Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit
Developer: Mega Cat Studios
Publisher: Mega Cat Studios
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC (Reviewed)
Release Date: Available Now (PC) TBA (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)
Price: $19.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
When it comes to the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, there have been no shortage of spin-offs and branching multimedia projects ever since it debuted a decade ago in 2014. Few could have expected that the simple on the surface jumpscare based horror game would not only thrive but turn into such a massively popular series that would be continuing to thrive even now. Among the many different projects that Five Nights at Freddy’s branched out into, one of these happened to be a series of short stories called Fazbear Frights and one of these contained a story called Into the Pit, marking the first time that a piece of novel outside of the games has actually been adapted into a game. So now that Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit has arrived to celebrate the franchise’s tenth anniversary, is Mega Cat Studios’ unique take on these familiar animatronics worth diving into?
Story
The young Oswald has been having a fairly miserable summer break. Ever since the town’s mill shut down three years prior most of the life of the town shut down with it as many moved away, businesses were forced to close, and those that stuck around found themselves in need of new work. With Oswald’s father working part-time at a corner store and his mother working as a nurse, he is often left at the dilapidated Jeff’s Pizza to eat and kill time. After hearing a nearby family talk about an abandoned ball pit in Jeff’s, Oswald feels that the best way to get back at his father is to play a prank by hiding within the pit. Only thing is, once Oswald sinks below the balls he finds himself transported back to 1985 where Jeff’s Pizza was actually an incredibly popular Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza with Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie all performing on stage to the delight of children while Foxy is entirely absent.
After playing around a bit with some other kids in the past, Oswald finds himself stuck in the middle of the horrific events that see Spring Bonnie (never directly named) end up killing multiple children in the party room and attacking others, including Oswald. As Oswald flees for his life back into the ball pit he manages to escape back to his current time and find his angry father waiting for him. The only problem is, Spring Bonnie has followed Oswald and drags his father into the pit. With his best effort, Oswald tries to save his father and drags him back out of the pit only to find that he has somehow been possessed by Spring Bonnie and only he can see the difference. With the monstrous rabbit hunting him down every night, Oswald must spend the next five nights trying to uncover what he can about the pizza place all while traveling back and forth in time to complete his main objective, saving his father.
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit tells an increasingly disturbing tale as Oswald explores the world during the day and tries to uncover what he can at night. There is a certain flow to the game that works quite well both when it comes to solving puzzles and the way things generally increase in tension. Initially Oswald only needs to worry about Spring Bonnie, but eventually Chica, Bonnie, and even occasionally Freddy himself get involved, though the latter is incredibly rare outside of scripted encounters. As players explore they’ll be able to interact and learn more about Oswald’s home life as some of the objects within Fazbear’s Pizza that can expand the lore a little bit. That being said, it is also worth noting that while there are jump scares plenty and the overall atmosphere of the game is quite spooky, there might not be enough meat on this story for those who aren’t already at least somewhat familiar with some of the deeper elements of the Five Nights at Freddy’s lore.
Obviously, considering this is the tenth anniversary, it makes sense that Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit was designed with fans in mind and it takes some real sleuthing and some incredibly random actions at times to find some of the secrets hidden within the walls of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, something that longtime fans of the franchise will likely love. The title is designed to be played through multiple times and there are also at least five different endings with some of the “good” endings requiring players to really go the extra mile or, in the case for a certain ending, take part in numerous amounts of busywork that has quite a bit of extra meaning to it. It is also worth noting that Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit is fairly short, taking around four and a half hours to complete and that is without knowing what to do ahead of time, meaning subsequent replays will be even faster. It is also unfortunate that while the title does offer multiple save slots, there is no manual save which can be quite troublesome as the checkpoints are incredibly random and, should Oswald die, can often lose quite a bit of progress as a result.
Gameplay
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit sees players taking control of Oswald over the course of five days and nights, exploring the town during the day often for things that he will end up needing during the night which usually begins with having to escape from Spring Bonnie who has made itself comfortable in his home. This introduces the players to the primary mechanics that will be used throughout nearly the entirety of Into the Pit. Anytime Oswald is in danger, a noise meter will be displayed on the screen and players will need to keep a careful eye on it while also keeping an ear out for danger lurking nearby as the animatronics will move around on their own. Performing actions such as running, tripping and falling because Oswald ran too much at a time, or even flipping on the flashlight can make noise that will alert Spring Bonny to Oswald’s location.
