Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, to yet another theory for fnaf 4. This one focuses of the newly revealed “nightmare animatronics” and how they fit into the storyline.
But first, in case you’re new to this page or the series in general, I will go over what the nightmares are, before getting too deep into this theory. April 27th, just over two months ago, Scott Cawthon, the creator of the series posted a new image on his website. The murderous looking bear greeted us, just as he had back in Fnaf2’s reveal, tipping his hat. But something was different, Freddy didn’t look like a lovable children’s mascot anymore (imo he never did), with the addition of horrific teeth, sharp claws, an extremely tattered and worn body, and what seemed to be three smaller versions erupting from his chest, he was a true nightmare to behold. Nightmare is a fitting term because if you brighten the image, you can clearly the word nightmare in the background. Soon afterwards, on the date of May 7th, Scott changed the image, this time to a similarly evil looking version of Bonnie, the other main mascot. Then, on the dates of May 17th and most recently May 29th, the other two mascots were revealed, Chica the duck and Foxy the fox. Both are just as scary and dangerous looking as the previous two. These reveals are the exact cast of the original four from Fnaf1, and their appearance makes us all wonder. What exactly happened to them?
And that is what I am going to answer. Using evidence from earlier games and these new picture reveals, I found out where they were in the storyline, both in terms of time and location, and I have a solid theory as to why they are so monstrous. So, without wasting any more of my character limit, let us begin.
The first thing I did was analyze the new reveals. Once I got past the initial shock of the designs, I noticed a few things.
1: All of the nightmare animatronics have the same type and amount of damage as Springtrap.
This gives us a rough approximation of how old these nightmares are. Springtrap is the oldest animatronic, he is at least fifty years old, as he was built for the original Fazbear Pizza location. Because of this we can safely assume that the nightmares were from around the same time period.
2: Both Freddy and Bonnie have five fingers. (You can’t see Chica’s and Foxy’s arms)
In any other series, these might seem irrelevant. But, as I’m sure you all know by now, this isn’t just “any other series”. This is another connection to Springtrap, due to the fact that he was previously the only animatronic to have five fingers, while the rest of them only have three and a thumb. But why is this relevant? Simple, we can conclude that, because they were built with five fingers, enough for a human hand, that they were meant to be worn. Prior to this, Springtrap was the only animatronic we’ve seen who was built to be worn.
3: All of the dangerous parts seem to be new.
For example, if we look at Nightmare Freddy, we can see his body is really damaged, yet the small Freddy’s coming out his chest seem to be completely undamaged, his teeth are bright and shiny, and his sharp fingers come to a perfect point. The same can be said for the others. Bonnie is especially noticeable, his jaw is all rotten, but the inside of his mouth is perfectly rounded, with both rows of his teeth perfectly clean and shiny, as if they’ve never even seen the light of day, much less fifty years worth of age.
After obtaining this information I decided to go back to that time period by listening to the old recordings from fnaf3 again. Specifically the night four recording.
“Uh, hello? Hello, hello! Uh, there's been a slight change of company policy concerning use of the suits. Um, don't.
After learning of an unfortunate incident at a sister location, involving multiple and simultaneous spring lock failures, the company has deemed the suits temporarily unfit for employees. Safety is our top priority at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, which is why the classic suits are being retired to an appropriate location, while being looked at by our technician.
Until replacements arrive, you'll be expected to wear the temporary costumes provided to you. Keep in mind that they were found on very short notice, so questions about appropriateness/relevance should be deflected.”
Here’s the connection I’ve been looking for. The underlined text states that the Springtrap suit and it’s accompanied Freddy suit have both been deemed unusable, after two employees were killed in them. Now, here’s where the nightmares come into play. The recording states that the costumes are to be worn, and that they are largely irrelevant towards the theme of the location. We know that at the time the only two mascots were Freddy and Bonnie, with possibly the puppet hanging around too, but that doesn’t matter. If these two suits are to be worn, that means that logically, they must have five fingers. That rules out every single other animatronic in the series except the nightmares. The two replacement suits mentioned here must be Foxy and Chica, because of the lack of appropriateness. Logically they would have obtained a new Freddy and Bonnie suit, building them to be more brightly colored instead of gold.
But now there’s the elephant in the room, obviously they would not have had such murderous looking animatronics in a children’s restaurant, no matter how desperate they might have been. This brings me back to observation number 3, the fact that all the dangerous parts on the animatronics seem to be new. All of there scary attributes apart from the decay seem to be implanted, recently too. Now, I have no idea who may have done these ‘upgrades’, it could be the phone guy, phone dude, the purple man before he died, or maybe even one of the player characters.
Now, that’s their origin, but I think the game itself will take place around the same time as F3, possibly at a similar location. Simply due to the rate of decay of the animatronics.
TL
R version: The nightmare animatronics were first created after Springtrap and Spring Freddy were deemed unusable, with Foxy and Chica being the “irrelevant replacements”, then Freddy and Bonnie were built. All the dangerous bits are modifications and were made after they were retired. The game will most likely take place around the same time as F3.