While there isn’t much known about the lore of the horror game series, Five Nights at Freddy’s, first released by Scott Cawthon on August 8th, 2014, I will explain here what we do understand about the lore of the games.
William Afton was a brilliant man. He had a wife and three children: Michael (who was the oldest), Elizabeth, and the crying child (whose real name we don’t know). William owned a company with his business partner, Henry Emily. Henry also had a daughter named Charlotte.
William also had his own company at one point, Afton Robotics. William built advanced animatronics, especially during the 1980’s. He even opened a pizzeria featuring the animatronics, Circus Baby’s Pizza World. We’ll only focus on Circus Baby for now, as she was the most important. His daughter adored Circus Baby, the giant animatronic clown, with beautiful orange pigtails, similar to her own ginger hair.
But William was an awful man. He created his animatronics to lure, capture, and even harm children. With the little bit of humanity William had, he decided not to allow his kids to see the animatronics, especially Elizabeth with her Circus Baby obsession.
But Elizabeth knew she just had to see Circus Baby! She could dance, she could sing! She had a built-in helium tank to inflate balloons right from her fingers. She could take song requests. She could even make ice cream, Elizabeth’s favorite.
One day at Circus Baby’s Pizza World, Elizabeth saw her chance. William wasn’t watching. Elizabeth entered Circus Baby’s room. Woahh! She walked up to the stage. Circus Baby was even cooler than she imagined!
The other children disappeared? But Elizabeth didn’t care, that just meant she had Circus Baby all to herself. Huh? Circus Baby stopped singing? Circus Baby made ice cream just for Elizabeth! Elizabeth happily went up and grabbed the ice cream. But when Elizabeth took the ice cream, Circus Baby grabbed and hid Elizabeth inside of her, doing away with her.
Soon William realized Elizabeth was missing. He checked on Circus Baby and… her eyes were green? But William made Circus Baby’s eyes blue. However, Elizabeth’s eyes were green! Elizabeth had disobeyed William’s instructions. He knew he couldn’t just let the Elizabeth-possessed animatronic walk around freely, so he closed Circus Baby’s Pizza World, and hid her and the rest of the animatronics underground in what is now Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rentals.
Some time in 1983, William and Henry owned their own diner, possibly before or after Elizabeth disappeared. Their diner was called Fredbear’s Family Diner, featuring two much less advanced animatronics. Fredbear was a singing, golden-yellow bear, with a purple bowtie and mini-top hat. Spring Bonnie also sang, and is sometimes depicted with a guitar and a purple bowtie. These animatronics also had an interesting feature. You could pull and hold back the endoskeleton using spring locks, allowing them to be worn like a mascot suit, and also double as animatronics. These suits were very dangerous, however, as the spring locks were not very reliable. If rattled too much, or gotten wet, the spring locks would deactivate and spring back onto the endoskeleton, or if you were unlucky enough to be inside, into your flesh.
Michael always picked on his little brother, the crying child, likely for being terrified of the animatronics. All night, the crying child would have nightmares of disturbing animatronics, with massive rows of giant teeth, some even having teeth on their stomach. Michael, along with his three friends, wore masks of other animatronic characters who star in their tv show, Fredbear and Friends, and who would become the main animatronics soon, to scare his brother. Michael wore a Foxy mask, and the others wore a Chica, Freddy, and Bonnie mask.
Because William co-owned Fredbear’s Family Diner, the crying child would have his birthday there. The only problem is the crying child’s debilitating fear of the animatronics. He was so terrified of the animatronics, that he would sob while hiding under tables just so he wouldn’t have to face the animatronics. He didn’t quite understand that the animatronics could be worn as suits, so him seeing people helping other workers get into the suits was horrifying, as it looked like people getting stuffed into the animatronics. But because of this fear, Michael and his friends had the perfect idea for a prank to pull on the crying child.
It was the day of the party. Michael and his friends were ready to pull the prank. They grabbed the crying child and were picking on him as usual. They dragged him over to Fredbear and placed his head into Fredbear’s mouth. The crying child sobbed as they teased him. Fredbear then malfunctioned and bit on the crying child’s head. Michael and his friends were horrified.
Due to the “Bite of ‘83”, Fredbear’s Family Diner was closed down. Henry and William opened up a new pizzeria, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, featuring Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie the bunny, Chica the chicken, the lady of the band, and Foxy the pirate.
Henry didn’t want to lose his only child, just like how William lost two of his own, so they installed safety bracelets and a safety puppet, which was a puppet-like animatronic meant to keep children with a wristband safe and inside the building. It was especially meant to protect Charlotte.
One day was especially cold and rainy, and some kids were picking on Charlotte. In order to keep the Puppet from coming out of its gift box, the kids placed another box on top of the lid to prevent it from opening. They shoved Charlotte outside and locked the door closed.
Charlotte banged on the door and begged to be let back in, when she heard something behind her. It was William! He was like an uncle to her, so he’s definitely going to let her in! Right? But William grabbed something else… . William eliminated Charlotte and dumped her in the alley. The Puppet got out and went to Charlotte, but it was too late. It laid down next to her in the alley, the rain causing it to break down. Henry found the Puppet next to Charlotte in the alley, but something was different. The Puppet had purple tears on its face that it didn’t have before… that was weird.
William had a newfound passion now. One day he put on the old Spring Bonnie suit and lured five kids into the backroom. Gabriel, Jeremy, Fritz, Susie and Cassidy. After harming them, he hid them in the animatronics, Freddy, Bonnie, Foxy, Chica, and… wait, there were only four animatronics! The old Fredbear animatronic was still there, the one that took his son. He had no choice but to hide Cassidy (aka the Vengeful Spirit) in it.
