Five Nights at Freddy‘s recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with an 8-day spree of releases, including collaborations, intentional script leaks for the 2023 movie’s sequel, and a whole new adventure stealth game, which we had the pleasure to check out.
Developed by Mega Cat Studios, Five Night’s at Freddy’s: Into the Pit is a celebration of the multimedia franchise’s spin-off books, the Fazbear Frights series, which serve as supplemental lore and world-building material for the overall FNAF canon.
So, how does this spin-off title stack up against the mainline entries in the FNAF series? Does it deliver in the horror department? Take a trip to the past and find out in our full review for Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit.
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit
Developer: Mega Cat Studios
Publisher: Mega Cat Studios
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows (Reviewed)
Release Date: August 7, 2024
Players: 1
Price: $19.99
Into the Pit follows the story of Oswald, a boy who lives in a small town that is on the verge of being abandoned due to the local mill closing. Oswald’s parents are still employed but their financial situation is shaky, so instead of hiring a sitter they opt for dropping him off at a local pizza place during work hours.
During one of those visits, Oswald decides to explore the mostly empty restaurant, eventually stumbling upon a ball pit which seemingly transports him to the past upon entering. The run-down pizza place is suddenly at its prime, filled with other kids and even robotic performers, as well as an evil presence that lurks around every corner.
Oswald is ecstatic to make new friends and play around with kids his age, but his fun is cut short by a man in a yellow rabbit suit, who crashes the party and terrifies everyone. Oswald tries to escape back to the present through the ball pit, but his life takes a turn for the worst, as the yellow rabbit switches places with his father, seemingly possessing him.
Spring Bonnie, or simply known in the game as the Yellow Rabbit, is the main antagonist of Into the Pit, and absolutely steals the show. William Afton is built as an unhinged psychopath in the Five Nights at Freddy’s games, and Into the Pit‘s portrayal of him as an entity that has the power to take over someone’s life and create a living nightmare is a new peak for the character.
Spring Bonnie takes over Oswald’s life by infiltrating into his family wearing the visage of his father, creating this game of cat and mouse as every day becomes an unsettling reminder that a stranger is within his walls. Each night is a struggle as Oswald attempts to rescue his father alongside the other kids in the past, while he is relentlessly stalked by his increasingly cruel tormentor.
Oswald’s days at school go from bad to terrifying, as he now spends all of his time dreading having to go back to the pizzaria at night, having panic attacks involving the Yellow Rabbit and the other animatronics he attempts to evade every night.
Into the Pit‘s spritework is possibly its strongest asset, as it adapts the franchise’s iconic animatronic/suit designs into a pixel art style effortlessly. Spring Bonnie’s movements are incredibly unsettling as he patrols around or chases the player, but the most impressive artwork is found in the game’s cutscenes.
Into the Pit manages to blend its more cinematic moments alongside chases and regular gameplay quite well, and the sheer amount of contextual animations that Spring Bonnie has shows just how much work went into designing him as more than a generic chaser enemy.
Most hiding spots feature an adaptative point of view that changes depending on how close you are to getting caught, which adds a lot of tension to the game. The fact that there are so many different animations for each hiding spot is very impressive, and helps keep the stealth gameplay fresh.
Into the Pit‘s artistic adaptation of the Five Nights at Freddy‘s animatronics is quite good, but they aren’t all made the same when it comes to gameplay. Chica, Freddy, and regular Bonnie all look fantastic, but you interact with them on varying degrees throughout the game.
Chica starts roaming around early into the game, and while she doesn’t catch or chase the player, she does make noise alerting Spring Bonnie to your location. Bonnie joins in a little more than halfway through the game, hiding under tables waiting to stun the player mid-chase, while Freddy joins near the end, blocking certain doorways.
Chica is way more active than the other animatronics, and ends up becoming more of an annoyance due to how she tends to linger around rooms for too long, forcing the player to make noise elsewhere. Bonnie can be easily avoided as long as the lights are on, while Freddy almost never shows up during normal or lower difficulties.
While Freddy only has a 4.5% catch rate, according to Steam’s achievements, Spring Bonnie seems to inflate his with a few cheap tricks, which can get a bit annoying. The game is generally good about warning you as to where the animatronics are, as they usually struggle with the door before entering, except for the southern room connections.
Every door in the game has a rattling animation that indicates someone is about to enter, but that’s not the case for the bottom entrances to certain places, which means that trying to exit as Spring Bonnie is entering a room can lead you to getting caught almost instantly. It’s not a super frequent problem, but it’s ultimately a cheap death that might happen enough times to be annoying.
Certain hiding spots are also a little finicky when it comes to displaying the enter prompt, which might also cause you to get caught a few times. These issues aren’t massive in the game’s normal mode and below, but the hardest difficulty, which features permadeath, might not be as fun to play in because of these small oversights.
The adventure game mechanics that Into the Pit possesses are very fitting with the FNAF franchise as a whole, as it allows for quite a few easter eggs, references to other Fazbear Frights books, hidden items, and secret mini-games.
One of the side activities present in the game is to find mechanical parts to fix the broken down arcade machines in the present pizzeria, which is required for the game’s good ending. These little side activities clash with the way that the game saves, as you can lose your progress on them if you get caught before a checkpoint, having to replay and recollect everything you did.
Some of the hidden mini-games have rough requirements, like interacting almost a hundred times with a certain item, so it’s safe to say that you should get the good ending requirements figured out and completed as soon as possible right before a checkpoint, otherwise you’ll have quite the chore in your hands, especially in the game’s harder difficulties.
Despite these very minor issues, Into the Pit is possibly one of the best modern Five Nights at Freddy‘s titles. The game feels like a celebration of the franchise as a whole, as seen through its genuine respect for the source material, and has a solid foundation that might even spawn a new era of spin-off games for the franchise.
Into the Pit‘s sound design and spritework are top notch, creating a tense and disturbing experience that gives one of FNAF‘s most iconic characters a chance to shine as this unrelenting threat. It is very fun to piece the game’s secrets together, and its story is gripping from beginning to end.
Into the Pit is a must-play for fans of the franchise, or horror fans in general. It is an overall approachable title for newcomers, but you should be at least passingly familiar with FNAF‘s lore to understand some of its deeper cuts and references.
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit was reviewed on Microsoft Windows using a game code provided by Mega Cat Studios. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows (through Steam).
