*Static*
*Garbled voice and Screams*
*FNAF jump-scare noise*
*Phone rings*
MatPat: It's time.
*Intro. Song: SpellingPhailer - Science Blaster*
MatPat: Hello, Internet!
Welcome to Game Theory!
Where Good things, or at least FNAF things, come to those who wait.
And man! When it comes to this game series,
no one was waiting for anything.
I mean, the second game came out three months after the first.
The trailer for the third was two months later.
And like, four minutes after that the game was available to download.
So forgive me if I was caught with my pants down on that one.
I just wasn't prepared for it.
But even more impressive than that abbreviated timeline was your ability to rip that final game apart!
Hours after the release of the game, people were discussing good vs. bad endings,
8-Bit Atari cake,
glitching through walls,
and punching a FLIPPING code into CEMENT BRICKS arranged like a telephone dial-pad.
In regards to that last one, I have two things to say:
First off, well done to you guys for figuring it out so quickly.
And secondly: Scott, seriously?
Seriously Scott?
Oh look! Here's a wall, let me just dial in my phone number.
Beep boop-boop beep boop-boop!
WHAT!?
When did we jump from a point-click horror game to Magical Fantasy?
This thing is like Platform 9¾.
I expect Harry Effin' Potter to apparate into Pirate's Cove or something!
JEEZ!
Here I was, thinking that you'd plug your numbers into, hmmm, the one other place that you see numbers in this game!
The bonus jumpscare menu.
Or, something, ANYTHING!
But nope, dialing it into a wall makes SOOO much more sense...
*Sigh*
Okay. Sorry, just needed to get that one off my chest...
Moving on.
Now with 15 days
at Freddy's under our belts, and a few overtime hours clocked in for good measure.
We have ourselves a completed video game trilogy, with the third game giving us
more jump-scares, more Phone Guy, and more...
*In disgust* FAN.
But this game also contains the final clues
we need to get some closure on this game's deviously vague story.
Scotty C. certainly didn't make things any easier for us; but, at this point,
I think we finally have enough puzzle pieces scattered across the three games
to assemble a fairly accurate picture of this franchise's lore.
Since you guys had a... let's just say "above average" interest in this theory,
I wanted to create something that answered
as many questions as possible about this franchise.
But beyond just the details the question we all want an answer to is:
What exactly happened in the story throughout this series?
It's a pretty fundamental question to not have an answer to.
And yet, despite thousands of videos, forum entries, and Tumblr posts -
W-Hoa! Whoa, hey! Put that away! You behave yourself!
This game is already scary enough without you sticking your hook somewhere it doesn't belong, ok?
Despite all those things, we still don't have a clear picture on the details:
Yes, there's a child killer on the loose; the infamous purple guy,
who's been using Fazbear pizzerias as his hunting ground of choice for years,
but going into the third game we still weren't sure about who this guy was or even how many victims he had officially taken.
Then there are the animatronics.
Sure we generally understand that the killer's dead bodies have been stuffed into some of the suits
and that with the help of the Puppet, the kids were able to find new life in those robotic bodies,
but then.. what about Shadow Bonnie and Shadow Freddy,
who randomly appeared in FNAF 2 only become prominent figures throughout part three?
How do they fit in? What about the ghostly Golden Freddy? Someone we've been talking about since the first game
and yet... we still don't really know anything about him.
Well, now that we finally have all the facts I think it's time we revisit my timeline
I presented in the last episode to see what I got right, what I got wrong-
*Gasp* (Yes, you heard that: Wrong. No shame. I'm a big boy.
"Mommy, wow! I'm a big kid now!")
And finally fill in the missing details to create what I believe to be my definitive Five Nights theory,
and boy howdy, it is a doozy.
So strap in, Theorists; you wanted it, you're about to get it.
Overall, the timeline of the franchise I presented in the last video still holds strong:
Decades before the name became a horror legend meriting its own theme-park style attraction,
Freddy Fazbear got a start at Fredbear Family Diner.
It's here where our story begins, as Purple Guy takes his first victim.
Something we see in the "Take Cake" minigame from Five Nights at Freddy's 2.
What tells us that this is Fredbear's and first of the timeline?
Well, as I said last time, in addition to it being a small space,
the only character we see is Freddy, whereas all other mini games feature multiple animatronics.
He's also holding a cupcake. Since that would later become Chica's signature item,
the event depicted in this game must have come BEFORE she was created.
Additionally, notice that the Purple Guy's murder takes place OUTSIDE the building.
This is the ONLY time we see him murder someone outside the walls of a Fazbear building;
which implies that this is likely his first victim.
Serial killers often have what's known as a "signature":
A way of killing that's unique to him and him alone.
For Purple Guy, his signature is dressing in an animatronic costume,
then luring children to the back of the pizzeria and killing them there.
But this murder occurs BEFORE he developed this particular style, implying that it's the first.
From there we know that the Puppet jump-scare,
that always follows this mini-game, combined with the tear design on both the dead child
and the Puppet's mask, implies that the soul of the first child now exists in the Puppet.
The event caused the original owners to sell the Fredbear name,
who then rebranded and avoided the negative PR becoming what we know today as Fazbear Entertainment.
They then opened a new chain of restaurants, which we never saw in the games,
UNTIL the release of Five Nights 3.
This is NOT Fredbear Diner, like many interpret, but rather the FIRST location of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza,
predating the events of Five Nights at Freddy's 2.
How do we know? Well, by paying close attention to the old recordings of Phone Guy dug up in FNAF 3,
he introduces us to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, NOT Diner, before explaining the functionality of the special spring lock suits.
Phone Guy: "Uh- welcome to your new career as a performer/entertainer for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."
"Right now we have two specially designed suits that double as both animatronics and suits."
MatPat: He also lets us know that the animatronics are still allowed to walk around freely during the day
meaning that this is happening before The Bite of '87,
in which an animatronic bites someone during business hours, removing their frontal lobe
and resulting in the animatronics being restricted to move around only at night.
*Phone Guy speaking above*
MatPat: As Phone Guy informs us, and as we see in the Stage 01 mini game, there are two specialty suits:
A Golden Bonnie suit, and the origins of the infamous Golden Freddy.
But the lifespan of these spring lock suits is actually short lived, as we learn about their one fatal flaw:
Phone Guy: "After learning of an unfortunate incident at a sister location involving multiple and simultaneous
spring-lock failures. The Company has deemed the suits temporarily unfit for employees."
"The classic suits are being retired to an appropriate location..."
MatPat: Now, let's pause here.
Two employees are killed by the failure of a Bonnie suit and a Freddy suit.
Where else in the game do we see Bonnie and Freddy sharing a unique feature that no one else in the game possesses?
Shadow Freddy and Shadow Bonnie.
Could this be the origin of the paranormal shadow suits?
Yes, actually! Shadow Freddy and Shadow Bonnie are tied to the ghosts of the employees who died in the spring suits.
Get this: The employees bodies were taken out of the suits, which is why their appearance is more paranormal,
and why they can't possess them as well as the children can.
Plus, having this as their origin would explain the in-game behavior of both suits.
In FNAF 3, we see that Purple Guy hides in a secret safe-room that has been built into every pizzeria;
a room that's hidden to customers, and invisible to the animatronics' programming.
During the mini-games that occur between nights, we see Shadow Freddy lead the other animatronics to this secret room,
only to cause them to glitch-out and then get torn apart by Purple Guy.
This supernatural origin story is how Shadow Freddy is able to enter the safe-room when other animatronics can't;
how he's able to lead you to that room in the first place, when other animatronics
wouldn't be able to see it based on their programming,
and even why he leads you there; knowing that Purple Guy attacking you will eventually free your soul.
That's also why there's no Purple Freddy suit when you do finally enter that room.
It's not an alternate Purple Guy costume like many believe; it's an apparition -
Suck on that, Harry Potter! I knew someone would apparate eventually!
It also explains why Shadow Bonnie's mini-game in FNAF 3 always starts on Stage 01:
The spring suits. And why it's the one animatronic we control that has the ghostly ability to glitch, fly and teleport.
As we concluded last episode, this is also the point in the timeline of the first missing children incident;
the one we learn about via newspaper clippings in Five Nights 1.
So based on the newspaper clipping evidence we have, we know that the mauve murderer
dressed in one of the suits, lured children to a back room, and killed them.
He's starting to develop his signature.
But one nagging detail FNAF Theorists have been wondering is: What suit does he use for his disguise?
The answer? Golden Bonnie.
Why? Well, remember the Phone Guy saying the faulty suits were being retired to an appropriate location?
There's a high likelihood they are being stored in one of the safe-rooms in the restaurants.
Plus, we hear in FNAF 2 that the Purple Guy has a habit of using a "yellow suit".
Phone Guy: "We had a spare in the back; a yellow one. Someone used it."
MatPat: But why not Golden Freddy? Phone Guy tells us so at the beginning of night 5 in FNAF 3.
Phone Guy: "Management has also been made aware that the spring Bonnie animatronic has been noticeably moved."
MatPat: My what an oddly specific detail to include, Scott Cawthon.
And remember: These tapes that play in FNAF 3 date all the way back to the first pizzeria location,
which is why this detail is so important.
It reflects Purple Guy starting to develop his signature killing pattern.
From there, we know the rest of the story:
Purple Guy kills the kids, stuffs the bodies into the suits to hide them,
but as we read in the paper is caught on camera and arrested.
Meanwhile, the Puppet gives life to the children and the angry spirits possess the robots.
Or is that REALLY how it goes?
Let's go back to the "Give Gifts, Give Life" mini-game.
The children are lying there dead, and the Puppet first tries to give them presents.
Weird, right? Weird until you consider that his place is at the Prize Corner;
Giving presents is the only thing he knows that can make children happy.
It's a reflex. Remember, this is still a child's spirit in this Puppet.
But when that doesn't work, the Puppet goes around one more time and does the only other thing it can think of:
Put the bodies into the suits.
You heard that right: In trying to save the children,
HE'S the one hiding them in the animatronic suits.
Not the killer like we've been assuming. But then what about the fifth child as there's only four here?
Well, as we pointed out last time, the fifth child is there, too;
appearing at the very end of the mini-game and taking the role of Golden Freddy.
But remember, Golden Freddy is a decommissioned spring lock suit at this point.
Deemed too unsafe to be functional. The reason he's slumped over
and can't move like the rest is that his endoskeleton has been taken out.
He's in suit mode; NOT free roaming mode.
He physically doesn't have the mechanisms in place to stand up and move.
Possessed or no, a dead child's spirit just can't give a boneless suit the ability to stand.
This also explains the lone, naked endoskeleton that appears occasionally in both Five Nights 2 and Five Nights 1.
An endoskeleton that once belonged to Golden Freddy.
Whew!
I know I made you wait for this one so I knew I had to make it count.
Heck, if there ain't a lot to cover.
Still with me?
Good, 'cause we're ready for our next location.
You see, since the Puppet hid the bodies, no one knows they're in the suits until they start oozing and smelling,
which as we see in the papers, eventually gets the place shut down for health violations.
The Company tries to recover from:
But can't, and eventually is forced to shut its doors for good.
This leads to the trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's 2.
Finally! We're actually going to talk about a game in the series!
Seriously, can you believe we've been going this whole time on locations
that aren't even settings for the three main games?
THAT is why this lore is so challenging, but also so interesting.
Anyway:
These are the words you see at the beginning of the trailer.
Back with the debate about whether this game was a sequel or a prequel to the first game,
these words made it seem like a follow-up; that everything had been shut down since the first game,
but it wasn't.
These words are a reference to the business being closed down after that first missing children incident.
That's why posters everywhere in Five Nights 2 are all about the "Brand New" Fazbear Pizza.
It's the grand reopening after years of being out of business.
That's also why the new toy animatronics have built in facial-recognition software to a criminal database.
They need to be careful to prevent another incident, but as we know, it doesn't work.
As we see in the "Save Them" mini game, five more children get killed in this new location.
We know it's the new location, because the mini-game map's layout perfectly matches this new Fazbear business.
We also know it couldn't have happened earlier in the timeline as both the old animatronics
and new toy robots are presented in the game, but this time the Puppet's solution isn't saving the kids:
It's stopping the killer.
He enlists the help of Freddy to try and
leading the bear to the killer's location.
Except Purple Guy came prepared. Equipped with not a phone, but rather something to help him tamper with the animatronics.
He knows that something fishy is going on with these robots, because he's been watching... studying.
The Puppet wants Freddy to save them, to which the killer's answer is only this:
So how did the Purple Guy manage it when he had been caught years before?
What about The Bite of '87? How do FNAF 1 & 3 fit in?
And most importantly of all:
Who is the Purple Guy?
All that, next week.
Don't worry. I'll come back; I always do. In the meantime, it's all just a theory...
A Game Theory!
Thanks for W-
*Jumpscare sound*
*Static*
MatPat: Make sure you don't miss Part 2 by clicking Subscribe!
Well, honestly you still might miss it; the Subscribe button is really just a glorified bookmark button,
but still it's the best you're gonna get, soo.. might as well do it!
And while you're at it, you know what else you should click on?
The link in the description for some free food, delivered straight to your door, courtesy of Naturebox!
Honestly, I love this service!
Naturebox delivers boxes of snacks straight to your door.
It's like having a year-long Santa Claus giving you tasty presents,
or like those care packages your parents send you when you're away at school.
It's awesome! And it's FREE, if you go to naturebox.com/matpat or click that link.
They have over a hundred snacks to choose from.
Even as I write, I'm munching on some lemon tea biscuits and strawberry fig bars.
Seriously! Look, here they are so you know it's something I'm using myself.
Anyway, it's free food that doesn't require you to leave your couch or break your Game Theory marathon;
Sounds like a win-win to me. So check out naturebox.com/matpat and start snacking.
*Music outro fades*