In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.
Congratulations, you just scored a job at Freddybear's Eatery and Fun as the new nightguard! Sure, the place has a bit of a reputation, but hey. Nothing's perfect, right? Besides, you loved this place as a kid. Now you get to watch over your childhood mascots every night for easy money...
It's practically a dream job, surely nothing could possibly go wrong...
Graveyard Shift at Freddy's is a Five Nights at Freddy's Fan Game created by AdvocadoDreams, serving as a "re-take" of sorts for the first game in the series with its own visuals and unique take on the story. Development initially started all the way back in 2020, before the project was cancelled a month later. AvocadoDreams would then start up a remake of a side-project FiveNights two years later, which would eventually evolve into the new version of Graveyard Shift at Freddy's.
A demo of the first two nights was made available on April 27th, 2024. The game was announced to have been completed on September 6th, 2024 and was released three days later on September 8th on Gamejolt.
On September 13th, just a few days after the game's release, it (as well as AdvocadoDreams' YouTube page) were taken down after controversy surrounding her.
A review and summary is available here. However, the "ransomware" stated in the video only refers to the dark aesthetics.
Graveyard Shift at Freddy's contains examples of:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: When on the prowl, Freddybear is shown to bend his back impossibly far, looking as if he snapped himself in twain.
- Adaptation Name Change: Freddy takes on his FNaF 1 beta name Freddybear, while Carl Cupcake is named Cream here.
- Adaptational Gender Identity: The original FNaF cupcake is referred to as Carl or Mr. Cupcake, with masculine pronouns, but in GSaF she's named Cream and is referred to with feminine pronouns.
- Can't Move While Being Watched: Averted. In the original FNaF, the animatronics wouldn't move on camera, with any movement being out of view with glitches or camera switching... but here, they'll gladly look at the camera or run off in plain sight. Sheriff Slithers is the closest to playing it straight, not being able to move while the camera is on him and instantly dashing to the office for a Game Over if the feed changes to a different room before he leaves. Even then, all the matters is that the camera keeps an eye on him, the player doesn't need to look at it. Berry the Bat acts like Foxy and needs to be watched regularly, and Freddybear won't move unless the camera is on him, so keeping the camera on him as much as possible needs to be done to stall him enough to prevent him from reaching your office.
- Closed Circle: The animatronics are unable to leave the building without suffering an horrific death. Wolfgang attempted to leave anyway, and its stated that... whatever happened to him left nothing but ash and bones. However, the Grave Danger ending implies with Ralgan's disappearance that at least one of the animatronics successfully escaped and hunted him down.
- Content Warnings: Launching the game gives one to warn the player of potential flashing lights and fast imagery that may affect epilepsy-prone players, as well as the topics present in the game and its story.
- Darker and Edgier: The colors are more muted and darker, the aesthetics are less of an analog video interface and more of a horror interface. There's more to the story as well...
- Death by Adaptation: Wolfgang, this game's counterpart to Foxy, doesn't even appear in gameplay, having been killed before the game even began while attempting to leave the pizzeria.
- Downer Ending: At the end of Night 5, Dreadybear breaks into the office and kills Rodriguez. His disappearance sparks an investigation into Freddybear's and Steve Raglan, resulting in the discovery of hundreds of bodies in the facility's basement and Raglan's disappearance.
- Double-Meaning Title:
- A "graveyard shift" is a work shift that starts at midnight and ends in the morning, but the wording could also allude to the fact that Freddybear's is essentially a graveyard thanks to the hundreds of bodies hidden beneath the facility.
- The restaurant is called "Freddybear's Eatery and Fun". Sure enough, people can go there for a bite to eat, but it also serves as an eatery for Freddybear and his gang, as they implicitly consume unsuspecting humans.
- Easter Egg:
- If you decide to idle on the main menu in the demo for too long, the game's logo disappears as audio of someone screaming begins to play... before the game crashes and opens a tab in your browser with an image of Freddybear staring at you from the dark with bloodshot eyes. In the full game, this plays out much the same way but displays an image of the pile of bodies underneath the Playplace instead.
