The Five Nights at Freddy's series is one famous for its jumpscares, but some do them better than others. The best games manage to make players jump out of their seats from fear, while the worst can leave them feeling underwhelmed. Which is which is a debate that members of its vast fanbase could have for hours, but going purely by the jumpscares themselves, there are some games that stand out among the others.
From the original Five Nights at Freddy's to the latest, Security Breach, FNAF has been scaring the pants off of players ever since its creation. Almost every player has walked away from the games with an elevated pulse, and maybe a few new nightmares. It's an unabashed horror game, dedicated to frightening its fans at every opportunity. A lot of things in FNAF are easily missable, and the series has deep lore beneath its scares. Even without all of the lore, backstories, and blink-and-miss-it plot points, it's still a great horror game due to the simplicity of its gameplay compared to the jarring nature of its scares.
FNAF knows its niche. It has jumpscares, and it has a lot of them. The best scares are often the ones that come out of nowhere, making players scream and maybe even knock something off of their desks, while the worst can usually be seen from a mile off. How the various animatronics move, their appearance, and how close they get to the camera all affect the scare, but none of them are definite criteria, and some of the best of the best jumpscares just can't be explained. The possibilities for the next FNAF games are almost endless, so hopefully, there are even more to come.
Worst FNAF Scares - Ultimate Custom Night
FNAF: Ultimate Custom Night is the culmination of all of the FNAF games prior to its creation. It has the worst jumpscares for one reason and one reason only - they're ridiculous. The camera shakes and the animatronics move so much that it gets hard to see anything, and after the first few jumpscares, they stop being scary and start being annoying. The amount of movement is almost comical, which is the opposite effect that fans want out of a FNAF game, so Ultimate Custom Night's over-the-top scares earn it the title of the worst in the series.
The Second-Worst FNAF Scares - Pizzeria Simulator
FNAF: Pizzeria Simulator was a new take on the series. Players spent half the game building their very own Freddy Fazbear's location and the other half keeping it running. Upgrading and improving their own FNAF location gave players a more active role than they had in other games.
It's incredibly easy to go through the entire game without being jumpscared once, however. The animatronics that will jumpscare players only appear if they make certain choices, so it takes some finagling to get all of them. This isn't the reason that they're bad, however. As opposed to Ultimate Custom Night, where there's too much movement, Pizzeria Simulator doesn't have enough. The animatronics freeze after moving into frame, which almost makes them tame compared to the rest of the series, and certainly doesn't provide an intense scare.
Third-Worst FNAF Scares - Sister Location
Sister Location is the fifth entry in the FNAF series, and saw new animatronics in the form of Funtime Freddy and Foxy, Ballora, and Circus Baby, among others. It isn't the FNAF series' lowest-rated game, but it has a similar problem to Pizzeria Simulator in that some of its animatronics don't move too much after the initial scare, but the jumpscares are still better since this isn't true of all of them. Many of the animatronics also undo their faces to reveal their inner endoskeletons, which makes them even more horrifying.
FNAF: Help Wanted's Scares Don't Make The Cut
FNAF: Help Wanted was the first VR FNAF game. It gave players jumpscares that were up close and personal, which made them that much more frightening. However, they aren't the best in the series.
The reason why is that the animatronic's faces almost fill the entire screen, and completely black out the background. They almost have the effect of taking players out of the game, which means that while they may be scary, they're not as good as some of the others. Compared to other games, FNAF: Help Wanted simply doesn't feel as real, despite being designed to be the most of them all.
FNAF: Special Delivery's Jumpscares Aren't Quite All They Could Be
FNAF: Special Delivery brought the signature animatronics into people's homes with augmented reality. It let players collect them, and for the first time, gave them a way to defend themselves from the jumpscares that the series is famous for. The reason that this game isn't quite as good as some of the others is that the jumpscares are on a phone, rather than on a computer or a television screen. The smaller screen, combined with the fact that players can avoid them if they try, means that the jumpscares aren't quite as good as some of the other games.
FNAF 3's Scares Are Good, But Not Great
FNAF 3 was the third entry in the series. It gave players the first look at William Afton, aka Springtrap, who might be the scariest FNAF character, sure to induce nightmares, and showed them first-hand the overarching antagonist of all of the past and future games. Its jumpscares are sudden, and they're possibly the ones that could be called the least-best without being bad, but it loses to other games for two reasons.
First of all, most of the jumpscares aren't actually real; they're the result of hallucinations on the part of the player character, and thus don't end the game. Second, the only one that does make players lose is Springtrap, and it isn't very impressive. The sight of it might be scary, but once players get over the initial appearance, Springtrap's jumpscare doesn't have much to stand on. It's relatively slow, isn't very jarring, and freezes in place once it appears. It simply doesn't match up to scares from other games.
The Fourth-Best Scares In FNAF - Five Nights At Freddy's 2
FNAF 2 was the second entry in the series, in a different setting from the first FNAF game, and although it's outdone by some other games, its scares are still good. The horrifying Withered animatronics inspire a horror that lasts beyond the initial shock of the jumpscares, and although the toy versions don't have the same broken-down macabre, they're still enough to give any player a shock. The animatronics do freeze, but the scares end right after, so it doesn't become a problem.
The Third-Best FNAF Scares - Security Breach
The latest entry in the FNAF series is Security Breach, and it changed how the game worked. Instead of helplessly pointing and clicking, players control Gregory, a child that breaks into the Mega Pizzaplex. In order to avoid being caught by the various animatronics, they need to sneak around and stay out of sight.
It's easier to avoid being scared than in past games, but that doesn't mean that the scares themselves are bad. The possibilities for FNAF: Security Breach's DLC have been a question from fans ever since its announcement. Especially in the later stages of the game, when Gregory steals the voice box, claws, and eyes of the other animatronics, Security Breach's jumpscares are enough to make players jump out of their seats in fear.
The Second-Best FNAF Scares - FNAF 4
FNAF 4 was the first game to let players get out of their seat and move around. Players had to navigate a child's bedroom and keep out nightmarish versions of the classic animatronics. If they fail to do so, the animatronics seemingly pick them up while they gnash their multiple rows of teeth. Although Nightmare's jumpscare doesn't match up to the rest, most of them are truly horrifying, due in no small part to the similarities between 4 and the original game. There's no best way to hide in FNAF 4, so players have to fight to survive. The uncertainty of whether or not the animatronics are actually real only makes the game and its scares that much more terrifying.
The Original Jumpscares In Five Nights At Freddy's Are The Best
The title of the best FNAF jumpscares goes to the original game, for one simple reason. Being the first entry in the series, players were completely unprepared for what was to come, which made the scares fresh and truly terrifying. In all subsequent games, fans at least knew partially what to expect, but in the original, they were going in blind.
The first game's aspect of players needing to manage their electricity was also a big factor. Upgrading the power in FNAF was impossible, so every percentage counted. Older players know full-well the terror of running out just at the tail end of 5 am and seeing Freddy appear in the left doorway while his signature tune plays, and hoping against hope that the clock will turn before he gets them. Then, just as they think they've made it, he jumps out and scares the figurative hair off of them. The first Five Nights at Freddy's set the tone for the entire series, and none of the future entries have come close to topping it.