Scott Cawthon

Scott Cawthon is a video game developer, animator, and writer, best known as the creator of the Five Nights at Freddy's game franchise. Cawthon has created other games such as The Desolate Hope and There is No Pause Button!, as well as Christian-based animations such as A Christmas Journey and The Pilgrim's Progress. Cawthon used Autodesk 3ds Max to create 3D models of objects and characters for his games (such as Five Nights at Freddy's), as well as Clickteam Fusion 2.5 to develop them.

Cawthon's career in game design and animation began in the 1990s. Cawthon revealed his first game (titled Doofas) during a livestream; he made the game when he was a child. This game later became a troll game as the "demo" of Ultimate Custom Night. His first official games were released in the early 2000s, one of the earliest known being RPG Max, released in 2002. He later joined Hope Animation, where he created animations for children based on Christian values.

On March 19, 2007, Cawthon uploaded the first part of an eight-part series titled The Pilgrim's Progress to his YouTube channel. The animation is a retelling of John Bunyan's novel of the same name. After releasing The Pilgrim's Progress, Cawthon developed several games, including Sit N' Survive, Chipper and Sons Lumber Co., and The Desolate Hope. Some of these were submitted to Steam Greenlight. While The Desolate Hope made it through the process, some games, most notably Chipper and Sons Lumber Co., were heavily criticized by prominent reviewers for having characters that moved and interacted with each other like animatronic machines. While initially discouraged, almost to the point of stopping game development completely, Cawthon eventually decided to use the animatronic-like characters to his advantage, sparking the development of Five Nights at Freddy's.

Five Nights at Freddy's

On June 13, 2014, Cawthon submitted Five Nights at Freddy's to Steam's Greenlight system. A trailer was released the following day on June 14 with a demo following on July 24, 2014. On July 24, 2014, he then submitted it to both IndieDB, where it gained a massive amount of popularity. He submitted the game a third time to Desura on August 13, 2014. The game was accepted in Steam's Greenlight on August 18, 2014 and was released for $4.99. The game was well received by critics, and became the subject of numerous popular Let's Play videos on YouTube.

On November 10, 2014, Cawthon released the first sequel titled, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 for $7.99 on Steam.

Soon after the release of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Cawthon removed all information from his official site and replaced it with an image of the word "offline". The website soon began to show teasers of Five Nights at Freddy's 3, which was released on March 2, 2015.

On July 23, 2015, Cawthon released the fourth game of the Five Nights at Freddy's horror series, entitled, Five Nights at Freddy's 4. A free "Halloween" update was released on October 31, 2015.

On September 15, 2015, Cawthon announced the development of a new role-playing video game (RPG), titled FNaF World. The game is not a horror game; rather, it is a stylized RPG. It was released on January 21, 2016. Four days later, Cawthon pulled it from Steam, not satisfied with the results, and released an improved version on Gamejolt for free on February 8.

In December 2015, Scott Cawthon released teasers for his first novel, Five Nights at Freddy's: The Untold Story, soon to be renamed Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes. The book was released on December 17, 2015, as an e-book for The Amazon; a paperback edition is also available. According to Cawthon, the book was released earlier than its planned release date due to a mistake on Amazon's part.

On May 21, 2016, Cawthon released a teaser trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, featuring two new animatronics as well as circus-themed variations of Foxy and Freddy from the series. The game was released on October 7, 2016, and was generally well received. Cawthon then released a free custom night update on December 2, with "Golden Freddy Mode" being added to the update soon after.

On June 24, 2016, Cawthon announced that he had made a three-book deal with Scholastic Corporation and that the first book (The Silver Eyes) would be reprinted on paperback in October that year, with the second and third being released in 2017 and 2018.

On June 27, 2017, Cawthon's second novel, Five Nights at Freddy's: The Twisted Ones, was released. It was the sequel to The Silver Eyes, and its story follows the main character, Charlie, who is "drawn back into the world of her father's frightening creations" when she tried to get over the events of The Silver Eyes. On August 29, 2017, Cawthon released the first official guidebook of Five Nights at Freddy's, entitled The Freddy Files. It contains character profiles, easter eggs, tips on playing the games, and theories sprouted from the franchise.

On July 3, 2017, Cawthon announced the cancellation of a sixth main installment to Five Nights at Freddy's, after previously stating a month earlier that a sixth game was in the works. He reasoned that it was because he had been neglecting other important things in his life, but said that he was not planning to abandon the series and may release a FNaF World-styled spin-off game in the future. However, with the release of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator on December 4, 2017, this was confirmed to be a troll.

