Vidjama Gmaes Work

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Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit is a fun if incredibly short game. While it launched way back in September 2024 on console, it didn’t receive a physical release until the end of June this year. And I managed to get my hands on a physical copy for PS5 courtesy of Gamefly. Not sponsored.

A spinoff of the main series and based on the short story of the same name, Into the Pit puts the player in control of a cowardly child named Oswald. Oswald’s family is poor as hell thanks to the recent closure of the town mill and Oswald spends most of his time eating cheap pizza at the local pizzeria and getting bullied at school. But this is a video game, so strange events are about to unfold in Oswald’s life. He finds a time travelling ball pit in the back of the local pizzeria that lets him visit the 1980s.

And of course this is a FNAF game so children get murdered, and then Oswald’s dad gets abducted by a dude in a rabbit suit. Now Oswald has to escape from his home every night for five nights at Freddy’s in order to rescue the children and save his dad. And as always, kill Hitler.

Into the Pit was definitely a fresh game for the FNAF series. Rather than shove you in a small room and make you defend yourself from roaming animatronics, Into the Pit lets you explore a small handful of locations like your house, the school, and of course you’ll spend most time at Freddy Fazbear’s. Also unlike the earlier mainline games, Into the Pit isn’t very cryptic with its presentation. Each night you help another child trapped in the pizzeria, all in the search for your missing dad.

Into the Pit has its fair share of mechanics but you’ll be mostly focusing on audio cues while playing. Oswald has a sound meter that attracts attention when it goes up too high, and you can use environmental traps to lure the animatronics so you can sneak by them. You’ll need to listen close for the telltale sounds of footsteps and doors opening and closing to let you know if someone is in the next room before you go in and get spotted. If you are noticed and chased, the game is littered with hiding spots, each of which has an associated mini-game.

I only played on normal difficulty and after completing the main game and getting the good ending, I can say that FNAF is difficult for all the wrong reasons. Mostly the bugs. The biggest issue I had with FNAF is that the game tends to break when interacting with doors and the ballpit, usually leading to my death. Button prompts occasionally don’t show up at all, making interacting with necessary objects impossible.

Into the Pit is occasionally just cruel. It is possible to jump into the pit, travel back in time, and have the rabbit just camping the room you pop out in leading to an instant game over. If you do die, the game doesn’t put you back more than a couple of minutes at a time which isn’t that annoying. Unless you’re moving the ladder from the attic to the basement in which case it is incredibly frustrating.

I also found a couple of the mechanics to be completely useless. You are given a flashlight early on that has limited battery power, and you have to find batteries hidden around the map. I never felt a need for the flashlight, and got the achievement for not using the flashlight without even trying. Oswald can also randomly trip while running usually leading to a quick game over. I don’t want to call this a development skill issue, but if your answer to the game being relatively easy is to throw in a “nu-uh actually you lost” mechanic, well if the shoe fits.

But when working as intended, Into the Pit is actually a fun game for the most part. It is best consumed slowly, moving from room to room and listening for the telltale sounds that danger is close. The controls can be frustratingly clunky at times, and the mini-games get old fast. There are a handful of mini-games and yes, secret mini-games that get you the true ending to find.

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