- Plot
The plot of Five Nights at Freddy's: BLOOD & GEARS aims to be a refreshing and grounded interpretation of the original Five Nights at Freddy's story while remaining faithful to its major plot points. Its story spans from the franchise’s early beginnings, through the events of the game, up to the present day. While the narrative contains major plot points both prior to and following the events of the game, Five Nights at Freddy's: BLOOD & GEARS takes the perspective of an unnamed protagonist who returns to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place as it stands on the brink of closure after twenty years, oddly drawn to the location for an unspecified reason.
Timeline[]
Backstory[]
1970[]
At an unknown point in the late 1970s, Fazbear Entertainment was founded by Henry Emily and William Afton, two business partners and old friends who shared a vision to create their own establishment. Initially, Emily conceptualized Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place in 1978, however, due to budget constraints, the restaurant had to be scaled down. Consequently, on April 3rd, 1979, the two established Fredbear's Family Diner, a family-friendly diner featuring the Fredbear and Bonnie Rabbit performers, with Sparky the Dog and the Puppet serving as side performers. Many attractions intrigued customers, such as the Fredbear's Wheel of Fun, Prize Counter, Carousel, Sparky's Doghouse's crawl maze, and arcade, allowing guests to exchange tickets for merchandise including plush toys, T-shirts, bobble-heads, and more.
1980[]
At an unknown point prior to its closure, co-founder Henry Emily disappeared from public view and was shortly thereafter declared deceased. His disappearance fueled numerous rumors, with some speculating it was a result of suicide, while others suggested he may have simply lost interest in the business. The Emily family chose to avoid making any official comments on the matter. Due to various unknown factors alongside Emily's death, Fredbear's Family Diner continued to operate until late 1983, when it was soon closed for classified reasons. Following its closure, Fazbear Entertainment sought to reopen the location under the Henry Emily's former pitch involving Freddy Fazbear, recruiting Johan Parker and his studio team to record an official commercial announcing the rebrand of Fredbear's Family Diner and the introduction of Freddy Fazbear as the new main performer. This commercials airing coincided with the establishment's reopening in January 1984 under "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place."
The location opened with a brand new set of characters, including Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie the Bunny, Chica the Chicken, and Foxy the Pirate. Additionally, the Puppet remained as an attraction connected to the Prize Counter, while all other previous characters were replaced in favor of the brand new cast, including themed merchandise, attractions, and rides. For instance, Sparky the Dog and his stage, "Sparky's Doghouse," was rebranded as "Pirate's Cove," and the crawl maze was revised to fit the new pirate theme associated with Foxy. Additionally, Fazbear Entertainment had rebranded all arcade cabinets and rides to be associated with Freddy & Friends alongside the changes in branding and promotional material. The restaurant was most notable for its performances, which contained four voice acted and sung segments with lengthy dialog in between.
In 1985, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place was temporarily closed following a change in ownership. Its closure remained infamous due to the extended period during which Freddy's remained inoperational. The location eventually reopened in the summer of 1989 with various changes, notably the removal of the Puppet, indefinite closure of Pirate's Cove's crawl maze, and introduction of Melvin the Mushroom, an anthropomorphic mushroom dubbed "Melvin" by staff members. Interestingly, many fans at the time took notice in Freddy Fazbear and Bonnie the Bunny's potential hidden relationship, with Melvin becoming a catalyst of this rumor following a staff member engraving "F + B" on his stump. Finally, the showtapes were shortened with only 1-3 minutes of performance with shortened dialog.
Many speculated about the reasons for its closure, as Fazbear Entertainment remained adamant about not commenting regarding the extended shutdown. Numerous witnesses claimed that Fazbear Entertainment was responsible for a series of missing persons, however, according to public records, all police matters involving Fazbear Entertainment were redacted or classified. Furthermore, around the same time, co-founder William Afton disappeared from public view, similar to Henry Emily, with many rumors suggesting he was involved in illegal activities. Following the departure of both founders, an unnamed Emily heir took ownership of the restaurant.
1990[]
In 1993, as Fazbear Entertainment began struggling, resulting in a significant drop in budget. In an attempt to workaround the lower budget while offering showtapes, Fazbear Entertainment significantly cut down the workload of their voice actors, cutting the voice actors from singing, only commissioning them for opening and closing remarks. For the following decade, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place remained relatively uneventful. While Freddy's managed to regain some popularity in the mid-1990s, the renewed interest eventually fizzled out, and the location's prominence continued to decline over time. By 1997, Fazbear Entertainment completely abandoned their voice actors due to the continuously-declining budget, leading to the decision to begin repeating old showtapes.
