MatPat: Hello once again theorists, welcome to MatPat plays, today we are playing the "SCARIEST GAME OF ALL CREATION!"
Probably never heard of it...
it's called Five Nights at Freddy's. Here we go.
[Static]
What's this? [Gasp]
IT'S A CAMERA! (Shocked MatPat) The camera came up - up!
Was...
was that a bunny?
Was That A Bunny?!
I think it was a bunny...
(Whispering to the audience) Oh my gosh, I am so scared right now [Static]
Oh God!
Oh... it was only the fan...
it was only the fan... only a fan...
(Breathing in and out),
I have never played a game this intense! [Static]
Oh god!
Shut the door. (x3)
(Whispering) Please don't see me. (x6)
(Whispering) I'm so scared right now. I'm so scared. Can you tell how scared I am right now?
(Deep Breath)
(Staggered breath out)
Okay we're good.
[Static]
OH!
God!
JUST A FAN! JUST A FAN! [Static]
I don't know about you but every time the camera makes the sound to come up I pee a little bit in my pants!
[Static]
[Bonnie's Jumpscare Scream]
*SILENCE*
What? T-That's it?
That's it, it's a... it's a jumpscare?
A little bunny rabbit jumpscare?
*Mockingly *Ahh!
Really?
*Says really while laughing*
[Inhales]
Alright...
I mean; Oh God! It's So Terrifying!
[Static]
Oh, there's the bunny rabbit, shut the door! [Laughter] [Static]
Man, this is-this is truly compelling gameplay. [Static]
Oh my gosh guys!
I'm almost out of power!
11% and it's 5AM! I dont know if I'm going to make it!
Please don't get me Freddy, please don't get me Freddy!
*Says come on while laughing*
Is this what it takes to get views on YouT-
(Whispers what is this)
[Ear-shattering Golden Freddy jumpscare] Oh, Jesus!
[Spelling Phailer - Science Blaster]
MatPat: Hello internet, welcome to Game Theory, where fear is our middle name!
It's a very strange name...
Ok! I'll admit it, I didn't give Five Nights at Freddy's enough credit when it first came out.
A few jumpscares from creatures that... ehh, aren't that scary.
People over reacting to it on YouTube.
(Sarcastic) Ah!
Meh, pass.
But then, when I asked you about it, you showed overwhelming support for an episode on the game; on Twitter,
so I began to dig a little deeper
and deeper
and what I found was some of THE most interesting story-telling,
most intriguing mysteries
and most disturbing events I'd read about in a long time.
Now if you were to play the game straight through, five days,
the story would actually come across as pretty superficial.
You're the new night guard watching the security cameras at a "Chuck-E-Cheese" style restaurant
called "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza".
Four animatronics roam the halls at night because the owners don't want their servos to lock up.
Bad news is; you can't let 'em near you or else they'll kill you on the spot.
because you look like a naked endoskeleton.
Ow-OW! Show them those circuits!
Apparently one of them bit someone back in 87', presumably 1987.
And the past guard leaves you recorded phone messages to act as your tutorial...
That is, as much as he could record before he got himself killed.
And that's it!
Stay five nights, collect your paycheck, done!
Game over! Play something new.
But playing it that way is doing the game a HUGE dis-service,
because that's not even scratching the surface.
If you're really observant, you start to unravel the layers of unsolved mysteries around this place.
You find that there's a fifth animatronic.
That posters on the wall will change randomly.
That news clipping appear and disappear telling the dark secrets of this twisted place...
Putting it all together, here's the rest of the story.
Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, once a popular restaurant; fell into hard times
when five children went missing there, after being lured to a "back room" by a man dressed in a character costume.
Though a suspect was caught and convicted, the bodies of the children were never recovered.
The pizzeria was also threatened with shut down due to sanitation complaints,
as foul odors started to come from the animatronics,
blood and mucus oozing from their eyes and mouths.
The last article written years after the incident states that the pizzeria would finally be closed by year end.
In addition to the core four robots: Chica, Bonnie, Freddy, and Foxy.
There's also a fifth. Unofficially referred to as "Golden Freddy".
Ignoring the rules of physics, Golden Freddy appears and disappears at will,
can inexplicably travel through doors, wherever, causing strange hallucinations.
And when he attacks you, you're not taken to the typical game over screen -
your game crashes.
Soo.... that's unsettling.
And there's also strange messages appearing on the walls
repeating the words, "IT'S ME"
According to the games creator, the place is indeed haunted
by what we can only assume to be the spirits... of the five lost children.
So that's the gist of it!
Murder, missing children, foul odors, killer robots...
and PIZZA!
