The first Five Nights at Freddy's game was released in 2014, and thanks to the intensely tense nature of its sinister gameplay, it quickly rose to the top of the survival horror genre. In the game, the player assumes control of a night shift security officer at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a shuttered restaurant that has rumors of having haunted and reanimated life-size animatronics that prowl the premises at night.

Due to a number of tragedies connected to it, including the abduction and likely murder of five children by a man by the name of William Afton, the pizzeria itself is in a state of disrepair. The many animatronic mascots of the pizzeria, named Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, are said to have been filled with the victims' bodies. This allegedly caused a widespread boycott of the establishment, which ultimately led to its closure in the Five Nights at Freddy's unblocked.

It soon becomes clear that these rumors are true, with the mascots moving freely throughout the facility and inching closer and closer to the player's location with malice. The protagonist is keeping an eye on the animatronics at night through the use of security cameras in the Fnaf, and it soon becomes clear that this is the case. Only by controlling the power supply of the facility's doors and lights and making sure that no possessed animatronics can approach close enough to cause a fatal wound can the player survive the lengthy period inside the building.