This review contains spoilers
Well, what an interesting ride this was. Usually, when a game is this much of a mess, I usually just deem it not worth my time and drop it. Honestly? It really does REEK of Triple A laziness, right out of the gate; really glaring low resolution textures and images amidst beautiful shading and lighting effects, atrociously low framerates at points, robots that move at like 15fps or something (think similiar to background enemies in Bloodborne when theres too many on screen - except that was a PS4 game in 2014, and this is a 2021 Playstation 5 release, and there can be only one enemy on the screen and they still do this), and the first thing that came to my head was "Oh god, I wasted my money".
For context, I bought this game for £30-something off the playstation store following my autistic hype from the FNAF movie, which I personally thought was excellent (perhaps that take will decide for you whether to trust my opinion on this game).
I am pleased to report that despite the less than stellar first impressions, this game was definitely worth my time and I enjoyed my experience. Whether you too will enjoy the game in spite of its problems will be entirely weighing on your patience, what kind of games you enjoy, and how willing you are to excuse the issues you do encounter (and trust me, there will be some. I refuse to believe this game can be completed on a first time run without encountering a single bug).
Beyond this point there will be spoilers for the story - you have been warned.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is a strong departure from the series' typical style of gameplay (at least from my understanding). I personally have been following the lore of Five Nights at Freddy's on and off since the beginning of the franchise but have just never been able to get into it through the games, because I do not like the gameplay they have to offer. Over recent years I have become a fan of horror games, with Resident Evil 2 Remake being the first true horror game I had played to completion and still being one of my favourites - but regardless I would never touch Five Nights at Freddy's. The style of gameplay those games bring to the table is not what I consider fun - pure stress, tension, with barely any squeeze and release. Just constantly sitting and waiting for something to scare you. No way to fight back, run away, nothing - it's incredibly well done for what it is, don't get me wrong - but I hate enduring it. I'll proudly admit it's too scary for me.
That's why Security Breach caught my interest. This is a Stealth Game that feels so drastically different that it could well be considered a spin off, though I hope this is just the direction the series takes from this point forward.
You can definitely feel the passion that went into making this game when you play it - despite being a "Triple A Title" (as the Triple A Fazbear tag would lead you to believe), it feels like a decently solid fan game, in terms of its performance and stability. The story is intriguing, and you're always waiting to see what happens next, so it does make your playthrough hard to put down - unfortunately, what is dissapointing is that for most players, this will ultimately lead you nowhere. If you were hoping for a ton of exposition on the lore of Five Nights at Freddy's, you won't find it here - there is plenty of worldbuilding scattered throughout the notes, but you don't really get any answers from just playing.
Five of the six available endings are very lackluster - one of which is so frustrating to get (the william afton ending), because of the way the game locks the save sites. In some ways, I respect what the game did when it left you with only the atrium - it really does make you force yourself to get better at navigating the pizzaria, but the problems come when you do big heaps of progress and then die because you didn't get chance to save. This isn't a problem if you know to go back and save at the atrium constantly, but you learn that the hard way. I learned it the hard way by getting seen by chica toward the end of the game on one of the final puzzles, hiding from her, and having her bug out on me. She just stood outside my hiding spot for (legit) 20 minutes whilst I went to go make some food, refusing to move until I left the spot at which point I died instantly.
All in all, the game honestly sets up a far more spectacular ending to the game than you actually get. You start to reach a point as you close in on 6 oclock where you think to yourself "Huh, theres alot to wrap up in the time I have left", and unfortunately that's because it doesn't get wrapped up. At least not in a satisfying way.
There is sort of an exception to this; you do get more of a satisfying end IF you go for the secret ending, which is so obscure that you probably won't get it without looking it up (I had to). So, if past 6am you go to Roxy's Raceway and go to the second section of it, which is like a smaller cut off area that you need to go through a different shutter door to reach, there is a beauty salon. If you go inside the beauty salon, you will find an arcade machine called Princess Quest 1 - for those with a keen eye, you will recognise that this game has been mentioned quite a few times throughout the game and shows up during significant story beats.
The problem I have with it, is that they show up in the reverse order, with the first cabinet (the last one you would come across) being completely hidden - which means, when you first see the 3rd and 2nd machine, earlier in the game, you think, "Oh they must be important", try to use them, but you cant, because you haven't played the first yet, and the game gives you no hint that you need to use it later, you just presume it's part of the environment. Due to the non-linear progression system in this game and the fact you can choose which animatronic to deal with first, it's possible this could be an issue with the order I chose to do things in, but I feel like I took the most obvious path to completion and it seems to be the common route, from what I see online (Chica, Roxy, Monty, in that order).
