At last, some official footage for the upcoming Five Nights at Freddy’s game, Secret of the Mimic, has been revealed.  For whatever reason, Steel Wool has been especially secretive about this game, not allowing anyone to record any footage of the demo at PAX West months ago.  But just last week, we got a trailer showcasing some of the warehouse people described seeing in the demo, along with a few new characters or costumes that the Mimic could potentially hide within.

In case you’re not familiar, the Mimic was originally a character introduced in a story of the same name from Tales from the Pizzaplex.  It was created by Edwin Murray to entertain his son, David.  It then made an appearance in the Ruin DLC for Security Breach.  In either iteration, the Mimic is supposed to be able to adjust its endoskeleton to fit into any costume.  But before I get ahead of myself, let me describe a few things about the trailer.

First off, the trailer is narrated by a voice that sounds rather similar to the AI voice HandUnit, which was originally introduced in FNAF 5, Sister Location.  Early on, we also see what is presumably the same van containing MXES, which was shown in the brief update to Help Wanted 2 advertising Secret of the Mimic.  Apparently, it will be our job to retrieve the Mimic, though it is not described by name, but rather, the aforementioned ability to fit into any costume and become any character.  We can see a variety of costumes on display in the trailer, though the most notable are an elephant and some sort of mushroom character that is most definitely being worn by the Mimic.

Frankly, what makes me even more interested are some of the new characters.  For one thing, we see what appears to be an early model of Staff Bot in an office, which is quite strange, considering this game takes place in the 70’s, and the first time these were actually seen was decades later in Security Breach.  There is also some sort of doll-like nurse character (presumably not hijacked by the Mimic, as this looks much more like a robot than a costume).  The trailer ends with what seems to be an early model of Music Man, which is especially exciting!  But of course, the biggest highlight is Jackie herself, the clownish jack-in-the-box that may or may not turn out to be the Mimic itself.

I’m very interested to discover what this game is going to reveal about the history of Fazbear Entertainment.  After all, this game is the very earliest in the timeline.  I’ve already mentioned how interesting it is to see an early version of the Staff Bots and Music Man, but we also see a character on a computer terminal that resembles Helpy (like Music Man, Helpy was originally from FNAF 6), and I even remember a cutout of some sort of alligator character, making me wonder if the Montgomery Gator from Security Breach is not the brand new replacement to Bonnie that we had first assumed.

I must say, it’s really refreshing to finally get a FNAF game not centered on the oh so familiar Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, though at the same time, is it really FNAF without them?  While I don’t exactly want these guys to be a major focus of the game, I do think it would be cool if we at least got a glimpse of an earlier incarnation of them before the game ends.

While I’m quite excited for this game, I feel like Secret of the Mimic has a heavy burden on its shoulders.  For one thing, the Mimic was not exactly welcomed with open arms upon its reveal in Ruin, so I hope Steel Wool can give us some reason to be excited for this character when the series eventually picks up from where it left off in the future, after Cassie’s quest to locate Gregory in the abandoned Pizzaplex.  Secondly, the lore in FNAF has gotten hopelessly confusing as of late, and no one really seems to be certain where the story is even going anymore.  People were not happy when Security Breach advertised the new villain, Vanny, only to give her practically no screen time, while it was simultaneously clear that the story had some major cutbacks that left the motivations of our protagonist Gregory, and the largely absent Vanny, unclear.  FNAF is currently on a rather confusing path, and I can only hope that Secret of the Mimic can set the series up for a promising future and not muddy the waters even more than Security Breach already did.

Well, we also got our release date, June 13, 2025.  Secret of the Mimic should be releasing on PS5 and PC for $39.99.  Strangely enough, while the game was originally advertised as being playable in both VR and flat mode, there is no longer any mention on whether or not VR will be an option, so I guess we’ll just have to wait to find out for sure. I can only assume that Steel Wool no longer feels confident getting the game ready for VR by the release date, so they’ve scrapped the idea altogether? (I mean, we know what happened when they got overly ambitious with Security Breach.) Furthermore, there is currently no word on whether the game will be released on other consoles, though FNAF games tend to be released on XBox and Switch at a later date.

Banner image of Jackie from Secret of the Mimic drawn by The Duck of Indeed