On December 26, 2017, Cawthon released the second guidebook for Five Nights at Freddy's called Survival Logbook. Unlike previous book releases, Survival Logbook has no listed Amazon Kindle editions, implying that it has pages designed for physical writing as opposed to simply reading from a device. The book, disguised as a normal children's activity book, contains many things to do, including a word search, grid drawing, and fill-in-the-blank activities, however all of these were found to hold secrets involving the lore.

On June 26, 2018, the third novel in the Five Nights at Freddy's book series, Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet, was revealed on Amazon.com and was slated for release that same day.

On June 28, 2018, the presumed send-off to the series, Ultimate Custom Night, was released on Steam for free. It features over 50 characters from the franchise.

In Cawthon's Upcoming Projects post on Steam, he noted that the deals for the console ports have been signed, as well as more info on the virtual reality and augmented reality games. He also announced that a new book series, Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights, is coming.

On August 27, 2018, Cawthon commented on a post regarding Fredbear's true voice in UCN, "I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of Kellen in the FNAF universe. His work isn't done yet," hinting that he is possibly developing an eighth game.

On May 28, 2019, Cawthon released the teased virtual game, Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted for both PC & PlayStation VR at $29.99. A DLC update, Curse of Dreadbear, was released on October 23, 2019 for $9.99.

In September 2019, a teaser and announcement trailers were posted to Illumix's YouTube channel regarding the AR game. The title was revealed to be Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery. It was released for free on November 25, 2019 to iOS & Android.

In November 2019, Cawthon announced that he would create a game specifically for a fundraising event for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital being held by MatPat along with fellow YouTubers Dawko, and Markiplier on a livestream. The game, Freddy in Space 2 was released December 3 on GameJolt, included dollar amounts hidden throughout that dictated how much Cawthon would donate following the stream. He boasted a total of $500,000 was available to find but included that it was difficult and doubted they’d be able to find it as his playtester had taken five hours to complete the game. Originally, the game had a two-hour slot to be featured in the livestream, however Markiplier continued playing after the stream had ended and managed to find a final hidden $100,000 that raised the total end amount for Cawthon to donate to $451,200. Cawthon then went on to donate the full $500,000 to St. Jude's.

On December 26, 2019, the first book in the seven-book series, Fazbear Frights #1 - Into the Pit was released on Amazon.com in Kindle & Paperback formats. The next five books also had their release dates announced along with their titles. The next five books will be released in 2020:

1. Book #2: Fetch, releasing March 3
2. Book #3: 1:35 AM, releasing May 5
3. Book #4: Step Closer, releasing July 7
4. Book #5: Bunny Call, releasing September 1
5. Book #6: Blackbird, releasing December 26.
6. While the last one will be released in 2021

1. Book #7: The Breaking Wheel, releasing March 2

Five Nights at Freddy's film

Warner Bros. Pictures announced in April 2015 that it had acquired the rights to adapt the series to film. Roy Lee, David Katzenberg, and Seth Grahame-Smith were set to produce. Grahame-Smith stated that they would collaborate with Cawthon "to make an insane, terrifying and weirdly adorable movie". In July 2015, Gil Kenan signed to direct the adaptation and co-write it with Tyler Burton Smith.

In January 2017, Cawthon stated that partially due to "problems within the movie industry as a whole", the film "was met with several delays and roadblocks" and it was "back at square one", but he promised "to be involved with the movie from day one this time, and that's something extremely important to me. I want this movie to be something that I'm excited for the fanbase to see."

In March 2017, Cawthon tweeted a picture at Blumhouse Productions, suggesting the film had a new production company.

In May 2017, producer Jason Blum confirmed the news, claiming he was excited and working closely with Cawthon on the adaptation.

In June 2017, Gil Kenan said he was no longer directing the Five Nights at Freddy's film after Warner Bros. Pictures' turnaround.

On February 13, 2018, Blumhouse Productions revealed on Twitter that Chris Columbus would be working on the film as a director, alongside producing it with Blum and Cawthon.

In August 2018, Scott Cawthon posted a Steam forum, in which he states that the movie will be based on the first game, and that if second and third movies are made, they will be based on FNaF 2 and FNaF 3, respectively.

Cancelled

• The Desolate Abandon

Novels

• Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes (2015)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: The Twisted Ones (2017)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet (2018)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #1: Into the Pit (2019)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #2: Fetch (2020)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #3: 1:35 am (2020)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #4: Step Closer (2020)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #5: Bunny Call (2020)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #6: Blackbird (2020)
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #7: The Breaking Wheel (2021)

Other

• The Freddy Files (2017)
• Survival Logbook (2017)
• The Freddy Files: Updated Edition (2019)