People started to notice something odd about the animatronics. They smelled awful, and there was something leaking from them. Eventually due to these health code violations, the pizzeria was closed.
But that wouldn’t stop William and Henry, and they opened a new pizzeria, with all the same characters, just different animatronics. Now there was Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, and Funtime Foxy (there are two different characters with the same name, we will talk about the other later). Kids would just take apart and badly put back together Toy Foxy, dubbing them “The Mangle”. The only animatronic that stayed the same was the Puppet.
One night in 1987, night guard Jeremy Fitzgerld was working the night shift when Mangle swooped down from the ceiling and bit Jeremy’s head. This incident was dubbed “The Bite of ‘87”, and along with the “Bite of ‘83”, would go on to become a very popular meme in the FNaF fandom.
Years later, the second Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria had closed. William knew about animatronics being possessed from what happened with Elizabeth and Circus Baby, so he wanted to see if the other animatronics were possessed. They were. He dismantled the animatronics, but he didn’t realize that this would let their spirits free. They cornered him, but his old Spring Bonnie suit was still there. He got in and felt immensely powerful. The spirits had no chance to get him in the suit, but nature did. The ceiling was leaking and drops of water fell onto the suit, deactivating the spring locks, brutally puncturing William.
Some company trying to profit off of the Fazbear name, set up a horror attraction called Fazbear’s Frights. But they needed a bit of horror, so they looked in the abandoned Freddy’s building and found this old, rotten, rabbit-like animatronic. William, now named Springtrap. They added him to this attraction, but it burnt down less than a week later.
One day, Michael got a note from William, possibly before or after William’s demise. It told him to find Elizabeth? But Elizabeth went missing years ago. Michael went down to Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rentals in hopes to find Elizabeth. Elizabeth longed to be free, so her and the other animatronics, Funtime Freddy, Funtime Foxy, and Ballora, combined into one animatronic with Elizabeth/Circus Baby leading. They dubbed themselves “Ennard”.
A week passed of performing maintenance and other tasks for work. Eventually Ennard lured Michael into “The Scooping Room” and brutally removed his insides and wore his skin as a disguise to escape. They made it up successfully and wore Michael until his skin was all rotted. They fled into the sewers, where Elizabeth/Circus Baby split off from the others and became Scrap Baby. The rest of the animatronics became Molten Freddy. Michael possessed his own skin.
Henry needed a way to end this. Everyone needed to end this. Henry decided to find Michael and work with him to put an end to it once and for all. They set up a fake pizzeria to lure everyone into one place. In order to capture the Puppet, Henry built LEFTE, or Lefty, which stands for Lure Encapsulate Fuse Transport and Extract. Lefty would find and safely capture the Puppet and bring her to the pizzeria. The rest showed up. Elizabeth, (in the form of Scrap Baby), William (in the form of Scrap Trap), and Charlotte (as Lefty). The plan was set up.
After delivering a very strong and vital speech to everyone, Henry and Michael both set the building ablaze, letting every spirit rest free, except for one: William. Cassidy, The Vengeful Spirit, just couldn’t let him rest. She trapped him in a purgatory where he had to defend against all of his creations and animatronics.
Another company took a spin on the Fazbear name, many, MANY, years later, in what we believe to be 2030-2040. This company created a Virtual Reality game that claimed that all that happened in the FNaF universe was all fake and just a hoax “created by a rogue indie-game developer to tarnish the Freddy Fazbear’s name”. They hired this girl named Vanessa to be a beta tester for the VR game.
Somehow, in some crazy way, William managed to at some point, upload himself onto a digital hard drive, and infect the VR game, as a clone/virus. When Vanessa was working, she noticed something. Before she could realize it, she was infected/brainwashed with the digital William, which was dubbed Gitchtrap. Vanessa, because she was brainwashed by Glitchtrap, developed an alter ego, Vanny. Vanny wore a white rabbit suit and, just like William, went after the kids.
Later, this same company created a giant mall that they called “The Pizzaplex”. They had new and very shiny animatronics: Glamrock Freddy, Glamrock Chica, Roxanne “Roxy” Wolf, and Mongomery “Monty” Gator. At this point, Vanessa was a security guard at the Pizzaplex.
Vanny hacked into the animatronics and programmed them to go after kids when it was closing time. This was very unfortunate for Gregory, a kid who found himself stuck inside the Pizzaplex overnight, which made him the perfect victim for Vanny.
Glamrock Freddy decided to help Gregory, as he somehow managed to resist Vanny’s hacking, and felt bad. All night Gregory would go about, collecting parts from the other animatronics, destroying them in the process. Whilst Freddy and Gregory were exploring the Pizzaplex, they found an old sinkhole, with a whole other, much older, pizzeria underneath! But there was something much weirder, a giant, blob-like animatronic!
They kept looking further into the pizzeria, and found a disgusting, old, rotten animatronic bunny, with part of an old corpse in it. William! He must have somehow escaped Cassidy’s purgatory, and rebuilt his body! After hours of defending Freddy and himself, Gregory and Freddy managed to escape. William gets taken up and merged into the Blob. The Pizzaplex falls down to the ground, burning.
A few years later, Gregorys friend, Cassie, gets a message from Gregory. He’s back in the old Pizzaplex? Cassie went to go save him. As she followed his instructions to find him, she got down there and realized Gregory was never in the Pizzaplex. Instead there was this animatronic who was mimicking Gregory’s voice to lure her down. It tried to attack her, but she escaped to the elevator. The animatronic managed to cut the elevator cord, eliminating her.
This was the lore of the game series! Unfortunately, we will never truly know if this is even accurate, as the creator, Scott Cawthon, has never confirmed nor denied anything, and now he has stepped back and handed FNaF onto Steel Wool Games Studios, though he still has some involvement.
