Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location
Steam storefront header, featuring the character “Funtime Freddy”.
Developer(s)Scott Cawthon
Publisher(s)Scott Cawthon (PC)
Clickteam LLC USA (Console and Mobile)
Composer(s)Leon Riskin
SeriesFive Nights at Freddy's
EngineClickteam Fusion 2.5
Platform(s)
ReleaseWindows
  • WW: October 7, 2016
Android
  • WW: December 22, 2016
iOS
  • WW: January 3, 2017
Nintendo Switch
  • NA: June 18, 2020
  • EU: July 10, 2020
Xbox One
  • WW: July 10, 2020
PlayStation 4
  • EU: July 21, 2020
  • NA: July 22, 2020
Genre(s)Survival horror, point-and-click
Mode(s)Single-player

Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location is a point-and-click survival horror video game developed and published by Scott Cawthon. It is the fifth main installment in the Five Nights at Freddy's series and the sixth game overall. It was released on Steam on October 7, 2016. Ports have also been released for Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

As the title implies, the game does not take place at one of the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurants featured in previous installments, but instead at a sister location called Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, which features its own set of animatronic characters, central to which is the titular Circus Baby. Players control a new employee who must perform maintenance work at the facility where the animatronics are stored while defending themselves from the animatronics, which become mobile and homicidal at night. Gameplay in Sister Location is drastically different from previous Five Nights at Freddy's games, as it allows players to move between rooms and requires different objectives to be carried out from night to night.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location received mixed reviews, with praise for its plot and voice performances, and criticism for some aspects of its gameplay. A sequel, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, was released on December 4, 2017.

Gameplay

A screenshot showcasing the Primary Control Module

Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location is a survival horror video game where the player takes the role of a late night technician who must survive against murderous animatronics each shift.[1] Unlike previous Five Nights at Freddy's games, the player can crawl between different rooms and the objective changes between each of the five nights.[2]

The occasional post-death minigames return from Five Nights at Freddy's 2; when a game ends, the player may be given a chance to play an 8-bit mini-game where they control Circus Baby and must deliver cupcakes to children. At the end of the minigame, the player has to deliver an ice cream cone to a little girl, ending in the girl's death. Completing this minigame grants access to the Night 5 secret level; a near-recreation of the gameplay in the original Five Nights at Freddy's, bringing back survival gameplay.

Completing all five nights unlocks extra features: pictures and blueprints of the game's animatronics, their making-of, a map of the facility, and menu access to Circus Baby's cupcake minigame. As of the December 1, 2016 update, clearing all nights also unlocks the non-canon Custom Night mode, which is set in a modified version of the Night 5 secret room. The player can choose from several modes and difficulty settings, facing new animatronics, and must conserve both power and oxygen supplies in order to survive. Completing these modes allows the player to view a series of cutscenes that have been declared as part of the series canon; all except the last scene are in 8-bit resolution.

An achievement system exists in the form of four stars, obtained by unlocking both of the game's endings, completing the Circus Baby minigame, and completing the hardest difficulty on each custom night preset. Completing each custom night preset on each mode grants its own star in the specific custom night mode.

Like in all Five Nights at Freddy's games, failure to defend oneself from the hostile animatronic characters will result in a jumpscare.

Plot

The game begins with an interviewer questioning William Afton, co-founder of Fazbear Entertainment Inc. and founder of Afton Robotics, LLC — the company responsible for creating the game's animatronic characters — on unspecified design choices he made while building the animatronics. Afton proceeds to list several features of the animatronic Circus Baby such as dispensing ice cream, inflating balloons, taking song requests, and dancing to them. The interviewer is dissatisfied with Afton’s answer, as the features Afton mentioned were not what were being referred to.