Enough with the complaints though; the Princess Quest ending is, from a gameplay perspective? Fantastic. I was so shocked to turn on this arcade machine and be given a beautiful, simple, yet rather chilling short horror trilogy to wrap the game up and shed some light on Vanessa's backstory, even if it is metaphorical and vague. The game is retro in style, not buggy at all from what I could tell (which is refreshing especially after 30+ hours of gameplay). I honestly did not expect that a, what, 32 bit(?) retro style game could be eerie, but it really does its job well and the atmosphere often rivals or excels the main game. I just wish that this was used more throughout the game and also given as a forced story beat, though I will admit it is a satisfying secret ending to complete, even if I didn't find it without help from a guide. It also gives you the most satisfying ending cutscene (if you can call these comic book segments cutscenes), at least in terms of answers and what it implies.
To wrap up this review, I will say this:
The atmosphere in this game is often thick, even if inconsistent. There are times where buggy AI will break your immersion, and yet sometimes you may even be thankful for it because it saves you from what feels like a poor / unfair game design choice rather than a genuine mistake. If you are a fan of stealth games (presuming that being a fan of them would mean you have some high level of patience, since as you know there is typically a lot of stop / start waiting around), and are interested in getting into the Five Nights at Freddy's universe, this is a fantastic game to start with, and I can give it a solid 6/10 from that perspective. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but it is fun and I do consider it worth the money I paid for it, even if it may have been cutting it close. You may even have a better time than I did if you are someone who really enjoys headscratcher puzzles and a lot of looking around for the next place to go (I find it irritating personally, but there are people that love this).
If this game had just a bit more time in the oven, it would've almost been up there with the greats of horror like Resident Evil 2 for me, possibly looking at a 7 or an 8. To reach this, the game would've needed to have its AI ironed out and made more consistent with no frustrating, unfair moments, better hitboxes etc., less visual bugs and more stable performance, some more satisfying ending cinematics, and way, WAY more use of Vanny as an antagonist - I literally saw her TWICE the entire game? She is easily the scariest part of the game and she never shows up, it's absolutely criminal.
Is the game close to achieving these higher ratings? Absolutely not, it would require a lot of work to get there. However, I do believe that the team responsible for this game will eventually reach the level they need to be able to pull it off. Whilst it does fall short of greatness, it does leave you with hope that the next one will meet the bar.
I would like to leave a note here, as of the time of me playing this, the game also has bundled in free with it the RUIN DLC, which may patch up some of these issues (this I am yet to see), but I am reviewing this as the base game only, as for two years this was all anyone had to go off of. I will leave an edit note at the top of this review to let you know if the DLC makes a significant impact on whether you should purchase this game or not.
For context, I bought this game for £30-something off the playstation store following my autistic hype from the FNAF movie, which I personally thought was excellent (perhaps that take will decide for you whether to trust my opinion on this game).
I am pleased to report that despite the less than stellar first impressions, this game was definitely worth my time and I enjoyed my experience. Whether you too will enjoy the game in spite of its problems will be entirely weighing on your patience, what kind of games you enjoy, and how willing you are to excuse the issues you do encounter (and trust me, there will be some. I refuse to believe this game can be completed on a first time run without encountering a single bug).
Beyond this point there will be spoilers for the story - you have been warned.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is a strong departure from the series' typical style of gameplay (at least from my understanding). I personally have been following the lore of Five Nights at Freddy's on and off since the beginning of the franchise but have just never been able to get into it through the games, because I do not like the gameplay they have to offer. Over recent years I have become a fan of horror games, with Resident Evil 2 Remake being the first true horror game I had played to completion and still being one of my favourites - but regardless I would never touch Five Nights at Freddy's. The style of gameplay those games bring to the table is not what I consider fun - pure stress, tension, with barely any squeeze and release. Just constantly sitting and waiting for something to scare you. No way to fight back, run away, nothing - it's incredibly well done for what it is, don't get me wrong - but I hate enduring it. I'll proudly admit it's too scary for me.
That's why Security Breach caught my interest. This is a Stealth Game that feels so drastically different that it could well be considered a spin off, though I hope this is just the direction the series takes from this point forward.
You can definitely feel the passion that went into making this game when you play it - despite being a "Triple A Title" (as the Triple A Fazbear tag would lead you to believe), it feels like a decently solid fan game, in terms of its performance and stability. The story is intriguing, and you're always waiting to see what happens next, so it does make your playthrough hard to put down - unfortunately, what is dissapointing is that for most players, this will ultimately lead you nowhere. If you were hoping for a ton of exposition on the lore of Five Nights at Freddy's, you won't find it here - there is plenty of worldbuilding scattered throughout the notes, but you don't really get any answers from just playing.
