If you’ve been following the Five Nights at Freddy’s fandom in recent years, you’ll be more than familiar with a rather divisive entry in the series called Security Breach.  Developed by Steel Wool Studios, this game suffered from multiple delays before its eventual release in December of 2021.  And even then, it was definitely not ready, with major technical issues and loads of cut content.  Many fans were, understandably, disappointed by the game, myself among them.  But now that some time has passed, and I’ve played through the game twice, with my second playthrough being far more thorough, can I still call Security Breach a bad game?  Well, the answer to that question is nearly as complicated as the series’ lore.

Security Breach is the franchise’s first true free-roaming FNAF game (as any freedom offered in Sister Location was minimal, at best).  In it, you play as a boy named Gregory who gets stuck in the Pizzaplex after hours and has to survive until 6 AM when the doors unlock in the morning.  In the meantime, he’s faced with avoiding killer animatronics and a security guard named Vanessa that he’s convinced is out to get him.  (He’s right, but how he knows this, I am unsure.)  To help you on your adventure is none other than Glamrock Freddy himself, the friendliest and most lovable iteration of FNAF’s titular character ever!

First off, let’s start with the good because you simply must appreciate how much love and attention to detail went into designing the Pizzaplex.  I mean, the place is massive, and there is so much to look at.  A variety of merch in the gift shops, different artwork for the characters strewn about, tons of different arcade machines, and so many other cool decorations that really makes the place a joy to explore.  I had so much fun during my second playthrough.  No longer in a hurry to get the game recorded and uploaded to Youtube as quickly as possible, I could just chill and take my time.

And then there are the characters.  I absolutely love the animatronics in this game.  For one thing, we got my personal favorites, Sun and Moon (known collectively as the Daycare Attendant), who are some of the most unique characters in the whole franchise, from their designs to their personalities (since Help Wanted 2, Sun has probably become the most fleshed out character in all of FNAF).  Not to mention the whole concept of two AI sharing one body, with the lighting determining who is in control, which is just so interesting!  (Their sheer popularity has, in fact, spawned their own sub-fandom).  DJ Music Man is another really cool character, and the West Arcade where we encounter him is easily one of the best parts in the whole game!  The Glamrocks also have some really nice designs, and their personalities make them so much more lovable than they were in past games, where they often just felt like soulless machines.

Okay, but I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the problems.  And there are, admittedly, a lot of them.  Well…first off, there are the technical issues.  I played this game the day it came out (again, I was recording for Youtube), and man, was it buggy.  These glitches usually were of the harmless or even funny variety.  A duplicate Freddy standing there in Parts & Services after…a certain cut scene where there should have been no Freddy.  DJ Music Man walking right past me during his chase sequence.  Or just annoying antics such as my flashlight getting stuck in an intrusive location on the screen.  Other issues were more of a problem, such as the time I got stuck in a wall or when the game only showed me the wrong cameras in a challenge that absolutely required me to be able to see outside my hiding spot with complete accuracy!

Fortunately, most of these glitches have since been fixed.  (Or not so fortunately, in the case of the amusing ones.)  On a more negative note, my game now crashes randomly in the Daycare level.  I gotta be honest with you for a second.  That’s…actually worse than the old glitches, so if I could just revert back to the original version of the game, that would be nice…

But what I think is the biggest shame about Security Breach is not the many glitches, but the lost potential.  For one thing, the story is a bit of a mess.  You see, we were supposed to finally be introduced to a new villain in the form of Vanny, a lady in a skintight rabbit costume who presumably lures kids to their doom in the footsteps of William Afton.  But she barely appears in the game.  In fact, I think in my second playthrough, she appeared even less than she did the first time!  We also have no explanation for why Gregory is even there after hours to begin with or why he assumes Vanessa wants to hurt him.  (Again, he’s right, but how’s he know?)  At 6 AM, Gregory even talks about stopping more children from disappearing, as if that’s been his goal all along, when he never once mentioned it beforehand.

I believe there were other cut lines of dialogue that would have shed more light on the situation (such as an explanation for a bizarre moment early on where Freddy is convinced Gregory is hurt).  Plus, and this one’s the most upsetting to me, I’m fairly certain some cool stuff was cut with Moon in Parts & Services, as he is heavily referenced here in merch, artwork, candy ads playing on the TVs, etc.  He also has animations for peering around corners and beckoning to you.  AND afterwards, Freddy gets this random power upgrade that comes completely out of nowhere, when every other upgrade came from his fellow Glamrocks!  It’s no stretch to assume that this power upgrade should have come from an encounter where Gregory would have, presumably, shattered Moon just as he did to the Glamrocks.