The perspective then switches to Michael, a new employee of Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, an underground facility where various animatronics are stored, to be rented out to children's birthday parties during the day. These animatronics originated from Circus Baby's Pizza World, a sister location of the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant from the first game which was shut down shortly before its planned opening due to supposed gas leaks. Every night, Michael is assigned maintenance tasks by the facility's partially malfunctioning artificial intelligence HandUnit. These tasks must be finished before the morning.[3]

On the second night, the power goes out and the animatronics come to life. Circus Baby begins to communicate with Michael, warning that the other animatronics will kill him if they catch him, and gives instructions to help Michael survive as he goes to reset the circuit breakers. The following night, Michael is ambushed by the animatronic Funtime Foxy and hidden in a springlock suit overnight by Circus Baby. Michael is left to repel the tiny Minireenas from crawling into the suit before freeing himself. On the fifth night, Mike finds two hanged technicians where the animatronics should be, which prevents HandUnit from noticing they are missing. Circus Baby instructs Michael to destroy her empty body by going to the Scooping Room, where endoskeletons are violently "scooped" out of the animatronics' exterior shells, to "save what is good so the rest can be destroyed". She soon tells him that he is being followed by the animatronic Ballora, who intends to kill him.

Between nights, Michael watches an animated sitcom at home and Elizabeth, William’s daughter, is heard begging him to play with Circus Baby, despite her father's insistence that she must stay away.

Endings

If the player follows Circus Baby's instructions, they will find that all of the animatronics, including Ballora, had actually already been "scooped". Circus Baby's voice is revealed to be Ennard, an amalgamation of the animatronics, who uses the Scooper to eviscerate him and disguise itself in Michael’s skin to live among people.

An alternate ending can be unlocked by playing an 8-bit minigame which occasionally appears after a game over, where the player controls Circus Baby. If the minigame is completed in a certain way, Circus Baby is shown extending a claw from her stomach and pulling a little girl into it. This girl is implied to be Elizabeth, whose soul now possesses the animatronic. The player is then able to disobey Circus Baby's instructions and enter a private room, where they must fend off Ennard until 6 AM, similar to the first game in the series. An easter egg accessible in this area shows camera footage of the house featured in Five Nights at Freddy's 4, which belonged to William Afton and his family. After successfully surviving the night, Michael returns home, where Ennard is revealed to have followed him.

A series of 8-bit cutscenes plays if the player completes each mode of Custom Night on the hardest difficulty. Ennard eventually abandons Michael's decomposed body, but as Circus Baby's voice repeatedly says "You won't die", Michael somehow reanimates. In a final cutscene, Michael is revealed to be the son of William Afton, the mysterious murderer mentioned in the first game and represented by a purple figure in the last three games. He mentioned that he is now "living in shadows" due to his disfigurement. He reveals that William had instructed him to head to the underground facility to find and free "her", which he did, and that the animatronics mistook him for William, which is why they attacked him. With nowhere else to go, Michael resolves to find his father. The camera then pans over to the burned remains of Fazbear's Fright, from which Springtrap emerges.

Development and release

Five Nights at Freddy's (FNaF) developer Scott Cawthon stated that Five Nights at Freddy's 4 (2015) would be the final game in the series. However, he announced Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location on his website in April 2016 with the tagline, "There was never just one."[4] A trailer was uploaded online on May 21.[5][6] The release date was later confirmed to be October 7. In October, Cawthon announced he was delaying the game to make certain dark plot elements more "kid-friendly"; this was revealed to be trolling.[7]

Sister Location was first released on Steam. Shortly after, a patch was released that eased the difficulty of the fourth night, which many players had complained about.[8] It was the first FNaF game to feature professional voice acting. The development of Sister Location was the longest in the series yet: the previous four were all released within a year. Rock Paper Shotgun believed that Cawthon was being more cautious after spin-off FNaF World (2016) was panned as "rushed"; retrospectively, The A.V. Club opined that "the extra time and care Cawthon put into both the game’s writing, and its production values" led to a "more ambitious sequel".[4][9]

