The highly anticipated turn-based RPG based on the Five Nights at Freddy’s characters was pulled from Steam after less than a week of release. Developer Scott Cawthon explains why in a community post to Steam and promises refunds and to return the game, making it available for free.
“Even though the game had a “Very Positive” rating with 87%, I was not satisfied with the reviews and ratings it was getting.
For that reason, I’ve decided to remove the game from Steam. I’ve also asked Valve to make it so that the game can be refunded regardless of the amount of the time it has been owned, meaning that anyone can get a refund at any time. It may take them a while to set that up, but it will be in place soon.
I’m still going to work on FNaF World and polish it up. I’m busy creating a fully 3D overworld for the game. When I’m ready to update the game, I will replace the demo currently on GameJolt with the full game. From this point forward, the game will always be free.”
As a father of two FNAF-obsessed kids, we downloaded this when it first became available. Its release itself was a surprise, as it had been promised February 19th. Developer Scott Cawthon, true to his quixotic nature, dropped what he even said was an incomplete version almost an entire month early on Jan 22.
The combat system was fun and reminiscent of classic turn-based RPGs like Final Fantasy III, but overall game experience left somewhat to be desired. The Overworld map was confusing, as was generally what you were supposed to be doing in the game. It’s one thing to try to emulate a genre and bring your characters in. But we can’t all be “Pocket Mortys,” which somehow mixes Rick and Morty perfectly into a game that may as well be Pokemon.
Five Nights at Freddy’s has been great so far at revealing its mysteries and expanding its mythology bit by bit and leaving fans to speculate and put the pieces together, but this just felt incomplete. You can get away with that kind of storytelling in a survival, stress-based jump-scare fueled game as simple as the other FNaF entries, but an RPG needs a story to at least tell you where to go and what to do next.
Truthfully? This felt similar to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Lots of potential and there’s a good game in there somewhere, but needs some work.
Scott Cawthon, unlike Nintendo in the late 80’s, will get the time and space he needs to revamp his game. I really respect this move and the integrity he’s showing here. Maybe this will curb his manic surprise release style in the future? Nah. We expect Cawthon to be Cawthon.
So we’ll look forward to the release of a revamped FNaF World sometime soon, enjoy our Steam version and refund in the meantime, and file this yet again in the big file called “The Virtue of Waiting to Release Until Your Product is Done,” alongside the recent announcements pushing Star Wars release dates back, Doctor Who Season 10 being moved to 2017, and so on.
It could be worse. He could be Phil Fish.
Want to know what all the fuss is about? Here’s an idea of what gameplay is like: