Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Switch & PC)

While it was Five Nights at Freddy’s: Secret of the Mimic that provided me with a new outlook on the franchise’s ever-expanding universe, it was Into the Pit that made me realize that the true horror wasn’t so much in the rapidly evolving mechanisms as it was the  token-appointed configuration of an arcade thriller. It just so happened that an 8-bit iteration of the prolific anthology was the chapter that took me by surprise. It took me by surprise, not because it was frighteningly good, but because it was bold enough to elaborate on the source material that, sadly, both Security Breach and Secret of the Mimic failed to showcase. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the glam rock doppelgängers; it was about the epicenter of the pizzeria and the ghosts that helped bring it to its knees. It was, in short, the prelude I never knew I needed.

Of course, for the sake or saving you a few minutes of your time, I will say this: If you’re skirting around the idea of dipping into Into the Pit with the hopes of finding a similar experience to that of Secret of the Mimic’s, then you might as well click out from this tab before we delve any deeper into, well, the pit. The truth here is that, while the game does share the core elements of Scott Cawthon’s cult series, as well as its primary characters and locations, it isn’t a Steel Wool affair. With that, there are no open-world pizzerias to explore, nor are there any bone-chilling chases to subject yourself to, for that matter. To put it simply, Into the Pit is more of a, shall we say, nitty-gritty love letter to 8-bit gaming and eighties prosthetics. It isn’t faux glam; it’s nostalgically transparent.

The Other Side of Freddy’s

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit is a short two- hour side-scrolling horror that puts a fresh twist on Scott Cawthon’s cult franchise. Unlike your traditional Steel Wool adaptation, Into the Pit turns a blind eye to modern fantasy and instead focuses on a darker, more complex 8-bit narrative, which more or less puts its emphasis on close-quarter corridor exploration and tense puzzle solving.

The game, which takes its inspiration from the prolific creator’s source material, puts you in the shoes of Oswald, a young boy who, after discovering a portal in the form of a decrepit ball pit at his local pizzeria, learns that, by essentially stepping into the pit, his surroundings ultimately reflect the drastic downfall  of Freddy Fazbear’s once-renowned restaurant. In light of this disturbing discovery, Oswald soon finds himself entangled with two realities: a world where the animatronics roam rampant, and a world where modern-day routines merge into tantalizing premonitions and daring obstacles.

Into the Pit takes you across a series of small locations—a school, a mill, a library, Oswald’s home, and of course, the iconic pizzeria. In the daytime, you have the ability to venture back and forth between these locations, either to collect information on the historical significance of the old pizzeria, or simply to interact with NPCs and unlock tools and other lures to help you cave deeper into the restaurant come dusk. The night, on the other hand, sees you with another opportunity: to venture into the ball pit and to an alternate timeline, where the faithful animatronics and, somewhere in between, your wayward father looms in the balance.

A Fresh Slice of Misfortune

Into the Pit gracefully retains all of the same hallmark elements from the original series, including its intense chase sequences (albeit on a smaller side-scrolling scale) and brief mini-games, which more or less stretches to swatting spiders, holding your breath, or completing the occasional QTE in a somewhat timely fashion to prevent a passing animatronic from bolting out to greet you with a good old-fashioned jump scare. The bulk of the game, however, isn’t so much about completing button prompts or hiding from Bonnie, Chica and friends as it is about plunging deep into the depths of Cawthon’s lore to unravel a supernatural mystery. Thankfully, all of this remains true to the source material, too, and it connects the dots between the original series and the movie adaptation’s timeline incredibly well. That’s a huge plus for Freddy fanatics, for sure.

While Into the Pit doesn’t carry the same weight as Security Breach, much less the visual complexity of the series’ modern iterations, it does bring a lot of great features to the table—a retro eighties aesthetic, being its most notable component, naturally. It also contains an intriguing plot that, true to the nature of the series, weans and wanes over the course of the five evenings. And to be honest, there are plenty of little things that make it all the more appealing, like the comic book-like tearaways, or the subtle yet oddly terrifying sound effects, for example.

Although Into the Pit doesn’t boast the greatest of gameplay mechanics in the world, it does supplement its lack of extensive features with a fluid and dynamic design that feels both nostalgic and natural to play with. Moreover, as it doesn’t foster any unwanted technical or performance issues, it flows well enough to keep you immersed from the moment you step into the ball pit till you emerge from the shadowy crevices of the dated pizzeria. Maybe I was lucky during the two or three hours that I spent in it, or maybe, just maybe, I was too preoccupied with outrunning Bonnie to spot anything out of the ordinary.

Verdict

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit takes the usual flamboyance of Steel Wool Studios’ first-person series and douses it in an oddly nostalgic 8-bit coating whilst simultaneously maintaining all of those juicy elements of Scott Cawthon’s rolling anthological graphic novels. It’s still Five Nights at Freddy’s at heart, but with a picture-perfect eighties aesthetic and a different style of gameplay than what we’ve collectively immortalized in the past several years or so through the hive mind of Security Breach. But that doesn’t mean that it’s any less terrifying, mind you. Oh, Into the Pit is, for what it’s worth, as equally as nerve-wracking as its counterparts — doubly so, even.

Suffice it to say that, if you are an avid fan of Five Nights at Freddy’s, and have yet to dabble with the 8-bit installment in the timeline, then take it from us: if it’s a terrifyingly nostalgic dip into the ball pit of the series’ most slept-on episode that you’re looking for, then you have every reason to fork out on Mega Cat Studio’s faithful adaptation of the beloved graphic novel. It’s eerily familiar, thematically grotesque, and oh-so Freddy Fazbear.