Downloadable content for a non-canon Custom Night was later added.[10] Sister Location was also ported to Android. On January 3, 2017, a mobile port for iOS devices was released on the App Store.[11] In March 2020, Clickteam released a remastered version of the iOS port closer to the Steam version, as they had done with previous games.[12] They also released a Nintendo Switch port on June 18.[13] Ports for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were released respectively on July 10 and July 21, while Maximum Games included the first five games in the Five Nights at Freddy’s: Core Collection, which was released for the Xbox One, PS4 and Switch on January 12, 2021.[14]

Reception

Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location received mixed reviews. Critics praised the voice acting,[17][15] with The A.V. Club praising Heather Masters' performance as Circus Baby in a retrospective piece on the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise.[9] GameCrate and Kotaku praised the use of humor in addition to horror in the script—the latter noted an early scene where HandUnit glitches out and misinterprets the character's name as "Eggs Benedict".[17][18]

Destructoid rated the game 6/10,[15] while GameCrate rated it 7.50/10.[17] Rob Rich of Gamezebo gave the mobile version a decent review, giving the game 3 out of 5 stars, saying, "I don't necessarily think Sister Location is the worst mobile iteration of the FNaF series, but it's certainly not the best despite the overall improved visuals."[16]

References

  1. ↑ Gelmini, David (August 8, 2016). "Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location Launching in October; New Plot Details Released". Dread Central. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  2. ↑ Oxford, Nadia (October 14, 2016). "Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location - Guide, Tips, and Walkthrough". VG247. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  3. ↑ Herrick, Langdon (October 27, 2016). "Local voice actor's first stab at horror game is scarily successful". The Advocate. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
    Derek Russell, W. (June 4, 2018). "Zombies, 'Avengers,' '5 Nights at Freddy's': Ex-teacher finds new voice". The Clarion-Ledger. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  4. 1 2 Walker, John (April 25, 2016). "Sister Location Is Probably Five Nights At Freddy's 5". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  5. ↑ Donnelly, Joe (May 23, 2016). "Five Nights At Freddy's: Sister Location Gets First Trailer". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  6. ↑ Blain, Louise (May 23, 2016). "Five Nights At Freddy's: Sister Location trailer goes back to the series' creepy model roots". GamesRadar+. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  7. ↑ Hernandez, Patricia (October 4, 2016). "Five Nights at Freddy's Creator Gives Worst Reason For Possible Delay [UPDATE]". Kotaku. Retrieved October 7, 2016.
  8. ↑ O'Connor, Alice (October 10, 2016). "Five Nights At Freddy's: Sister Location Lurches Out". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  9. 1 2 Hughes, William (October 21, 2019). "Five years of Five Nights At Freddy's". The A.V. Club. Retrieved February 28, 2023.
  10. ↑ Santos, Jerome Delos (October 19, 2016). "Five Nights At Freddy's Sister Location Custom Night DLC: How To Unlock, Release Window, And What To Expect". TheBitBag. Archived from the original on February 7, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  11. ↑ Dotson, Carter (January 3, 2017). "'Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location' Finally Available on iOS". TouchArcade. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  12. ↑ Nelson, Jared (March 20, 2020). "'Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location' Remastered Update Now Available on iOS and Android". TouchArcade. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  13. ↑ Craddock, Ryan (June 18, 2020). "Five Nights At Freddy's: Sister Location Surprise-Launches On Switch". Nintendo Life. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  14. ↑ Romano, Sal (November 12, 2020). "Five Nights at Freddy's: Core Collection coming to PS4, Xbox One, and Switch on January 12, 2021". Gematsu. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  15. 1 2 3 Rowen, Nic (October 10, 2016). "Review: Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location". Destructoid. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
  16. 1 2 Rich, Rob (January 10, 2017). "Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location – Why Always With the Sacrifices?". Gamezebo. Archived from the original on December 23, 2021. Retrieved March 7, 2023.
  17. 1 2 3 4 D’Argenio, Angelo M. (October 11, 2016). "Review: Sister Location isn't FNAF...but it is terrifying". GameCrate. Archived from the original on February 25, 2021. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
  18. ↑ Hernandez, Patricia (October 7, 2016). "Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location Is More Than Just Jump Scares". Kotaku. Retrieved October 10, 2016.
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