Since its launch way back in 2014, Five Nights at Freddy's has been a bit of a cultural icon. Now, with the launch of the Five Nights at Freddy's movie, a whole new wave of players are getting to the game. Unfortunately for those who are scared easily, it is much more creepy and punishing than the movie.
Giving the player a limited amount of power, a handful of cameras to look over, and murderous animatronics to keep in check, you have to carefully and efficiently use your deductive reasoning and quick wits to make it through the night. As the name implies, you have to last a mere five nights to finish the game entirely. It's not as easy as this seems.
You will need to learn how Freddy, Chica, Bonnie, and Foxy all move to get through it and you will need more than a little luck. If you are struggling to beat the game, here are the top Five Nights at Freddy's tips we could find.
1. Keep the doors open
Regardless of if you're playing this as an iPhone game or a Nintendo Switch game, these rules are the same. The doors are the largest waste of power in the entire game. Sure you could keep them closed at all times to ward off enemies but that'd defeat the purpose of the game. Not to mention, doing so will barely get you through an hour before you completely run out of power.
Instead, keep the doors open at all times until you actually hear a character approaching or see one in the doorway. Then slam them shut and leave them shut until they disappear.
2. Use lights sparingly and only under attack
Five Nights at Freddy's is immensely reliant on auditory cues. If you run around checking cameras and flipping on lights when you don't need to, you'll never have enough power to get through the night. Instead, when you think you hear something approaching, quickly tap the lights on and off to check the doorways.
On the right side door, you can sometimes see something approaching in the shadows before it gets to the doorway. This means you can bypass using the lights altogether and just shut the door.
3. Learn how all your enemies move
Enemies move differently at Freddy's. Learning early on how they move will get you further, and faster. Here's how I've found all four enemies to move throughout the night, with the exception of night five, where it appears all bets are off.
- Freddy - The titular bear with the top hat. Freddy is harder to predict and frequently makes cameras go dark. This is a good indication Freddy is lurking. Watching him seems to make him advance slower, so keep an eye on him and remember he typically moves throughout the whole camera circuit before attacking. But remember, he can break through doors, so slowing him down in the final hours of the night is key.
- Bonnie - It looks like a purple rabbit and always appears in the left-hand doorway but moves randomly in the cameras. Flick the left side light on and off if you feel Bonnie is moving, just to make sure they aren't in the doorway already.
- Chica - As you'd expect, this is the yellow bird. It moves purposefully and quickly towards the player, and always appears in the right-side door. If you see Chica on a right-side camera approaching you, they'll soon be in the doorway so prepare to close it!
- Foxy - The fox that mainly stays in Pirate Cove in Camera 1C but doesn't like to be watched often. When you hear running on the left side, Foxy is attacking. Slam down the left door. You may also sporadically see signs in camera 1C that say "IT'S ME!" and if you see this, immediately slam the left door down.
4. Watch for glowing eyes
As previously stated, Freddy is hard to see on the cameras. One indicator that he's in a specific room is if you see glowing eyes. There have been times I thought I was looking at a completely empty camera but caught a pair of glowing eyes, which happened to be Freddy.
Just be sure to keep an eye on Freddy as he moves through cameras as it'll slow down his advance.
5. Headphones make audio cues much more obvious
Five Nights at Freddy's is chock full of auditory information. Being able to hear footsteps specifically approaching from the left or right separately is super important. And when you hear running or other sounds, you'll quickly become acquainted with who is attacking and from where.
Through your iPhone or iPad's built-in speakers, it's sometimes impossible to decipher where a character is moving to, in turn making cameras harder to monitor. And as you can probably guess, that means you use more power. So in short, use headphones whenever possible.
6. Listen before looking
Again, auditory cues are key. It's also why headphones make a huge difference. You can hear the feedback coming from both left and right channels separately which tells you exactly what side you are facing an attack from. This makes it much easier to conserve power when you aren't guessing what door to slam down.
7. Quick, short looks are key
With the exception of when you're tracking Freddy, short and quick looks are almost always best. You want to curb your power usage as much as possible. In most situations, you'll be able to see where characters are at with short looks. Spend most of your time listening and only part of your time looking. I'd say an 80/20 rule would make a good guideline.
8. Don't waste power until an animal makes the first move
At the very beginning of the night, all the animals are located in camera 1A. Quickly take glances at them here and there in order to see when an animal makes their first move. In other words, when one disappears. That's the point when you need to start checking the other cameras. Just be sure to also keep an eye on Foxy in Pirate's Cove periodically. And more importantly, make sure you're listening for attacks more than you are watching.
9. Customize each robot's A.I. Level to make things easier (or harder)
If you're finding Five Nights at Freddy's too challenging or not challenging enough, you can change the difficulty settings of each of the four robots. To do this, go to Custom Night in the main menu. Then move the A.I. Level for each robot up or down.
- Levels 0-2: Makes the robots slower and the game much easier to play.
- Levels 3-6: Increases the mobility of the robots, but is still considered a medium playthrough.
- Levels 7-12: Makes the anamatronics move around a whole lot more and provides a challenging game.
- Levels 13-20: Get ready to get attacked by each of these characters regularly. This is only something to be attempted if you want no peace all night long.
10. Turn the Cheats on
The Nintendo Switch version allows you to select Cheats in the main menu. With these, you can choose whether or not to have Unlimited Power, Fast Nights, or Radar Map turned on.
- Unlimited Power: You never run out of power so you can keep those lights on or those doors closed all night long. This makes the game a synch to play.
- Fast Nights: The hours tick by twice as fast every night so you don't have to spend as much time watching those cameras, listening for creepy noises, and slamming your doors.
- Radar Map: Makes an image of each robot appear on the map so you know exactly where they are at all times.
Survive the nights
This game might be several years old, but it's managed to stay an important game in the horror genre all this time. Each animatronic has its own quirks to watch out for and if you really do conserve your energy you'll make it a lot farther.
With these tips, tricks, and secrets you'll be able to make it through each night without getting killed by evil animatronic robots. Good night and good luck to you!
