FNaF World

Gameplay

The player has two modes to play in: Adventure and Fixed Party. The game also has two difficulty levels to choose from, Normal and Hard. The player starts by choosing two parties consisting of four characters each. The starter characters, the original and toy versions of the first main games characters, can all be swapped in and out of the party. As the player continues, they collect more characters to place in their party. Along the way, a character known as Fredbear will give the player tips on what to do next. These tips frequently break the fourth wall due to Fredbear's seeming awareness of the situation he is placed in.

The gameplay consists of exploring through the game world and accessing new areas. Once new areas are revealed and a special button is pressed in them, the player can use "Jumping" to teleport between each area through an overworld map. Initially, the world was depicted in a 2D 8-bit style, but as of Version 1.2 released in May 2016, the world has been redesigned into that of a fully animated 3D style. Many enemy characters can be found throughout the game, each exclusive to their own area, which can be battled with. Upon defeating an enemy, the player will gain experience points and "Faz tokens", which are used to buy upgrades such as chips and bytes to aid the player during the game.

Meanwhile, the battles against enemies, which are completely random (with the exception of boss battles), are conducted in a separate 3D playing field. In battles, the player characters are on the right-hand side, while the enemies are on the left-hand side. Each character has a HP meter located at the top right corner; by sustaining damages, the meter decreases until it reaches zero, which induces a KO (represented by a gravestone replacing the knocked out character) unless the player selects a resurrection command available on select characters. For each turn, the player is given choices for each character and must choose one of their three commands, which differ depending on the characters. The commands have different color tags and have different impacts, including healing the team (pink), providing status buffs (white), single-target attacks (orange), area attacks (red), poisonous attacks (green), and possible instant-kill attacks (black), among others. Once a turn is used, the player has to wait for some time until the next turn begins. The player can also swap the current party with the reserve at any time. After each battle, all characters, including the knocked out ones, are restored to full health.

As of Version 1.2, the player is able to unlock new characters after they player completes a set of minigames in a range of modes. These include "Foxy Fighters", "Chica's Magic Rainbow", "Foxy.EXE" and "FNAF 57: Freddy in Space".

Setting

FNaF World takes place in a world inhabited by the animatronics featured in the original series. The world is divided into several locales, including the starting location, Fazbear Hills, the home of the animatronics. The other locales include a snowy plain, deep forests, graveyard, lake, carnival, and caves. There also exists an inner dimension known as the "Flipside", the world's game code, in which there are several glitches that enable travel to otherwise unreachable places. The Flipside has four layers in total, although going beyond the third level is a point of no return.

Plot

The player is told by Fredbear that glitches have happened in the "Flipside", causing unrest among the animatronics. The player has to fix the problem affecting the source of the world. At the same time, however, Fredbear also reveals a potential hidden goal of collecting clocks and ignoring the present problem if the player leaves him idle for too long during a conversation. The player faces off against several game bosses, including an owl-shaped guardian of the source, until they meet with the problem, revealed to be the action of Scott Cawthon, represented as a light blue humanoid figure from There Is No Pause Button! game, who have grown frustrated by his fans' rabid and constant unsatisfied demands to him.

The game has multiple endings depending on the actions of the player. The first ending, acquired after defeating the owl guardian in Normal Mode, has Scott thanking the player for trying the game, albeit also mocking them for choosing the easiest difficulty. The second, played after defeating Scott in Hard Mode, has Scott accusing the player of killing the creator and declares that the game ends because no one is able to continue writing it. The third is played when the player chooses Fredbear as party leader and bringing up a conversation with Fredbear. The fourth, played when the player enters the fourth layer of the Flipside, has the player encounter a figure who tells them that they have entered the point of no return. The same area also has a pond that the player can enter, which plays up the fifth ending. The sixth ending is played once the player collects the hidden clocks throughout the game. The seventh ending is Chipper's Revenge, where you fight one of Scott's older creations that he didn't finish.

The Version 1.2 adds a new storyline involving a Halloween world, in which the player is tasked to investigate something that impedes several animatronics, causing them to be discarded. The problem is revealed to be caused by a profane rainbow, whose defeat nets the player with the game's eighth ending, a teaser for Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location.

Development

FNaF World was first announced on September 15, 2015, with a trailer uploaded to YouTube, depicting the characters of the four previous games that haunted the player are now cute. The announcement was considered to be a hoax due to similar PR actions taken by Cawthon, however, it was not disproven until its release. Cawthon noted that the game is a spin-off, considering the main arc of Five Nights at Freddy's completed with the fourth game. Though originally planned for release on February 2, 2016, Cawthon rescheduled the release to January 22, 2016, but eventually launched yet another day earlier, on January 21, 2016, respectively, releasing it digitally through Steam.

Upon release, community and critics criticized the game for missing key features, being unstable and generally unfinished, which Cawthon later apologized for, stating that "[he] got too eager to show the things that were finished, that [he] neglected to pay attention to the things that weren't." He agreed with the community that he had rushed the release, and that the game's rough state was unacceptable. Cawthon stated that he would be working hard to get the game in order, but this eventually led to Cawthon temporarily taking the game off Steam, offering refunds to everyone who bought it. It was later announced that, once the game would be patched further, it would be released for free, first to Game Jolt, and stay free from that point on.

On February 8, 2016, an updated version was released to Game Jolt as freeware, also featuring a new overworld and other new features.

On May 13, 2016, a second update to FNaF World was released, featuring new characters and a new map, as well as voice acting.

In January of 2017, Scott announced that there will no mobile ports of the game and dispelled any rumors of the highly speculated "Update 3", saying that no further updates will be made to the game.

Reception

FNaF World received generally mixed reception among critics and community, with many YouTube gamers responsible for launching the franchise to its high popularity, such as Markiplier, opting not to play it, most likely changing how critics responded to the spin-off. However, Angelo M. D'Argenio from The Escapist gave the game a decent review, stating that "Five Nights at Freddy's World is a retro parody JRPG that feels incomplete now, but is steadily getting better as patches come out", giving FNaF World a score of 3/5.