Five Nights at Freddy's 3

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 is an indie point-and-click survival horror video game and the third installment of the series developed by Scott Cawthon. It's chronologically the fourth game of the series, and the sequel to Five Nights at Freddy's set decades after the events of the first game.
== Summary ==
Thirty years after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed its doors, the events that took place there have become nothing more than a rumor and a childhood memory, but the owners of "Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction" are determined to revive the legend and make the experience as authentic as possible for patrons, going to great lengths to find anything that might have survived decades of neglect and ruin.
At first there were only empty shells, a hand, a hook, an old paper-plate doll, but then a remarkable discovery was made...
The attraction now has one animatronic.
== Gameplay ==
Like the previous games, it is an indie point-and-click survival horror video game in which the player must yet again survive the night, now in the new Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction.
Unlike the previous games, there's only one animatronic that can attack the player. However, there are six Phantoms, each with unique behaviors that if the player fails to avoid, will attack the player and hinder their systems, allowing the animatronic to move faster.
The player has no way to defend themselves from Springtrap when he reaches their office. They have to use audio lures to keep him away and seal off the vent that is connected to the camera he's in to prevent him from reaching the office quickly.
Either randomly or if used too much, the player's systems (audio lures, the camera system or ventilation) will go offline, and they have to use the Maintenance Panel to reboot them, which often allows Springtrap to reach to the office faster, meaning the player has to carefully use their systems, especially on harder nights where errors happen more frequently.
For specific information and strategies on each night, look here.
== Development ==
On November 16, 2014, before the game's official reveal, Scott's website only displayed the site header and the word "'offline." Brightening the picture shows small text in the bottom left corner of the image saying "until next time." When viewing the image's code, one could find that the alt-text read "soon." This "soon" was removed on December 8, 2014, but was re-added the same day - likely a mistake.
On December 6, 2014, when brightened, Scott's website had a very large number three on the bottom right, hinting at a third installment to the Five Nights at Freddy's series. The same day, however, the large three was removed from the bottom right, leaving only the word "offline." This third image did not include the words "until next time," either.
On December 7, 2014, the 3 was re-added. Furthermore, when viewing the page's source, it displays the keywords of the page as: "five, nights, at, freddys, 30 years later, only one." Earlier versions read "20 years later," and "only one left."
As of December 9th, 2014, the 3 was removed and replaced by a "Merry Christmas!" message below the "offline" text. The page's source has also changed to say "five nights at freddys, taking a break, Merry Christmas everyone! :)". The "soon" alt-text has also been removed again.
On January 3rd, the "offline" image was replaced with a picture of Springtrap's face looking out from the darkness with the accompanying text, "I am still here." When brightened, a tiny gray 3 can be seen in the bottom-right corner. In the source code, there is text that says "I remain" - replacing the previous Christmas message. The source code also reveals that this new image is named "fnaf3.jpg".
On January 14th, the website is updated, revealing a teaser of the animatronics' empty heads, including the paperpal, inside a box. A big, red "3" is seen above them. When the image is brightened, Springtrap is seen standing to the right of the box. The source code still has the "I remain" text, but the image is named "whatcanweuse.jpg".
On January 26, 2015, Scott released the teaser trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's 3 on its Steam Greenlight page, the page also containing various in-game screenshots.
The game was officially released on March 2, 2015 - first, as a demo given out to Let's Players on Twitch.tv and YouTube, then hours later as a full game available to the public on Steam. An Android version was released on March 7, 2015, followed by an iOS release on March 12, 2015.
== Stars ==
There are 4 stars to unlock in the third game:
# Beat Night 5. (See here for strategy)
# Beat Night 6. (See here for strategy)
# Beat Night 5 with the "Good" ending unlocked.
# Beat Night 6 with "Aggressive" mode activated. (See here for strategy)
: * Getting the third star unlocks the cheat selection from the Extra menu.
== History ==
=== 2014 ===
* On December 6, 2014, when brightened, Scott's website had a very large number three on the bottom right. This was possibly hinting at a third installment to the Five Nights at Freddy's series. Then, a very small text named "until next time" and then "Merry Christmas!"
=== 2015 ===
* On January 3, the "Offline" image was replaced with a picture of Springtrap's face looking out from the darkness with the accompanying text, "I am still here". When brightened, one can see "3" on the right bottom. Another version on Reddit is "I'll always be here".
* On January 14, the deteriorated animatronic image was replaced with a picture of the toy animatronics' empty heads, including the BB paper plate doll, inside a box. A big, red "3" is seen above them. When the image is brightened, one can see Springtrap at the right of the box.
* On January 27, after the trailer's release, Scott replaced the image on his website with a black image with very light text that reads "He always does".
* On February 3, an image on Scott's website appeared to have a map on it with an icon that reads "YOU" and an arrow across from said icon.
* In Steam Greenlight, Scott made a post about him being hacked and sent a troll game available for download here.
* On March 1, the image was changed once more on Scott's website of an image of Phantom BB that reads "Guess Who?" with a faded 10 on the bottom left-hand side.
* On March 2, Scott released another image of Phantom Chica and Phantom Foxy that reads "It's all in your mind".
** On this same day, Scott released a demo to a number of Let's Players on YouTube and Twitch. Hours later, the full game was officially released to the public.
** Minutes before the game's release Scott Cawthon did a countdown on the Steam Greenlight page, claiming "he was trigger happy when it comes to releasing games".
* On March 7, an Android version of the game was released.
* On March 12, an iOS version of the game was released.
* On November 29th 2019 a console port for Nintendo Switch Playstation 4 and Xbox One was released.
== Trivia ==
* During development, Scott posted on Steam Greenlight that he was "hacked" and send a download link for a troll game, which was simply a parody of There is no Pause Button!, except that the avatar's head was replaced with Freddy's head and the music was the song, ["I am very glad, as I'm finally returning back home"], also as the "Trololo" song (This song was later replaced due to copyright issues). He soon updated the post.
“In case you all haven't figured it out yet, I have NOT been hacked so stop worrying! All I've been hearing about all day is how I've been hacked! Everything is fine and FNaF 3 is still moving full speed ahead. Now everyone take a chill pill and enjoy the nice game I made for you! ;)”
:* The original link is no longer available. Several Game Jolt users, however, have reuploaded it.
* The game had the fewest screenshots on its Greenlight page and the trailer didn't show much gameplay. This led to more confusion and theories on what the game mechanics are like.
* It has never been fully explained what the large "10" on the bottom of the Phantom BB teaser actually means. Although some fans have theorized that this means Scott initially intended on releasing the game March 10, this seems rather unlikely, since he never directly stated it, nor did he express any issues which would cause him to release the game early.
** It was later confirmed on Steam by Scott that he intended to release multiple teasers until the game was released, counting down from 10. However, he abandoned the idea after the first teaser.
* Unlike the previous games, the game's protagonist is never named.
** This is exactly the same case for the fourth game.
* Unlike the previous games, a fourth star can be obtained on the main menu screen - completing Nightmare Mode with the Aggressive cheat turned on will unlock this.
** The fourth game has a similar feature as well.
* Unlike the previous games, this game does not feature a Custom Night.
** This is likely for the same reason as Golden Freddy and the Puppet not being customizable in the previous games' Custom Nights - the phantom animatronics only appear and attack if certain requirements are met (such as not changing the camera when one sees Phantom BB's face), and the only way to customize them was to increase the frequency of them appearing, which would be much too difficult for the player to deal with. Therefore, only Springtrap would logically be customizable.
*** Strangely enough, the button for the Extra's menu is called "Custom Night".
* Phantom Mangle does not appear in the Extra menu.
* As evidenced by Night 5's end-of-night minigame, Purple Guy was killed inside Springtrap and is believed to have possessed him from that moment on, even during the events of Five Nights at Freddy's 3.
* On the announcement of the successful beta-test on the Steam Greenlight page, there are several letters which are doubled throughout the text. These letters, when compiled together, spell "My Name is Springtrap".
* This is the first game to not feature Freddy Fazbear or his variants on its game icon. The reason for this is because Freddy's variant in the game, Phantom Freddy isn't a direct threat to the player (as phantoms don't result in a game over), instead, Springtrap is shown in the icon.
** Another possible reason is that Scott was trying to hide the phantom animatronics until the game released.
* Five Nights at Freddy's 3 originally had only 3 stars, with there being no star for completing aggressive nightmare mode. as 0f 1.03, a 4th star was added.
** Scott stated in Markiplier's aggressive nightmare mode video that he added the 4th star just for overachievers like him.
* In the trailer on April Fool 2023, when Springtrap jumpscared the player, the Office Fan appears behind the foreground of the Office.
* The teaser trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's 3 is the most viewed video of Scott Cawthon's YouTube channel.
Category:Five Nights at Freddy's
Category:2015
Category:Video Games
Category:Point-and-Click Games
Category:Survival Games
Category:Horror Games
Category:Clickteam Fusion 2.5