Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach

Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is a 2021 survival horror video game developed by Steel Wool Studios and ScottGames. It is the ninth main installment in the Five Nights at Freddy's series and the eleventh game overall. Set in a large shopping mall, the player takes on the role of a young boy named Gregory, who must evade the mall's hostile animatronic mascots as well as the night guard, attempting to survive until the morning. The game features significant differences from other installments in the franchise, with primary differences including free-roam gameplay.

The game was first announced in 2020 during the PlayStation 5 Showcase, and was released digitally on December 16, 2021, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. Ports for Google Stadia, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S released at later dates. In July 2023, free downloadable content titled Ruin was released. Security Breach received mixed reviews from critics, with praise towards the atmosphere and visual design, but criticism towards the gameplay and technical performance.

Gameplay
Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is a survival horror game with stealth elements. In the game, the player takes control of a young boy named Gregory, who is locked inside "Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex", a large shopping mall that the player is free to explore. While locked inside, the player must survive from midnight to 6:00 a.m. while fending off several animatronic mascots and robots that attempt to kill them. The mall and animatronics are modeled after a 1980s glam rock style. Gregory will also encounter other types of enemies, such as the night guard Vanessa.

Unlike previous iterations where Freddy is a prominent antagonist, in Security Breach, Freddy helps the player evade the other animatronics and features a stomach compartment that the player is able to hide in. However, as a result of malfunctions, Freddy can run out of power and must be recharged, forcing the players to fend for themselves. A variety of different tools are available to the player besides Freddy, such as a network of security cameras accessible via the players' watch, weapons such as the "Fazblaster" —a laser gun with unlimited ammo— and the "Faz Cam" —a camera-like stun device— as well as environmentally based ways to deterring the animatronics, such as knocking over objects to create noise that lures away animatronics. When the time reaches 6:00 a.m., the player is able to leave the Pizzaplex and complete the game, with the ending the player receives being dependent on how much of the Pizzaplex they explored.

Plot
Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach takes place in a large shopping mall known as Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex, which has animatronic mascots, Glamrock Freddy, Glamrock Chica, Montgomery "Monty" Gator and Roxanne "Roxy" Wolf. As the animatronics perform for an audience at the mall, Freddy suddenly suffers a malfunction and breaks down on stage, ending the performance. Afterwards, he is taken to Rockstar Row and discovers that a young boy named Gregory is hiding inside his stomach compartment. After the discovery, Vanessa, a female security guard and the only human on staff for the night, orders all animatronics and employee robots—most of which have become aggressive for unknown reasons—to search for Gregory.

As a result of the malfunction and his fear of Vanessa, Freddy disobeys her orders and instead guides Gregory to the lobby to help him escape, only for the mall to lock up for the night and trap him inside until they reopen in the morning. Until the mall reopens, Freddy helps Gregory survive the night and guides him through the Pizzaplex. After the two elude Vanessa and the animatronics and take refuge in a security office, Gregory manages to gain access to the mall's surveillance system. To obtain access to certain parts of the mall, Gregory attempts to acquire high-level security badges from the mall's daycare, encountering the Daycare Attendant in his "Sun form". Whilst in the daycare, a power outage forces Gregory to confront the Sun's hostile alter ego, Moon. He manages to restore its power, but the Attendant kicks Gregory out for turning the lights off. It proceeds to then alert the animatronics of his location before he is rescued by Freddy.

Shortly afterwards, Gregory is captured by Vanessa and is later confined in a party room. Suddenly, Vanny—a woman in a white patchwork rabbit costume—approaches him, but he escapes and reunites with Freddy. The two venture into the basement, where Moon ambushes them and captures Freddy. Gregory proceeds throughout the basement and avoids the animatronic endoskeletons, before finding Freddy being interrogated by Vanessa, accusing him of colluding with Gregory. Gregory repairs Freddy after Vanessa leaves, and begins dismantling the other animatronics to use their parts to upgrade Freddy.

Shortly after the upgrades are completed, 6:00 a.m. arrives and the mall's doors open, but Vanessa requests that Gregory to meet her for a "reward", which is several different recordings of Vanessa and an unknown person undergoing therapy. Gregory is then left with the choice of leaving the mall, staying to continue exploring the mall's secrets and trying to solve the remaining mysteries, or confronting Vanny, who was also responsible for several missing children cases within the mall.

The game has six different endings, each of which depends on Gregory's actions throughout the game and how he exits the mall. One ending in particular–known as the "Burntrap" ending–results in a boss fight against an animatronic known as Burntrap before it is ultimately defeated by Gregory. It also reveals the remnants of a past Freddy Fazbear's Pizza location that was buried beneath the mall years ago. Another ending–known as the "Princess Quest" ending–results in Gregory learning that Vanessa and Vanny are the same person. After a final confrontation in Fazerblast, Gregory manages to save Vanessa, and together with her and Freddy, leave the mall as the sun begins to come up.

Ruin
Some time after the events of the main story, Gregory becomes trapped within the Pizzaplex–now abandoned–once again, this time by an unknown entity beneath. To free him, his friend Cassie arrives and collects different items around the mall. These items include a security mask, which allows her to access a Virtual Augmented Neural Network Integration ("V.A.N.N.I.") unit. Gregory guides Cassie through the Pizzaplex and instructs her to disable several security nodes in order to access a sinkhole, with the last one being a now-blinded Roxy which Cassie tearfully disables. As she goes through the mall, Cassie encounters damaged versions of the mall's animatronics, in which she destroys Monty and fuses the Attendant's Sun and Moon forms into an "Eclipse". She is also hunted by a digital entity in the form of a rabbit whenever she is wearing the security mask.