But that story leaves, a LOT of lingering questions.
Who is your character?
How's he fit in?
Why does he stay for five nights when he's very clearly confronting the possibility of death?
What more can we know about this terrifying Golden Freddy? And most importantly...
What IS the complete story behind Five Nights At Freddy's?
They're all good questions about a delightfully incomplete and mysterious story
with just enough threads to keep you theorizing.
So now, if you'll indulge me let me reciprocate that story with one of my own.
I think you'll find it... interesting...
December, 1993; Aurora, Colorado. 10 PM Tuesday night at a local Chuck E. Cheese.
After a family birthday party runs long, Manager Margaret Kohlberg
and teenage employees, Sylvia Crowell, Ben Grant, Colleen O'Connor, and Bobby Stephens
are forced to stay late to close up shop.
But as Margaret tallies receipts in the back, Bobby scrubs down the kitchen,
and the other three work outside the main arcade,
unknown to any of the five, there's actually a sixth person
locked in the building with them.
Waiting silently in the darkened restrooms - a 19 year old named Nathan Dunlap.
Earlier that year, Nathan had begun working there as a cook: Dough Master,
before getting fired in July after a disagreement over his hours.
Now, five months later, he was back.
At 10:05 he left the bathroom, pulled out a small caliber hand gun,
and proceeded to execute everyone in the building.
First Sylvia, then Ben, then Colleen,
Dunlap then moved to the Kitchen where he surprised Bobby Stephens.
The bullet entered Bobby's jaw sending him sprawling onto the ground.
Then finally, Nathan moved to the back - the office,
where Margaret opened the safe before Nathan shot her twice, proceeded to grab her bag;
filling it with $1600 in cash, arcade tokens, and keychains.
Spurred on by the building security footage, police were at his home a few hours later,
where he was promptly arrested.
Eventually he was tried, and sentenced to death.
But his story reentered the news just recently, as his punishment has been postponed,
leading people to debate whether he's able to sleep soundly, knowing that his execution has been delayed.
This.. is a tragic story.
A disgusting waste of human life, and one that I won't joke about
or make fun of in any way.
But I want to address it because I have a strong suspicion that this story
is the one that inspired Five Nights At Freddy's.
Let's look at the facts.
First, I don't think that there's any doubt, that Freddy's a parody of Chuck E. Cheese;
from the singing animatronics, to the alliterative naming of the characters,
the parallels are.. just obvious.
So, the setting is certainly the same.
Next, what year does Five Nights take place?
The time is certainly kept vague, but there are clues we can put together.
For one, The Chuck E. Cheese franchise had a tremendous period of growth and success
in the late 80's and early 90's;
but started to decline along the same time as arcades, with at-home video game consoles taking center stage.
So that's one clue, but we can get even more detailed,
specifically with your character's paycheck.
Each night you're working a six hour shift, and you're spending five nights there.
So, that's 30 hours of total work time for $120.
In total, $4/hour.
How can they do that?! That's below minimum wage!
...for 2014.
But in 1990, minimum wage was $3.80.
In 1991, it was raised to $4.25,
and by 1996 you were looking at about $5/hour.
So the game seems to take place between 1991 and 1996 -
the Nathan Dunlap story took place in 1993.
But lets move on to the most important comparison:
The victims.
In the game there were five child victims.
In the real life story, there were also five victims.
But we can get even more specific.
Online theories about the game always tend to draw parallel between
the number of kids missing, to the number of animatronics.
Saying that the children's bodies were stuffed in the various suits.
And this appears to be true. Bonnie and Chica both have moans and raspy breath sound effects
as though someone's trying to cling to the last threads of their lives stuffed inside the costumes.
And other sounds made by the animatronics are just slowed down versions of children's laughs and screams.
Additionally as the news clipping mentions. The suits ooze blood and mucus, and begin to stink,
like decaying bodies, or reanimated corpses.
So five victims, five suits.
Seems like a slam dunk.
But no where does it say that all five were murdered,
only that they went missing - and couldn't be found.
Also, the trouble a lot of people have with this theory is Golden Freddy.
Why is that guy so limp and lifeless?
So unlike the others?
It's weird; until you go back to the real life story.
Yes, there were five people shot that night in Chuck E. Cheese, which matches the five victims in Freddy's story.
But of those, one survived:
Bobby. The one from the kitchen, miraculously survived the shot to his jaw.
After he was knocked to the floor by the bullet, he went limp,
played dead, to avoid the killer coming back to finish the job.
And that relates exactly to the advice you're given on Night Three by the "Phone Guy".
Phone-Guy: [voiceover] "Try playing dead; you know, go limp."
