07/29/2026 Sacrificing Legacy on the Altar of Lore by Besu Tadesse

Sacrificing Legacy on the Altar of Lore

by Besu Tadesse

In an interview with Dawko released August 2024 on YouTube, Scott Cawthon discussed his process of creating one of the all-time phenomena in gaming, Five Nights at Freddy’s. To summarize, he discussed some of the things that he did well and how other parts fell apart. He recalls his time working on FNAF: Security Breach and how he gave the developers, Steel Wool Studios, a set of items to be placed in different areas without giving the studio the full plot. This essentially removed the context and, as a result, confounded the FNAF community with its placement in the canon that has been so revered. As time went on, shifts in the story were needed to explain other parts, which then led to requiring other changes. The FNAF community still has its dedicated theorists to parse what it can all mean, but I find the entire exercise to be, at best, exhausting.

Story has always had an interesting place in gaming as an art form. Some of the most iconic games had very thin stories. The original Super Mario Bros. was a save-the-princess game, with its more notable elements being the character and enemy design. Sonic the Hedgehog: save the animals and defeat the bad guy, then focus on the details of Sonic, the enemies, and later the ever-widening cast of characters. Missile Command: survive as long as you can from a nameless enemy force that relentlessly bombs your cities and military positions. The original Pac-Man has no story at all, only an objective (eat the pills and survive the ghosts). Tetris is noteworthy in that it has no story and no ending objective at all; just keep clearing blocks until you inevitably crash the game. Yet the legacies of these games remain as relevant as ever.

Horror gaming, on the other hand, has required a bit more. It’s not enough to play the game; the horror elements only work if you are truly immersed. So, while the story concept itself doesn’t have to be so involved, it does need enough gravity to pull you into its world. It can have randomization with its jump scares, like the classic Friday the 13th camp game, or it can give you a high concept with a labyrinthine map, a constrained or claustrophobic environment, and off-kilter camera angles like the early Resident Evil games. It can even give you a lot of power but overwhelm the senses with too much action and environmental elements, like Dead Space. But horror is not a game mechanic; it’s a storytelling genre that demands its tropes.

But as the games turned into long-running series, they have been increasingly leaning on their connections to lore. Now, there is such a strong desire to make everything tie back to everything else that developers are tripping over their own feet. Poppy Playtime makes sense; each game is marketed and delivered as one chapter in a broader six-game (or more) story. The Dark Pictures and Fears to Fathom are anthology series, with each story having a unique tale, all connected by broader game mechanics and atmosphere. You don’t know how the stories necessarily connect (or even if they do), but once you’ve played one, you have expectations on how to play the next. Neither series asks much of its players, only to accept that one game and consider the next one.

FNAF, however, seems to find itself in a pickle. Famously, the first FNAF game was supposed to be a last hurrah for Cawthon, a culmination of years of game development that petered out after people noted the general creepiness of their design. He leaned into that criticism and his own sensibility to change the face of the gaming landscape. But baked into the DNA of that series was the fact that, as with other games, it had a simple and cryptic story. Kids were killed at the now-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, the animatronics that once performed at the aforementioned location are possessed and coming for you, and there’s nothing you can do to escape. You’re armed only with a few devices that drain the pizzeria’s power supply, but you need to use them to observe their locations and shut the doors when they’re close.

Resource management and environment manipulation, a mechanic later referred to as “sit-and-survive”. It’s brilliant, and its legacy is left in other games. But the demand for larger, more ambitious games has strayed from that, and trying to expand its early lore into future games has made its community add elements that were not always planned. Creators and theorists bring out the next contrary theories. It has made for a strong and dedicated fanbase that continues to believe there is a deeper story. But it has been putting me off for a long time. My favorite of the franchise in recent years has been FNAF: Into the Pit, a self-contained story that uses its 16-bit graphical style, smooth gameplay, and over-the-top premise that makes it as fun and engaging as it is isolating and creepy. I think the

In that same interview with Dawko, Cawthon reflects on how he is not as in-touch with the fanbase as he used to be, given how much bigger the franchise has become. I think we can see that in the output and especially in how the story of the games has unfolded. There are several short story collections with questionable canon but do provide more explanation on how the FNAF universe operates, and there are currently two major motion pictures released. While both movies were panned by critics and loved by audiences, both groups generally rated the second movie lower. I think this reflects a new model for game franchises and the pains of their ballooning influence, a legacy that tries to please its most ardent fans with interconnecting mysteries that don’t appear to lock any part of its story down.

I still love the FNAF series, but I would recommend not taking the story as seriously anymore. You can’t build on a foundation of ever-shifting lore. Put some poles down and create something sturdier. The fans deserve that.

About Besu Tadesse

An author based in Maryland, Besu Tadesse loves to write horror and speculative fiction. He has published two books – The Ghosts of Poplar Valley, a paranormal horror novella about our history’s echoes into the present, and Broken Persons, a short story collection that deals with broad themes of grief, trauma, and speculation on the future.

His short stories have been included in several works, including Devour the Rich!, Arsenic and Grandma’s Refrigerator: Horror Told in Colours, Dark and Dreary: A Basement Horror Anthology, A Chronicle of Horrors: An Anthology, Recipes for Newlyweds: Stories of Marital Bliss, With Teeth: A Dark Fiction Anthology, and several upcoming projects. He also works as a gaming writer and reviewer for Calcopia and Uncomfortably Dark.

You can find him on all social media platforms under the handle @stickybearartist.

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