Five Nights at Freddy's Plus

Five Nights at Freddy's Plus is an allegedly cancelled reimagining of the point-and-click game Five Nights at Freddy’s, originally created by Scott Cawthon. The remake was officially endorsed as a part of The Fazbear Fanverse Initiative^[1], and was originally developed by Phisnom. Its status will remain uncertain until there is an official statement about whether the game is canceled or not.

In Five Nights at Freddy's Plus, a security guard takes the night shift at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a decrepit children's pizzeria with animatronic mascots who roam the halls at night. As the security guard, it’s the player's job to keep the animatronics at bay within the safety of the Security Office.

Development[]

Originally, Phisnom created a remake of the Five Nights at Freddy's game created by Scott Cawthon.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 known as Five Nights at Freddy's 2: Open Source (later renamed to Another FNaF Fangame: Open Source), as practice for learning a new game engine. Since the game wasn't a transformative remake of the original game, Scott Cawthon soon took the game down. However, he was intrigued with the project and contacted Phisnom about a Five Nights at Freddy's remake^[2].

A remake of the original Five Nights at Freddy's was first revealed alongside the Fazbear Fanverse Initiative on August 21st, 2020. As one of the games in the initiative, the game will be getting official ports to mobile devices and consoles in the future. The official name of the game was finally revealed on August 28th as Five Nights at Freddy's Plus, alongside a teaser on the official X account^[3]. The image teased the new design for Freddy Fazbear, and mirrors key art of the original Five Nights at Freddy's^[4].

On September 12th, 2020, the first teaser video for the game was revealed^[5] called Connection Error. It features Bonnie inside the Dining Area, approaching the camera and causing the eponymous connection error.

On October 31st, 2020, another teaser was released in celebration for Halloween^[6]. This teaser featured three images of the new Freddy design, a hallway with a Freddy poster, and what appears to be a back room.

On January 19th, 2021, several new teasers for the game were posted to X, YouTube, and Streamable. The first of these teasers, Routine Check, featured a recording of Freddy Fazbear going through his scripted animations on stage, before the video glitches out after "005 - FRIENDLY LAUGH" with a black screen and Freddy's ominous laughter. The second, Quiet Hours, is a video recorded from the perspective of somebody looking up onto the band of animatronics. The third, Stage Performance, is of a stage performance with Chica as the lead singer. As Chica sings, the video abruptly corrupts as her singing slows and the lights grow dimmer. As she repeats the phrase "Follow me", her voice grows more corrupted as the curtains draw and children are heard screaming in the background. The video ends on a black screen with a distorted version of the music playing in the background. A secret fourth video, Night Mode was discovered when glitched text was found throughout the last three videos and turned into a YouTube URL. This video is from the perspective of Foxy attempting to escape the pizzeria during the night while imagery flashes violently on the screen. It was released publicly on Janurary 20th^[7] after being discovered.

Bonus Bobbleheads — The first of the images, showing plastic figurines of the core three animatronics.

Due to the positive reception of the new teaser videos^[8], Phisnom released four bonus images on the FNaF Plus X account on January 23rd, 2021. They included an image of plastic toys of the core three animatronics, another image of these characters as plushies, an image of the Office with the "CELEBRATE" poster, and an image of a pair of clocks with the bigger of the pair saying "Fregdrick's Tools & Timepieces" on it.

On May 31st, 2021, an animated GIF of CAM 10 was put up on X.

On August 2nd, 2021, Breaking + Entering was teased^[9]. It is the last^[10] teaser video short that premiered on August 8th, 2021, which is the anniversary of the original Five Nights at Freddy's. After the premiere, bonus images were released onto the X account^[11]. Hidden somewhere within the Breaking + Entering teaser video is one last bonus video, Help Wanted. This teaser video was released publicly on August 11th^[12]

Foxy the Pirate — The final teaser image before the game's release, a full body shot of Foxy.

For the St. Jude 24 Hour Charity Stream, the FNaF Plus X account revealed their final image, being a full body shot of Foxy.

From February 4th, 2022 onward, Phisnom held a continuously updating Q&A for the game. On March 14th, 2022, a mock-up for the UI was put up on Phisnom's X account.

On June 5th, 2022, Phisnom revealed progress on Five Nights at Freddy's Plus which he had been working on, seeing the first ever reveal of gameplay. The Q&A also updated to reflect the current status of the game's development, revealing that the graphics and general gameplay had been implemented, and the animatronic A.I. was next on the agenda.

On August 12th, 2022, the official Steam page for Five Nights at Freddy's Plus was revealed, with a brand new teaser video and in-game screenshots.