Again, let me reiterate that I'm not trying to make light of the real life events
by comparing them to "bear costumes" and animatronics.
But I do wanna point out that these similarities do exist.
And what else is limp, and appears to be a lifeless, empty suit in the game?
Golden Freddy.
Surviving the attack, Bobby was able to go to trial and be a damning piece of evidence in the case against Nathan Dunlap.
Ultimately leading to his death-sentence.
Which animatronic surprises you by appearing randomly?
The one you don't expect and has no clear pattern?
Golden Freddy.
It's also worth mentioning that of all the cameras in the restaurant, one is always black;
preventing you from seeing what's going on.
That camera is located in the kitchen,
leading many to assume it's where Golden Freddy hides -
which just so happens to be the place Bobby was able to survive the attack.
So I ask, odd coincidence, or source of inspiration?
In fact if you think about it,
the behavior of the animatronics really corresponds with key-features of each of the real life story's victims.
We just covered Golden Freddy and Bobby;
but, the rest have strange parallels, too.
Bonnie goes into the utility closet filled with floor-cleaning supplies.
The most prominent ones being a mop and a broom.
It's probably one of the most random rooms in the game;
until you consider that Ben, the second victim, was vacuuming at the time of the attack.
Foxy is kept sequestered in the back of the building, behind a curtain, more aggressive then all the rest;
similar to the way Margaret, the manager, was in the back office counting receipts at the time of the murder.
And her role as manger would inherently make her more aggressive or assertive.
Sylvia was closest to the bathroom and was cleaning up the salad bar at the time of attack.
Chica walks past the bathroom and is associated with food.
And Freddy, well, he doesn't have that strong of a parallel with Colleen;
but, he does appear in the girls' restroom.
Odd for what we would assume to be a male animatronic.
Maybe it's a reference to Colleen being a girl
or a nod to Nathan's plan of hiding in the bathroom until he was ready to attack.
Alright.
After doing all the research, reading every fan theory in existence, and putting all the clues together;
what can this mean for the story of the game?
I think the game is an allegory for that night back in 1993.
Here's my final interpretation:
You, Mike Schmidt, are the murderer.
Former employee of Freddy's pizzeria.
Like Nathan in the real story,
you were fired for the reason stated in the day seven pink slip,
"Tampering with the animatronics. Being unprofessional. Odor."
Maybe it was your tampering with the robots that cause the infamous Bite of '87.
Regardless, like Nathan, you were mad and wanted to get even.
So, you lured children to the back using a costume,
killed them... stuffed their bodies into the animatronics suits,
hoping to get the place shutdown,
then left.
Notice that the newspaper clippings
never say it's an employee of the company luring the children away.
But we know it must've been someone
with access and knowledge of the "employees only" section of the building.
And as the newspaper clippings clearly show,
just like Nathan, you were caught almost immediately.
Captured on the security footage.
You were arrested, tried, and convicted.
Forced now to live on death row.
The Freddy's pizzeria you work in now
are just the nightmares that haunt you.
Taunting you every night with the phrase "It's Me",
"It's Me"... it is you.
YOU are the killer!
The nightmare is also why everything is so surreal:
posters switching at random...
heads on the animatronics glitching...
Golden Freddy appearing and disappearing at will,
taunting you as the one that got away.
It's also why you're only at the pizzeria from midnight to 6 AM every night.
It's a nightmare... it's in your sleep.
It's a place you created... a restaurant long-closed as evidenced by the spider webs
and overrun with angry spirits out for revenge on you
and you alone as the one who took their lives.
As evidence by them completely ignoring the naked endoskeleton elsewhere in the building.
It's also a place you can't escape from;
why you find yourself back there night after night,
even after you complete your five nights -
"See you back next week" the ending text goes.
You're unable to leave this terror,
the threat of death,
the guilt;
because, it never ends.
And in a delightfully ironic twist
Your personal hell forces you to supervise the exact same security footage
that led to your capture in the first place.
But hey...
that's JUST a theory --
A GAME Theory!
Sweet dreams...
(Maniacal laugh)
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Travelling from door to door in order to get free snacks on Halloween.
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*Laughs*
The only thing scarier this Halloween would be -
*Gasp*
No more Nature Box!
That was super cheesy, I know.
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you should click the link in the description and check it out;
and, as always thank you for supporting the sponsors who support us.
It really does makes a big difference on this channel for all us theorists.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go hide under the covers and rock myself to sleep,
because this episode was kinda creepy,
and it's really dark in here and...
never been good with the dark,
soooo, yeah...
I'm.. gonna go now.
Bye,
Bye...