Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach Review (PS5)

Daddy Fazbear

Honestly, I kind of want to see how the various locations the Five Nights at Freddy’s games took place in seems during the day, and with other people around. Even if the animatronics weren’t hellbent on getting you during the night, or you know possessed, it would still be scary at night by yourself (even being in your school when no one is there and no lights on during early morning is creepy). I wanted to do this even more so for Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex as it does seem like a fun place to be and I would have definitely all been for an optional prologue where you can roam around during the day when it’s busy the most (and this could also be a way to show how Gregory got into Freddy).

Anyway, this is another addition to the FNAF franchise titled as Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach. Well, the five nights isn’t so accurate for this game. This takes place in a brand new location, a huge new location, called Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. We get a snazzy intro showing us the new animatronics and how their personality is,, with some being familiar and some not. There’s Glamrock Freddy, Glamrock Chica, Roxanne Wolf or Roxy (who’s supposed to be Foxy’s counterpart), and Montgomery Gator or Monty (who replaced Bonnie). However, at the start of one of their performances, Freddy suffers from a malfunction and collapses on stage.

Around midnight, Freddy wakes up again in Safe Mode and when he was talking to himself in a mirror, hears an unfamiliar voice. It turns out that voice came from a kid that hid inside Freddy’s stomach hatch. You play as this kid and his name is Gregory. Freddy doesn’t see him listed as a guest at the Pizzaplex and Gregory strangely doesn’t want the security guard, Vanessa, to find him. Getting Freddy out of his room was easy enough, but it soon turns deadly once midnight officially hits. Soon having you go all around the Pizzaplex doing various tasks that brings you one step closer to getting out of there (and one hour closer to 6am) while trying to avoid Chica, Roxy, and Monty.

Instead of being locked in a security room where you check where the animatronics are and doing actions that stave off the animatronics (like closing the doors or flashing the lights), you are free-roaming (or close enough) the Mega Pizzaplex. Not every location is open to you at first, but as you progress through the game you’ll collect access cards and security cards to get in so you can do the objectives you’ll be asked to do. If any of the animatronics, including the basic security bots, see you (and in the cases hear) they will start to chase after you (with security bots alerting Chica/Roxy/Monty where you are) until they can’t see you anymore. Of course, if they catch you, it’s an automatic game over. To help you with not getting caught, or at least escaping, you can do some things as Gregory like sprinting away as long as you have the stamina. You can also crouch (funnily enough, I always thought I was crouching before I realized Gregory is a small child lol) to lower the opportunity for the animatronics to spot you, as well as giving you a pro of not making as much sound and an icon that tells you if you’re spotted depending on the color. There’s a flashlight, which does have a battery so you have to make sure to recharge it, so you can see in the dark and halfway through the night you do get a way to temporarily stun enemies. There are various hiding places you can jump into, though if they see you they can decide to look and grab you (or just randomly decide to look in where you’re hiding). And lastly, Gregory can call for Freddy and this gives you a great advantage of climbing into Freddy. If you’re inside Freddy, none of the animatronics will detect you, which is helpful especially when you’re in the middle of being chased.

Don’t worry though as the security cameras do make a return. There is a section on the Fazwatch that lets you access nearby security cameras so you can see what’s roughly around you and if any of the animatronics are around where you’re currently hiding at. They do also have some movement so you can look a bit around as well as zoom in. However, often times the feed will be behind and requires a good couple seconds to update to what it is currently (and I do feel it’s the game and not how the cameras are supposed to work) and I also ran into the problem of the cameras not flashing red when an animatronic is there and the highlight showing which one you’re on disappears (I also didn’t like switching between them on controller).

So yah, you’ll be going around the Pizzaplex, trying to avoid being caught and completing what you need to do to progress through the night. There are a few minigames that are here, like when you repair/upgrade Freddy or the optional Princess Quest arcade machines that open up a secret ending (though I do wish other arcade machines were playable) or making pizza for Chica; and you’ll be asked to turn on generators or switches to switch things up. However, Security Breach isn’t going to be as easy as it looks. There are quite a few sections that are frustrating (like the Daycare which is early on and I have no guilt in looking up where the generators are) and the animatronics often teleport around (which is more noticeable when you get spotted by a security bot).

There are also some collectibles here. As you’re exploring, you can find gym bags holding notes that you can read which gives you a look into how the Pizzaplex is behind the scenes; gift boxes containing a variety of items like toys, accessories, and even upgrades for Gregory; and CDs after 6am.

Before I go into some of the complaints I had, I do have to say that I loved the new animatronics. The Day Care Attendant is wonderful and unique, despite how creepy Moon is, and I did actually like the redesigns for Freddy, Chica, and Foxy (and it’s a shame we don’t get to see what Bonnie would have looked like apart from the few bits of artwork the Pizzaplex still has up). I did like hints of personality we get from them as well, like how Roxy’s self-esteem issues rise up or how you can interpret Chica as being more mothery and how she loves food. I do wish we got to see some more of the dynamics between them all, but nonetheless it’s interesting. I also found Security Breach to be pretty scary and creepy, which helps with how the sound design is and how creepy the animatronics are in the dark (and especially their Shattered variants) and partly because of FNAF’s classic jumpscares which most of them got me (which isn’t surprising, but there were moments that had me yelp in surprise since they honestly caught me be surprise).

