Five Nights at Freddy’s was a bit of a surprise hit. It got the attention of a number of prominent Let’s Players on Youtube, and from there the game’s popularity just exploded. It could be called a good example of why Let’s Plays and Youtube have become very effective tools in getting a game out there to a wide audience. The sequel was announced back in September and Scott Cawthon has been releasing teaser images and a trailer since then. A demo was released on November 10th and we were told that we could expect to see the game released on Christmas at the earliest…

… Yeah, this is a game about murderous animatronics sneaking up on you as well as vague and sometimes misleading instructions being given to you; so maybe it isn’t a surprise that the full game released last night on Steam, springing at you with the sudden shock of one of its antagonists. Even better, the person in-game giving you that sometimes misleading information is actually voiced by Cawthon… how’s that for weirdly meta?

Anyway, to the game itself and you find yourself as the night guard for the newly reopened Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. Once again you aim to survive five nights, six hours long each, and keep away or fend off the place’s animatronics who for some reason would dearly love to forcefully make you one of them.

The bad news first, the first game had four main animatronics and one easter egg one (who was fairly easy to deal with). This game has not only those four, but their ‘re-designed’ versions (the ‘Toy’ animatronics), as well as a balloon vendor child animatron, the easter egg and… well, something that isn’t an animatronic and you really do not wish to meet in the dark hallways after hours. That means you’re dealing with eleven antagonists in this game, although you will probably not have to deal with all of them at once until you get late in the game. Add to that one of the trailer’s boasts – no doors. This time you can’t shut them out, and they will enter your office and get up close and personal.

So how do you beat them? The good news is that this time the management has kept the power on overnight, although you do have a flashlight you use to light up rooms and the corridor outside your office and that does have a power limit. Also, if you find that they’re getting too close for comfort you have a spare Fazbear head to slip on which will fool most of the animatronics and make them leave, although it doesn’t work on all of them. There’s also a music box that can be wound up remotely from one of the cameras that will keep the one antagonist you really don’t want to meet locked away, so you need never deal with them.

If you’ve got the stomach for it, or just have been looking forward to the game you can buy it on Steam now for £5.59/$7.99.