After disabling Roxy, a distressed Cassie makes her way into the sinkhole and the remnants of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. She disables the security protocols of the location, and shuts down a program named M.X.E.S. (the server for the rabbit entity). When she enters the room Gregory was trapped in, she instead discovers a skeletal animatronic known as the "Mimic", who is using Gregory's vocal patterns to trick Cassie into releasing him. The Mimic chases after Cassie as the real Gregory leads her to an elevator, with the Mimic overpowering a rebooted Roxy in the process.

As the elevator ascends, Gregory reveals that the Mimic was trapped in the sinkhole for some time, and M.X.E.S. was built to stop it from escaping. Since Cassie shut down the Security Nodes and M.X.E.S., the Mimic is now free. Though Gregory appreciates Cassie risking her life for him, he tells her that he cannot allow the Mimic to be freed. Gregory apologetically disables the elevator, sending the car plummeting to the ground with Cassie still inside, where she is found by Roxy. An alternate ending can also be acquired where the Mimic is defeated by Cassie via a device that grabs it and shuts it down.

Development and release
Security Breach was developed by Steel Wool Studios and Scott Cawthon. It was first announced on September 16, 2020, when a teaser trailer for the game was released during the PlayStation 5 Showcase event. At the end of the presentation, it was announced that the game would be released on PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, and could come to other platforms at a later date. However, on November 17, Cawthon announced that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and new additions to the game, the game had been delayed to early 2021. The game was delayed further in April 2021, aiming for a release date later that year instead.

In June 2021, Cawthon was discovered to have donated to Republican Party politicians, prompting a controversy on social media. As a result of the controversy, Cawthon announced that he would be retiring from game development and was looking for someone else to oversee "running the show"; Steel Wool Studios continued to develop the game. During the PlayStation State of Play on October 27, 2021, the final trailer was showcased, revealing the game's release date to be December 16, 2021. On February 28, 2022, an update was released for the game, fixing many of the technical issues while also lessening the game's difficulty. Ports for the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S were released on November 22, 2022. A Nintendo Switch port was released on April 19, 2023.

Tie-in media and merchandise
Before the release of Security Breach, on October 30, 2020, Funko released a line of action figures of the Glamrock animatronics and collectible mystery minis. On May 20, 2021, Funko also released two 12" statues: one of Glamrock Freddy and Gregory hiding from Vanny and the other of Vanny and the night guard Vanessa on opposite sides of a potted plant. When the game was delayed once more in April 2021, Cawthon released a spin-off game known as Fury’s Rage, a side-scrolling beat-em-up game.

Downloadable content
On May 30, 2022, free downloadable content for the game titled Ruin was announced. On May 15, 2023, the Security Breach TV website was updated with a new teaser for the upcoming DLC. Shortly after, the gameplay trailer for the DLC was released on the Steel Wool Studios YouTube channel on May 19, 2023. This trailer revealed the new protagonist’s name as Cassie, whose goal is to save Gregory in the ruins of the Pizzaplex from destroyed animatronics. The DLC was released on PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on July 25, 2023; ports for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S released on April 23, 2024, with a Nintendo Switch port in the works.

Reception
Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.

The atmosphere and visual design of the Pizzaplex were viewed positively. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of The Escapist and Mike Fahey of Kotaku praised the game's visuals, with the former jokingly stating that it was likely where "all the budget" went and the latter describing it as the "best looking" game in the series. However, Nicolai Brülke of PC Games criticized the game's jumpscares, describing them as "repetitive".

The gameplay and storytelling were divisive. While Fahey and Jeuxvideo.com praised the game's new mechanics and exploration aspects, with Fahey primarily focusing on the more involved role given to Freddy, critics such as Croshaw and Gyeongcheon Min of IGN (Korea) were more critical of the gameplay, primarily criticizing the lack of indication of where the player was on the map, though Min praised the game for taking the franchise into a new direction. Brülke concurred with Min, positively viewing the new gameplay formula. The game's narrative was criticized by Croshaw and Brülke, with Croshaw stating the game "never explained" why the animatronics were hostile, and both criticizing the game's endings; Brülke considering them to be "weak" and only appealing to fans.

The game's technical performance was widely criticized, with Croshaw, Brülke, and Jeuxvideo.com all being highly critical of it. Jeuxvideo.com and Brülke viewed the game's technical performance as being damaging to the game's moments of horror, with Brülke pointing out instances where the enemies would be stuck in place and allow the player to freely roam without any threats. Furthermore, Croshaw commented that stating the game was unfinished would be "too charitable". As a result of his issues with the game, Croshaw listed Security Breach as the worst game of 2022, describing it as a "six-lane pile-up of a game".

The game was voted as the best new game of December 2021 on PlayStation's official blog.

Sequel
On May 24, 2023, during a PlayStation Showcase, the tenth installment, and a direct sequel to Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted, simply titled Help Wanted 2, was announced with a release date of December 14, 2023 for PlayStation VR2 and Microsoft Windows. The game features levels based on Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location and Security Breach.