Can't a pirate masturbate
in this fucking house?

The Problem With Sister Location and Lore

The Five Nights at Freddy’s lore has always been intentionally vague and relied on subtle clues and hints to convey the story to players without being overly intrusive. The first game told the story of a night guard unwittingly signing up to watch over the decaying and haunted Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza while subtly cluing the player into the darker past of this business and the atrocities committed by a former employee. The second game further expands on the lore, showing players more of the company’s past and the origin of the main set of missing children. The third game tells the story of the killer’s poetic demise at the hands of his own creation and his fate. Five Nights at Freddy’s 4, while far more vague with it’s narrative, still conveyed the story of a tormented child and his demise at the hands of his brother. Where the lore began to fall apart however was with the release of Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location.

The Art of Subtlety

FNaF, at it’s core, is a mystery game. Aside from the horror elements there is a constant underlying story told through a mix of both subtle hints as well as some given facts. The first four games pull this off greatly with a good balance of both given lore as well as hidden lore. For those not interested in hunting down clues, the given lore was enough to give players a good feeling as to what was going on and give them the incentive to dig further if desired. For those who wished to dig for the deeper lore, there was a plethora of hints and cues that could be used in order to paint a clearer picture of the story. With a healthy balance between these two types of lore, the games were to convey their story perfectly. Where Sister Location falls short is in the fact that it relies far too heavily on given lore while providing an unhealthy amount of hidden lore. Throughout Sister Location, you are bombarded constantly with given lore points. From the beginning where you descend into CBEaR you’re inundated with exposition that never eases up until the very end. This flood of information leaves very little ambiguous elements about the main story of the game and doesn’t allow for much speculation on the part of the player (without taking into context the other games and their overall story). What hidden lore there is isn’t satisfying at all for the player to discover. The entire portion of the game dedicated to unlocking the Private Room provides extremely hazy and unclear elements that are not satisfying to find nor do they deliver any sort of satisfying impact on the story, instead serving to make an increasingly hazy image of a timeline even hazier. And on the topic of haziness…

The Importance of Consistency

Sister Location drops the ball on consistency in a major fashion. In the grand scheme of the lore, Sister Location stands as the most unclear game as well as being the outlier in most theories and timelines. While the consistency of the story within the game itself is fine, the game is not consistent with the overall story. Many of the events shown in the game, as well as the entire game itself, are unclear as to when they’re set as well as their relation to other events. Things such as the Private Room monitors, the use of the springlock suit, or even Michael’s time spent at CBEaR are never fully fleshed out or given any way to place them on a timeline. Some of these events, mainly the Private Room monitors and the Breaker Room map, also seemingly outright contradict other plot points and lore. These two things seem to convey the physical existence of the FNaF 4 bedroom as a form of observation chamber within the facilities and the implied existence of physical Nightmare animatronics. This however, contradicts lore given in FNaF 4 as well as later games and lore reveals. For a more in-depth explanation of this, you can check out this entirely shameless plug for a better understanding. Due to Sister Location’s glaring inconsistency with the rest of the FNaF lore, it becomes entirely unsatisfying as a story and an overall nuisance to try and solve in terms of story.

Overall, Sister Location is an extremely flawed game in regards to its story. It delivers an unbalanced mix of exposition and hidden lore as well as having story elements that clash with the rest of the story. In a perfect timeline, Sister Location could’ve been part of an extended universe of sorts. An AU designed to give an optional expansion on the story of William Afton and his past. But as it stands, it is the least fitting addition to the FNaF story and the most annoying to fit into any sane timeline.

Even if it is 100% set between FNaF 2 and FNaF1.

Article written by Connie
Strongly opinionated!