Sometimes this is a good thing though as players can either use valuable batteries that are limited in supply and are also used to power their flashlight to trigger soundmakers or even activate standard soundmaking machines to draw the attention of the deadly thing in order to get it away from where Oswald might need to go next. Should Oswald be seen, players can run for safety but, as mentioned before, Oswald does trip after running a certain distance and can leave him wide open for death. As such, the best way to survive is to hide. Of course, if Oswald is seen going into a place it’s an instant death, but even if players manage to sneak into a hiding place unseen that isn’t the end of things. Every type of hiding place in Into the Pit has a different mini-game that players will need to complete to make sure Oswald doesn’t expose himself to the threat lurking outside. It is also worth noting that while every animatronic is dangerous, they all pose a danger in their own unique way. Spring Bonnie serves as the primary threat while Chica alerts it to Oswald’s presence and can also attack, Bonnie hides for stealth attacks and Freddy is a shockingly rare encounter that is unique to itself.
These mini-games range from grabbing rolling toys, swatting away spiders, holding their breath, or even a very quick button flash for a chance to run again. These help keep players on their toes even when hiding safely but in a bit of interesting fashion, Mega Cat Studios has included an accessibility option that will automatically complete these hiding mini-games for players who either struggle with them. Of course, this option can be turned on simply because players might find them annoying but it is also worth noting that not every quick time event will “auto-succeed” and there are important ones that still require player input even with this option activated.
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit may have its fair share of hiding mini-games but it also has a ton of other minigames as well. Many of these are optional and only available by repairing the broken down arcade cabinets found in Jeff’s Pizza with items tracked down in the present or past or by using tokens in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. These mini-games range in quality from being very simplistic to containing characters from the franchise’s lore or even hide secrets of their own. Along these same lines, some mini-games are also incredibly hidden and while we won’t say how to get them here, at least two of them require some really out-there thinking.
There are some issues, such as the fact that two locations in the game serve only a single purpose once throughout the game with the school also barely coming into play more often than not, and that some of the tension about being caught is alleviated once players gain access to the vent system, but that’s not all. As mentioned before, it is worth noting that one of the bad elements of Into the Pit is the lack of a proper save system. Since the title relies entirely on its own auto-saves it may do so at a strange time and not for quite some time after. In fact, one time saw me having to play through an entire night flawlessly or risk having to restart at the school every time because it would not auto save again no matter what I did that night, be it plot related or a hidden secret. It also can be a bit of a problem regarding obtaining different endings, as players will be forced to generally play through the entirety of the game again if they’ve missable items/events which is annoying even if the title is short. Thankfully there is some extra bonus for players who have beat the game once already, The title unlocks not only two extra harder difficulty options but also a customization mode which allows players to adjust how aggressive some of the animatronics might be in the game and their frequency of appearing, giving players free reign to push their limits.
Audio & Visuals
It must be said that Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit is an absolutely gorgeous game with haunting visuals that make these familiar animatronics and environments really come to life in new ways. A lot of it has to do with the retro aesthetic of the game and how much care has gone into presenting these animatronics in this style. It also helps that the close up short cutscenes that accompany the hiding or death jumpscares are some of the best looking the franchise has likely ever seen. There’s some real scares to be had here and for once it’s not just because players got caught slacking but because of how terrifying some of these scenes look when they happen.
It is worth noting that one of the first things that Into the Pit recommends is that players play the game using headphones. There are two reasons that this is useful, one of which is because it’ll help players indicate where and what direction an animatronic’s heavy footsteps might be coming from and two because of how amazingly spooky the atmospheric sounds are. There is no real voice acting in the game, minus some taunting digitized lines and children screaming, but the atmosphere built around exploring this once joyful place turned into a horror scene is delivered perfectly here.
Overall
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit feels like a real love letter to the franchise. It takes everyone’s familiar animatronics, brings some fresh new lore and scares to the table all delivered with absolutely amazing presentation and its own brand of horror. With its retro-aesthetics and fresh take on many elements that have made up Five Nights at Freddy’s this game manages to offer plenty of unique references and lore based tidbits that longtime fans will adore while newcomers may find it a bit lacking in some areas but still find it to be a great, albeit a bit short, horror adventure.
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