Sadly, I have a lot of complaints, more than I thought I had. I’ll go into some that I didn’t mention yet. Starting out, while I’m okay with the Pizzaplex being quite a big location with a big map to go along with it, it wasn’t handled that well. It can be quite maze-like, with some important aspects like exits or stairs being hidden away enough for you to easily overlook it. It also doesn’t help that the map here is totally useless. The game assumes you know where everything is as the map has practically nothing labeled. While having stairs, locked doors, charging stations, and the location of Gregory and Freddy is useful, none of the areas are labeled. So when you need to go to the Atrium or say the Arcade, you have no idea where it is because the game assumes you know where every location is already. Even when Freddy says he’s marking locations on the map, there is nothing marked on the map. You also can’t zoom in which makes even trying to find your icon hard to locate on certain floors. Also…why are generators in the kids play structures. I know for game purposes so you have to go through a maze-like area that feels like you’ve just been going in circles the whole times, but realistically, kids would be messing with those every day and getting hurt.

I found it strange that the mission log on the Fazwatch was lacking. Sometimes you will have no idea what you need to do next and very often the additional information you’re told won’t be listed alongside your mission objectives. So if you missed or forgot that you need to go to a specific floor/area or to grab something specific, you won’t have any way of knowing unless you look it up.

For being the main antagonist, and secondary depending on how you interpret things, Vanny and Vanessa doesn’t really pop up all that much. I did hear Vanny was supposed to have a bigger presence in the game, which is a shame that she only appears like 2-3 times (with Vanessa showing up 3 times if you count her being on a security monitor counts), not counting the endings where she appears in. And on this, I did find the story lacking and it could have been better. I also wish we got a bit more interactions between the animatronics, like when you pass them while in Freddy as I did find the little dynamic tidbits and personality bits we got to be interesting.

I also hate the fact that saving is disabled after 6am. By now, the game has been updated to include one save spot on the second floor Atrium, but that is not enough unless you’re only going around for collectibles. And I don’t think the “it’s to make it difficult” excuse is adequate enough as I found the game hard enough as it is. Add in the fact that the animatronics teleport and glitches that still exist (I’ve gotten soft locked multiple times and had Monty grab me through a wall), this makes getting the true ending (and other endings that were locked depending on if you went for Chica or Monty first) terrible unless you happen to be a pro. I did hear that there is cut dialogue on how this was due to Vanny hacking and breaking the save points, but that isn’t in the final product and I feel having it more on a timer could have been a better solution as it is a good idea on paper, but not so much on fun factor. It’s a shame the true ending, and some other endings, are behind requiring you to do Chica’s/Monty’s section without being caught as I did want to get all of the endings despite getting annoyed at several points during my playthrough (and watching the true ending online, I’m glad I didn’t as I had a “wait that’s it?” reaction).

Aside from that, I had multiple glitches/bugs including getting stuck and having to reload to my last save, Monty grabbed me through a wall one time, DJ Music Man’s music bugged out so it was very very loud until I finally finished the encounter (it also kept going for a few seconds when reloading after I died, which may have contributed to it being blasted and not lowering or stopping even when there’s dialogue, which I couldn’t hear so good thing I already knew what it said), the security bots got glitched out in a couple ways (like standing still or not registering you when you run in front of them, which I’m not complaining about), you can break enemy pathing (and sometimes they can get stuck, which again I’m not complaining about as long as it means I’ll have an easier time lol), and the subtitles are wrong sometimes for the animatronics wandering voice lines (and can sometimes cut off important lines from Freddy). If you go into the PS5’s control center and press square to resume activity when you’re hovering over one of the achievement activity cards, this will cause the game to strangely reload and break in a certain aspect (I just finished the Arcade when I did this, was confused why I was back at a save point, and left to find the Atrium area to be empty with the area around the Arcade entrance completely blocked off). The game also doesn’t take into account that you can do or find things out of order. Also don’t put subtitles on large, they are too large (small is basically large in other games) and subtitles can be lines long.

The game, for the most part, runs well on the PS5 but I had some major lag when fire was on screen. I have no idea why fire caused such a problem, but it did. Luckily, it’s really in one small section of the main game.

Verdict

Writing this review made me realize how many complaints I have against Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach. Though, I suppose it isn’t surprising as I was going to quit at least three separate times as this has some frustrating sections. Despite that, I do still feel like Security Breach is a good game, but it could have been great and it has hampered a lot by the many cons that even I personally had. Sure I got frustrated, to the point where I was going to quit if I didn’t make it past…and then I made it past when I went back to it the next day first try (first try for that session, to be clear), but there was still something there that kept me playing until the end. Or until an end as I was not about to do Monty’s Golf without dying once for the endings I couldn’t get at the end of my playthrough. Do I recommend this? Well…I guess only if you can look over the flaws it has and don’t mind getting frustrated or keeping a guide handy sure. Otherwise, not so much. Though I definitely recommend getting this on sale if you are going to get it as this is not worth $40.