Despite the big-budget survival horror efforts of The Evil Within and the frankly sleep-inducing Alien: Isolation, the game that has been on everybody’s lips is Five Nights at Freddy’s, a humble solo-developed indie game. Recently, the apply named Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 was released less than two months after the first.

You’d think after what the original security guard from the first game witnessed, word would get around that Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a ‘family-friendly’ pizza joint populated with colourful mascots, might not be a great place to work. You’d think they’d probably struggle finding new security guards.

That apparently is not the case, as the protagonist of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is yet another unfortunate night-watchmen who has to sit in a security room watching the murderous mascots roam through the restaurant in the middle of the night, occasionally using various techniques to avoid their attacks as they draw near.

Whilst the format hasn’t changed whatsoever, the techniques available to the security guard are quite different. The player still has to keep an eye on the cameras and use light to watch out for aggressors, but keeping out the robots is no longer as simple as shutting the doors, as the doors have been taken away. It’s almost as if the powers that be want their security guards to be butchered.

Instead, when approached by the blood-thirsty mascots, the player has a fake Freddy Fazbear head they can wear, which fools the aggressors into leaving them alone. However, this only works for some of them. Others have to be warded off simply by periodically shining a light at them, or in the case of one particularly chap, by winding a music box.

I complained in my review of the original Five Nights at Freddy’s about the fact that the animatronic mascots just aren’t scary enough. The sequel tries to combat this by offering up a few new characters, and including the old antagonists but in a dilapidated state, but it still doesn’t tackle the issue.

The problem wasn’t just their appearance, it was the fact that the player never really sees them do anything. Most of the time when the mascots are on screen, whether they’re being observed through the cameras or literally in the room with the security guard, they just stand still, gormlessly staring at the player. When I did die (and incidentally, I died a lot more than in the original), I found myself laughing at the big, dopey eyes and cartoonish grins that suddenly appeared on screen accompanied by startling sounds.

To sap away the impact even further, I noticed when I did die that there were a few seconds in-between the moment I screwed up and the jump-scare announcing my defeat. That crucial few seconds was enough to prepare myself most of the time, meaning that I didn’t even jump.

Since my review of the original, I’ve come to the conclusion that Five Nights at Freddy’s was so popular because it distilled horror down to that single moment where something ‘scary’ happens on screen and the player reacts to it, and then it simply replicated it for a full game. If the game (or its sequel) scares you, I imagine it’d be a lot of fun.

However, if it doesn’t scare you, as is the case with me, there is literally nothing else to enjoy about it. The story basically involves a security guard employed to watch over a restaurant full of murderous robots, without ever explaining why a restaurant full of murderous robots needs a security guard, and the gameplay just involves keeping several different plates spinning.

There does seem to have been an effort to offer the player something new, as each night starts from the perspective of someone stuck in one of the suits, helpless and terrified at the other mascots become increasingly more aware of them, but these sections are short-lived and largely unnecessary.

I know it’s a cliché, but if you found yourself scared witless by the original and want more of the same thrill, then the sequel will deliver. Personally, I don’t understand the acclaim this toothless series has garnered so far, and the sequel just left me more perplexed. The sentiments I expressed for the first game still apply: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is a horror game for people who don’t play horror games.

 

3/10

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