3.5/5 Stars

Thirty years after the events of the original Five Nights at Freddy’s, the mysteries of the location remain have still not been unsolved. No answers have been found as to who killed those five children all those years ago, nor why. Now, in an attempt to cash in on the eeriness of the long-closed restaurant chain, a haunted attraction based on the pizzeria has been opened. You are the night watchman for Fazbear’s Fright, and things are about to become much, much more frightening.

            In tradition with Five Nights at Freddy’s games, you are a night guard defending against murderous animatronics with little more than your wits and a set of security cameras. In Five Night’s 3, the only real threat is a new animatronic by the name of Springtrap. What makes this one especially frightening is the way it moves. While looking at your cameras, you might see a flicker of movement through the window.… Yyou might see it peeking in, only to duck away as soon as you look up.

            The third game fixes a recurrent issue from the previous two games: only using one camera. In the first game, it became impractical to look at any camera except Pirate Cove’s, and the same happened with the Prize Corner camera in FNaF2. Now, however, you need to constantly check all of your cameras. Your defense against Springtrap is an audio recording. You can play it in any room to lure the animatronic away from your office, but it will only be effective in a room adjacent to the one he’s in. Additionally, he can take a shortcut to your office through the vents. If you don’t find him and seal the appropriate vent fast enough, you’re as good as dead.

            However, you have more to worry about than keeping track of a roaming animatronic. Your video, audio, and even your ventilations systems can fail, requiring you to take time to reset them.Only In this time, Springtrap can move around and even get into your vents. Getting back to your cameras after resetting your systems is usually a frantic search for the murderous robot.

            Unfortunately, like the previous games, FNaF3’s jumpscares become old and boring after the third or fourth time you see them. The game is extremely scary in the first fifteen minutes, but the fear fades fairly quickly. The game also suffers from a very steep difficulty curve. Things become very difficult very quickly. in this game.

            The saving grace of FNaF3 is its story. The game unravels a good amount of the mystery surrounding Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza through a number of retro-style minigames. In fact, some of these minigmames play a role in finding the alternate ending of the game. By the end of the game, many of the questions set up by the previous games are answered.

            Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 does a good job keeping the atmosphere tense and creepy. The fear of the actual animatronics may fade quickly, but the fear of dying at 5AM does not. There are noticeable improvements over the previous games, but the game still lacks that perfect scare factor.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 is available on Steam, Android devices, and iDevices.