On October 31st, 2022, an image in celebration of Halloween was posted. Brightening up the image will reveal Freddy standing ominously in the background.

On December 17th, 2022, popular Five Nights at Freddy's-centric YouTuber Dawko was sent a joke demo of the game by Phisnom personally^[13], revealing the game's title screen for the first time. The gameplay however was excluded, instead portraying a Christmas tree made up of the player avatars from Among Us with Freddy heads doing the same movement as the character from Open Season to a festive tune.

On December 29, 2022, Phisnom posted something new on the FNAF Plus X account as all the goals were met in the Security Breach donation stream made by Phisnom.

The first of these are the FNAF Plus version of the Iconic Celebrate Poster, the Fregdrick's Tools and Timepieces poster, the FNAF Plus version of Helpy (top right says 2000t, probably 2000 tokens but not sure) and Scott's Chipper and Sons who inspired FNAF. Lumber Co. Lumber Bites poster that references the game.
In part 2 we get posters of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy. (Note: Freddy's poster is in the same position as the Let's Party Freddy poster from FNAF 1, and Foxy's poster shows Foxy before being decommissioned)
And finally, in the third part, there is the link of the Troll Demo that Phisnom sent to Dawko.

On July 4, 2023, Kane Carter (producer of the POPGOES series) on both his X and Gamejolt accounts reads "commence gaming..." and "it's mid" with the caption "Download complete, Five Nights at Freddy's Plus Your game is ready to play" on Steam shared an image. This makes it possible that Phisnom finished the game and sent Kane a real demo of the game, as evidenced by the fact that FNAF Plus is in Kane's Steam playing history. Though it was later confirmed on August 4th that this post was actually a troll. Thanks to Popgoes Arcade, they get automatic early access to the games they publish due to their partnership with Clickteam.

On August 3, 2023, on FNAF Plus's steam page, Phisnom was removed from the developer section, and Phisnom was banned from the page's discussion forum. It is presumed that some misbehavior by Phisnom caused this.

On August 4, 2023, Phisnom announced in a YouTube video that he was taking a long hiatus from producing public content, that he was no longer developing FNAF Plus, and that he would no longer be able to answer questions about FNAF Plus as his contract was terminated.

As of August 5th, 2023, Five Nights at Freddy's Plus has been officially removed from the Steam Store. No official source has confirmed its cancellation, however, leaving the fate of Five Nights at Freddy's Plus uncertain.

On November 10, 2023, all videos and posts of FNAF Plus were made private on both X and Youtube channels. This further strengthens the theories that the game has been canceled completely.

Reception[]

Before the game's release, the reimagining was met with respect and excitement by the general Five Nights at Freddy's community. The reception to the first teaser trailer on Reddit^[14] was generally positive commending the game for its use of more subtle horror. However with the teaser displaying Freddy Fazbear's new design in full, the reaction was a lot more mixed with many saying that Freddy's new design takes away some of the charm of Freddy's classic design.

Following the release of the teaser videos on January 19, 2021, fan reception became far warmer, with praise directed at its unsettling horror elements and the designs of the other animatronics, such as Bonnie and The Puppet, although opinions were again mixed over whether or not the designs are too scary to work in a real-life pizzeria.

Trivia[]

The teasers for Five Nights at Freddy's Plus are unique compared to Scott Cawthon's original games, where they take the form of videos as opposed to images. These teasers appear to pull inspiration from the FNaF VHS phenomenon, popularised by YouTube creator Squimpus McGrimpus.
Before the name "Five Nights at Freddy's Plus" was chosen, subtitles such as "1.5", "REC" or "RED" were considered. None of these were chosen because they implied the game was a spin-off, or was set between Five Nights at Freddy's 2 and the original.^[15]
Phisnom indirectly confirmed that he wouldn’t be making a sequel to Five Nights at Freddy's Plus in his thoughts about the latest entry in the Five Nights at Freddy's series, Security Breach^[16]. This stems from a drain of passion in the franchise's current direction, and the lack of drive to make any more Five Nights at Freddy's fangames.
This is the only title in The Fazbear Fanverse that isn't a new installment of an existing FNaF fan-game series.
Due to the said reason, it is also the only title that doesn't have any other titles in the same series featured in a bundle.
An exception is The Joy of Creation: Ignited Collection. However, the said game itself is a collection of remakes of previous titles in the series.
This title alongside The Joy of Creation: Ignited Collection are the only titles in The Fazbear Fanverse that have no free download version on Game Jolt.