Five of the six available endings are very lackluster - one of which is so frustrating to get (the william afton ending), because of the way the game locks the save sites. In some ways, I respect what the game did when it left you with only the atrium - it really does make you force yourself to get better at navigating the pizzaria, but the problems come when you do big heaps of progress and then die because you didn't get chance to save. This isn't a problem if you know to go back and save at the atrium constantly, but you learn that the hard way. I learned it the hard way by getting seen by chica toward the end of the game on one of the final puzzles, hiding from her, and having her bug out on me. She just stood outside my hiding spot for (legit) 20 minutes whilst I went to go make some food, refusing to move until I left the spot at which point I died instantly.
All in all, the game honestly sets up a far more spectacular ending to the game than you actually get. You start to reach a point as you close in on 6 oclock where you think to yourself "Huh, theres alot to wrap up in the time I have left", and unfortunately that's because it doesn't get wrapped up. At least not in a satisfying way.
There is sort of an exception to this; you do get more of a satisfying end IF you go for the secret ending, which is so obscure that you probably won't get it without looking it up (I had to). So, if past 6am you go to Roxy's Raceway and go to the second section of it, which is like a smaller cut off area that you need to go through a different shutter door to reach, there is a beauty salon. If you go inside the beauty salon, you will find an arcade machine called Princess Quest 1 - for those with a keen eye, you will recognise that this game has been mentioned quite a few times throughout the game and shows up during significant story beats.
The problem I have with it, is that they show up in the reverse order, with the first cabinet (the last one you would come across) being completely hidden - which means, when you first see the 3rd and 2nd machine, earlier in the game, you think, "Oh they must be important", try to use them, but you cant, because you haven't played the first yet, and the game gives you no hint that you need to use it later, you just presume it's part of the environment. Due to the non-linear progression system in this game and the fact you can choose which animatronic to deal with first, it's possible this could be an issue with the order I chose to do things in, but I feel like I took the most obvious path to completion and it seems to be the common route, from what I see online (Chica, Roxy, Monty, in that order).
Enough with the complaints though; the Princess Quest ending is, from a gameplay perspective? Fantastic. I was so shocked to turn on this arcade machine and be given a beautiful, simple, yet rather chilling short horror trilogy to wrap the game up and shed some light on Vanessa's backstory, even if it is metaphorical and vague. The game is retro in style, not buggy at all from what I could tell (which is refreshing especially after 30+ hours of gameplay). I honestly did not expect that a, what, 32 bit(?) retro style game could be eerie, but it really does its job well and the atmosphere often rivals or excels the main game. I just wish that this was used more throughout the game and also given as a forced story beat, though I will admit it is a satisfying secret ending to complete, even if I didn't find it without help from a guide. It also gives you the most satisfying ending cutscene (if you can call these comic book segments cutscenes), at least in terms of answers and what it implies.
To wrap up this review, I will say this:
The atmosphere in this game is often thick, even if inconsistent. There are times where buggy AI will break your immersion, and yet sometimes you may even be thankful for it because it saves you from what feels like a poor / unfair game design choice rather than a genuine mistake. If you are a fan of stealth games (presuming that being a fan of them would mean you have some high level of patience, since as you know there is typically a lot of stop / start waiting around), and are interested in getting into the Five Nights at Freddy's universe, this is a fantastic game to start with, and I can give it a solid 6/10 from that perspective. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but it is fun and I do consider it worth the money I paid for it, even if it may have been cutting it close. You may even have a better time than I did if you are someone who really enjoys headscratcher puzzles and a lot of looking around for the next place to go (I find it irritating personally, but there are people that love this).
If this game had just a bit more time in the oven, it would've almost been up there with the greats of horror like Resident Evil 2 for me, possibly looking at a 7 or an 8. To reach this, the game would've needed to have its AI ironed out and made more consistent with no frustrating, unfair moments, better hitboxes etc., less visual bugs and more stable performance, some more satisfying ending cinematics, and way, WAY more use of Vanny as an antagonist - I literally saw her TWICE the entire game? She is easily the scariest part of the game and she never shows up, it's absolutely criminal.
Is the game close to achieving these higher ratings? Absolutely not, it would require a lot of work to get there. However, I do believe that the team responsible for this game will eventually reach the level they need to be able to pull it off. Whilst it does fall short of greatness, it does leave you with hope that the next one will meet the bar.
I would like to leave a note here, as of the time of me playing this, the game also has bundled in free with it the RUIN DLC, which may patch up some of these issues (this I am yet to see), but I am reviewing this as the base game only, as for two years this was all anyone had to go off of. I will leave an edit note at the top of this review to let you know if the DLC makes a significant impact on whether you should purchase this game or not.