Surprise Five Nights at Freddy’s game revealed by being accidentally released on Roblox

21.12.2023 - 20:39 / polygon.com / Freddy Fazbear / Scott Cawthon

A new game in the Five Nights at Freddy’s series is coming to Roblox — or rather, it already did, accidentally, in what franchise creator Scott Cawthon called “one of the most baffling, insane, things to ever happen in my ten years of working on FNAF.”

Roblox players discovered Wednesday that Five Nights at Freddy’s: Survival Crew was playable on the kid-friendly platform, even though the game had not been officially announced. Players also realized that Survival Crew was not in a polished, playable state. Cawthon said he had it pulled from Roblox after realizing what had happened.

“This is a game in its infancy,” Cawthon explained in a post on the Five Nights at Freddy’s subreddit, “temp assets; temp gameplay, unfinished everything. The fact that it got dropped today suddenly on the public just blows my mind.”

Cawthon chalked Survival Crew’s unexpected launch up to a simple, but baffling mistake: “Apparently there was a huge misunderstanding when I approved a skin, and it was interpreted as RELEASE THE GAME.”

So, yes, Cawthon said, there is a FNAF game coming to Roblox. He hopes to fix it sometime in 2024, with the help of developer Metaverse Team Frights.

“I hope everyone can at least believe me when I say that this was a game in its testing phases and was in no way ready to be released to the public,” Cawthon said. “I, myself, have never even played it yet. So again, catastrophic misunderstanding, and I apologize. Will fix.”

The Roblox store listing for Five Nights at Freddy’s: Survival Crew is still up but with a warning that the game is in beta. It also includes a description to let players know what to expect when it officially comes to Roblox next year.

Welcome aboard as Fazbear Security’s newest team member! You and your crew will be on night duty at all Fazbear Entertainment’s properties. We don’t anticipate you having any trouble (then again, we never did before either and look what happened…). But if something seems out of place, you can always use the handy charging stations located throughout our properties to overload the electrical systems and shock any wayward animatronics back into compliance.

Roblox and FNAF fans who did play Survival Crew liken it to asymmetric horror hit Dead by Daylight, thanks to its emphasis on cooperative gameplay and being chased by animatronic terrors. But due to the “unfinished everything” nature of the game’s early release, a lot could change by the time Freddy Fazbear and friends officially come to Roblox.