Then again, considering my love for Sun and Moon, maybe I’m glad they didn’t get destroyed by the unstoppable force that is Gregory.

And then you have the issue of the game not being scary.  I feel like Moon is the only character who manages to both be appealing and creepy.  His raspy voice and unhinged chuckles, permanent smile, and uncanny ability to walk on all fours make him both an interesting and terrifying character.  And the DJ’s pretty cool and intimidating, as well, thanks to his sheer size and ability to crawl along the walls.  But everyone else…yeah, they are not scary.  Freddy and Sun are friendly and frankly, outright lovable.  While the main threats of Chica, Roxy, and Monty are (like the rest of the cast) just so brightly colored and spout the same annoying lines over and over again that it’s hard to be afraid of them.

If Security Breach was not meant to be a horror game, or a FNAF game for that matter, maybe people would be quicker to forgive its flaws.  But it was meant to be both of these things, and looking back on where the franchise started, it’s truly jarring that Security Breach and Five Nights at Freddy’s 1 are part of the same series.  I can believe that Super Mario Odyssey is part of the same franchise as the original Super Mario Bros on the NES.  I can accept a lot of games as being a natural progression of their respective franchises.  But Security Breach has lost all the horror and tone that made the series popular to begin with.  And no, it’s not the lack of gore.  Some people have suggested that the game would have been better if there had been more violence, and I disagree.  Five Nights at Freddy’s has rarely ever shown blood and gore, especially in a realistic fashion.  Because the true horror of being stuffed in an animatronic suit, for example, is imagining how agonizing it would be, not in actually seeing it in gruesome detail.

The problem with Security Breach is actually one of the very reasons I like it.  The animatronics are too lovable.  Their designs are too appealing, their personalities too fleshed out, and their movements too fluid.  What made the original animatronics so scary was because they weren’t sleek and shiny mascots with child-friendly personalities.  In the earliest games, we rarely even saw them move (with a notable exception being Foxy’s speedy run down the hallway).  Rather, we just caught them standing completely still in the cameras or discovered them staring eerily at you from the doorway when we flashed the lights.  They didn’t speak, but sometimes would make creepy, unnatural noises when they got into your office and death was inevitable.  They were robotic.  They were unknowable.  Because they weren’t human, and they didn’t try to be.

And then we have characters like Glamrock Freddy and Sun, and man, what I would give to be able to just hang out with them.  I want to play laser tag with Freddy and spend time with Sun decorating my artwork with glitter glue and googly eyes!

Let me pause for a moment to give you a brief history of my time with this franchise.  I started following Five Nights at Freddy’s around the release of the third or fourth games.  I became instantly fascinated by the series’ growing lore, and I had fun playing the first two games myself.  But then Sister Location was released, and my love for the franchise waned.  Sure, I was aware that the story already revolved around a child-murdering psychopath.  But when the series introduced the Funtime animatronics, which were specifically built to lure and kidnap kids, I was done.  I had no interest in FNAF 6, though I was curious enough to watch a playthrough of Help Wanted when it first came out.  And then Security Breach was announced, and my interest in the series was restored.

Sure, Security Breach wasn’t what we all wished it would be.  Nevertheless, can we just appreciate it for what it is and not for what it should have been?  Because yes, despite all its flaws…I like Security Breach.  There, I said it.  It’s probably the most disappointing, the most mocked, entry in the FNAF entry.  But I had fun with it anyway.  And I’m glad it exists.  Is it a good FNAF game?  No.  Is it a good horror game?  Heck no!  But the game is just too charming, the characters too endearing, and the Pizzaplex too awesome.  You can tell that Steel Wool poured a lot of love into this game.  Sure, I miss what FNAF used to be, but I wouldn’t give up Security Breach, either.  I just hope that, moving forward, we can live in a world where the loveable characters of Security Breach can coexist side-by-side with the Five Nights at Freddy’s of the past, which was actually scary and had a story which gave gamers all around the world something to collectively theorize and talk about.

In the meantime, Security Breach heavily influenced Help Wanted 2, which gave us super sassy Sun, who gets ticked off if you try to get too creative in arts and crafts.  Do any of us want to live in a timeline where that didn’t happen?  Because I know I don’t!