Five Night at Freddy's: BLOOD & GEARS[]
2000[]
In 2002, as Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place continued to decline in popularity, Fazbear Entertainment officially announced HelpyPAL, a repurposed AI from the old location, designed to serve as a computer web assistant similar to BonziBuddy and KinitoPET. Unfortunately, due to limited funding, Fazbear Entertainment cut corners in HelpyPAL's development. For instance, the AI was outsourced for programming, which led to several issues, resulting in the web assistant not functioning as advertised and, later on, was found to contain malicious code. As a result, HelpyPAL was taken down later that year.
That same year, in December 2002, a break-in occurred at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place, resulting in extensive damage to all the animatronics. Foxy the Pirate was especially affected, suffering heavy damage but remaining operational. Following these events, Fazbear Entertainment presumably began hiring night-guards to monitor the premises and prevent further incidents.
Prior to its closure, the events of Five Nights at Freddy's: BLOOD & GEARS take place, revolving around an unnamed protagonist who is drawn back to the location after twenty years of not engaging with it upon locating a listing in the local Colorado Springs newspaper offering a position as a night-guard. Interestingly, the animatronics, notably the Puppet, who has since been dismembered from the location for decades, take notice of their presence. Following these events, Fazbear Entertainment officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place in October of 2003. A few years later, the company was acquired by Burrows Industries.
The Fazbear Archive[]
For more information about the ARG itself, see: FazbearArchive.com (Five Nights at Freddy's: BLOOD & GEARS).
2010[]
A decade later, in 2015, high school friends Brooke Monohan and Liam Bradford officially founded the Fazbear Archive, a website dedicated to documenting and preserving any remaining remnants of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place following its closure. The two initially met in their robotics class and, due to their shared interest in the Fazbear brand, bonded over their fond memories of visiting the restaurant as children. Brooke’s mother had even worked there as a hostess during late 1980s and early 1990s. By combining Liam’s programming skills with Brooke’s encyclopedic knowledge of Freddy’s history, the Fazbear Archive website was officially created.
Over time, additional moderators such as Noah Gorecki and Elijah Addams joined the Fazbear Archive team. However, the site did not gain significant traction or widespread attention until the following decade.
2020[]
On August 7, 2024, The Fazbear Archive Twitter account was officially published, leading to an uptick in attention for the archive and interest of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place to arise yet again.
On September 1, Gorecki posted a thread detailing a conversation with a personal friend who had previously worked at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, specifically portraying Freddy Fazbear in a commercial that was believed to reference Fredbear's Family Diner. Within an hour, fans of the Fazbear Archive identified a YouTube channel named "Johan Parker," whos name was depicted in behind-the-scenes images as the director of the vintage commercial. The channel's description revealed that Parker was responsible for directing various classic commercials, and it was now owned by one of his offsprings. Among the series of authentic commercials contained an advertisement promoting Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place following its rebranding from Fredbear's Family Diner and reopening in 1984.
That same day, Addams shared an audio recording of Freddy Fazbear singing "Who Put The Bomp" by Barry Mann, taken from the "Timeline of Music" showtape dated September 1989.
On September 22, the Fazbear Archive team were sent an image by an anonymous source, claiming that their uncle was an avid Freddy's collector and possessed a storage unit filled with Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place memorabilia. A thread was posted by Bradford which dissects the contents of the storage unit, which contained remnants of walkarounds, prototype animatronics, props, and other related items.
On November 5, the Fazbear Archive team managed to retrieve and photocopy the cover of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place Employee Handbook.
On November 27, the Johan Parker YouTube channel uploaded an image of a crumpled "Final copy draft" document, which contained the script for a previously discovered video. This post eventually led fans to connect the account to a Reddit user /u/_Scarabzilla_38891, who had a series of posts, including an image of a Fallfest poster. As the investigation progressed, an unidentified lead emerged surrounding Jacob Parker, who is the son of Johan Parker. This led to a new Google Drive link purportedly belonging to an unknown individual.
The drive contained a series of disturbing text files detailing the murder of three people, including Jacob Parker, implicating that the unknown entity was responsible for such murders. Accompanying these files were images that appeared to depict memories from someone in Colorado Springs, seemingly linked to Elijah Addams. Further files revealed various monologues from the unknown individual, expressing intense hatred toward the Fazbear Archive team for attempting to relive the past, claiming that the animatronics are possessed by the spirits of dead children. The individual took pride in the fact that the players found their drive despite warnings, mocking the community. By the conclusion of the ARG, the mysterious entity promised to reveal the ultimate truth from an unlisted video on Johan Parker's YouTube channel. Distressed, Elijah Addams posted a thread on his personal Twitter account expressing the teams confusion and concerns over the entity's threats. Furthermore, Brooke Monohan commented a month later, detailing her irritation over the unknown user, whom she claims may have obtained personal information from the Internet and is now attempting to threaten them.
