in-depth analysis and theories about the game’s story, characters, and hidden secrets. These videos not only kept existing fans engaged, but also attracted new players intrigued by the narrative.

The relationship between FNaF and YouTubers created a feedback loop: YouTubers brought visibility and excitement to the game, which in turn led more people to play and talk about it, generating more and more content. This exposure contributed significantly to the series’ viral success and cultural impact, elevating it from a niche indie horror game to the mainstream.

Cawthon was quick to capitalize on the popularity. Because he was adept at quickly creating simple games, FNaF became a franchise seemingly overnight. Within a year, he had Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 in November 2014 Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 in March 2015 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 in July 2015

To date, there have been a total of 18 main and spin-off games, not to mention novels, a major feature film, and merchandise warehouses. Like any good symbiont, Cawthon FNaF the franchise has also helped dozens of streamers build massive fan bases and become full-time superstars. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t pull off a cute cartoon beaver.