On November 29, the Fazbear Archive team managed to get in contact with the Reddit user, who provided a high-quality image of the torn Fallfest poster dated back to 1970.
On December 25, in celebration of Christmas, Addams discovered a vintage radio advertisement featuring Freddy Fazbear promoting Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place and a Christmas special for customers who visited before January. That same day, a video recording surfaced showing Freddy & Friends performing with Christmas accessories. In the replies, Addams noted that the recording likely took place after the voice actors had been laid off due to budgetary concers.
On December 30, the Fazbear Archive team was sent an old coupon promising twenty free tokens upon purchasing a one topping pizza. That following day, a brand new photo depicting the animatronics performing on-stage was released following the creation of brand new models intended for the definitive release of Five Nights at Freddy's: BLOOD & GEARS.
On January 3, 2025, Addams released a thread detailing the history of the showtapes, breaking down its development by year. According to the thread, in 1983, there were four voice-acted segments, featuring two songs and dialog in between. As time went on, starting from 1989, Fazbear Entertainment lacked the necessary budget to consistently produce lengthy dialog sequences and was only able to include one song with minimal dialog. Years later, in 1993, the voice actors were cut from singing parts, and eventually, they were entirely removed from the productions, leading the company to rely on playing past showtapes.
On February 15, the Fazbear Archive received a scanned photograph dating back to 1999, depicting an inactive Chica the Chicken during night hours. The image was posted to their account without any credits to the original administrator who had posted the image.
On February 17, Brooke Monohan posted a thread on her personal account detailing her exploration of an abandoned warehouse linked to Fazbear Entertainment. Throughout her thread, she navigates the vandalized environment and uncovers various relics, including images related to Fredbear's Family Diner such as an outdated promotional poster advertising Fredbear's Family Dinerand a rough photograph showing Fredbear in the background with children sitting in the diner. She also finds several posters of Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica before preparing to leave. However, as she is leaving, she then discovers a series of legal documents detailing Fazbear Entertainment’s history with an unnamed warehouse company.
The first page features a table listing employees and their statuses, detailing that all listed employees either resigned unexpectedly, went missing, or were found deceased. Another sheet details the experience of Lisa Marquez, who recounts an incident where the warehouse’s motion detectors were suddenly triggered. Upon investigating, she found her progress obstructed by faulty power that consistently interfered with her flashlight. Notably, within her report, an unnamed animatronic is referenced as being inactive at the time and had not yet been scheduled for demolition. Interestingly, there is a bold red circle drawn around this passage with the words "This isn't the first time." The final two pages reveal Fazbear Entertainment’s decision to cease working with the warehouse company, seizing all their belongings and either storing them elsewhere or disposing of them.
On March 16, the Fazbear Archive team received a photo of Foxy the Pirate performing on stage in 1985. Liam shared the image on their official Twitter account.
On April 19, Liam Bradford shared a low-quality recording believed to date from 1989, showing Melvin the Mushroom performing on stage. That same day, the Fazbear Archive Twitter account posted about a lost commercial, which no longer exists aside from a discussion on a forum where a user mentioned it was related to Fallfest. Concurrently, a video appeared on Johan Parker's YouTube channel, seemingly uploaded by the unnamed entity responsible for Jacob Parker’s death, who had since implied their involvement.
Further investigation uncovered a hidden link embedded within two missing posters referencing a previous victim, Ruby G. Donohue. This link directed to a Google Drive folder containing multiple subfolders. Digging through these, archivists found five folders containing 42 copies of the same image depicting The Puppet, in which one image specifically hid a YouTube URL leading to the commercial, depicting an advertisement announcing Freddy & Friends' appearance at Colorado Springs’ annual Fallfest celebration in celebration for the reopening of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place. The ad featured a surprise appearance by the Puppet, whose scene was notably corrupted.
Following its discovery, a branched YouTube video uploaded from Johan Parker's YouTube channel involved in the ARG notoriously contained details of the unknown entity attempting to upload a video titled "DAYDREAMING.mp4" to Brooke Monohan's YouTube channel from her computer client. However, the attempt failed because her computer client did not respond to their breach attempts for unknwon reasons. Many fans speculated that this connection was related to Monohan’s recent efforts to revive the HelpyPAL web assistant, suggesting it could have served as a potential gateway for the unknown entity to breach her system. However, she argues that she has already inspected the source code and is confident that it wasn't the case.
On April 25, the Fazbear Archive team discovered a sheet of paper outlining the showtapes schedule for employees to track the selected showtapes. Interestingly, the document contains a series of typos.
Trivia[]
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