- Like in the original game, Golden Freddy has a chance of showing up. In this game, however, there is a very specific set of criteria that have to be met in order for him to spawn, and once he spawns and does his jumpscare, a variable is set internally to make it that he doesn't spawn again. The specific criteria needed to be met in order for him to spawn are as follows:
- One second has passed since the start of the frame
- It's no later than Night 3
- It's no later than 3 AM
- Grave Danger Mode is Off
- The Camera is Up
- The Phone Call isn't playing
- The RNG Value successfully hits 1/8000
- He hasn't already spawned
- He hasn't been encountered before
- No Jumpscare animation is playing
- Fooled by the Sound: Appropriately, much like Five Nights at Freddy's 3, the way to handle Bonnie is via an alarm via each room's loudspeaker. The catch is that you're not trying to prevent him from reaching your office outright (you can't do so), but rather prevent him from going the wrong way - there are in fact two hidden doorways behind you and to your right that you can't block off in any way whatsoever, and if Bonnie reaches either door, it's game over. The player needs to watch for when Bonnie is going the wrong way and use the alarm to distract him so he moves towards the window instead, where he can be blocked off and reset. Further complicating things is that using the alarm too much will cause Bonnie to start ignoring it entirely, and the alarm only actually works at two designated locations. Thankfully, on Night 1, the game will indicate when Bonnie is in the wrong position and when to use the alarm to distract him, which is helpful for knowing when to trigger the alarm later on.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: After getting killed by an animatronic, some text quickly appears on-screen, its scale and position rapidly changing to the point where there is only a very small window where it is actually readable. In the demo, the text is a statement from Raglan to a "Mr. Schmitt" lamenting the sad fate that befell him. In the full game, it's a second person description of Rodriguez getting brutally murdered by the animatronics before Raglan cleans up his body.
- Foregone Conclusion: The cutscene after starting a new game is a news report of Rodriguez having been missing for a week after looking into Freddybear's Eatery & Fun, making it quite clear his investigation isn't going to have a happy ending...
- The Ghost: Out of all the animatronics shown around the theming and artwork of the restaurant, Wolfgang is absent. It turns out he attempted to escape, which ended in his agonizing death.
- Intrepid Reporter: The player character, Rodriguez, is actually an investigative reporter taking on the job to investigate the restaurant. While he doesn't make it out alive, his disappearance triggers a police investigation, which causes them to discover the bodies in the cellar, which is more than enough evidence for them to go after Raglan.
- Meta Twist: The FNaF series follows a couple of general rules: The door(s) will prevent animatronics from getting inside your office, and you are safe as soon as the clock hits 6 AM. This makes Shift 5 all the more shocking when Dreadybear forces the door open and kills Rodriguez after 6 AM.
- Monstrous Mandibles: When attacking the player, Cream is shown to have three finger-like appendages inside her mouth, which she uses to puncture their flesh.
- Multiple Endings: There are two endings, one for beating the game normally and one for beating it again on Grave Danger mode.
- In the standard ending, Dreadybear kills Rodriguez at 6 AM. His scream is heard, but the police are only able to find his ID card and a destroyed office at the scene. Suspecting foul play, an investigation is launched into Freddybear's and its owner Steve Raglan.
- In the Grave Danger ending, Dreadybear still kills Rodriguez, but the police are able to find the hatch in the playroom and subsequently all the bodies of those who went missing at Freddybear's, including Rodriguez. The police raid Raglan's house to arrest him, only to find it empty with signs of a struggle in his bedroom, kickstarting a statewide manhunt for him.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Raglan does not exactly seem to relish the position he's in. The promotional art, the revelation that the puppets are living creatures with bones and Freddybear's monstrous transformation into Dreaddybear imply that he was involved in some satanic ritual to create them.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: If you complete Grave Danger, a hatch under the playroom is discovered containing all the bodies - including Rodriguez - and Mr. Raglan is pinned as the suspect. However, when police raid his house, they only find evidence of a scuffle and no sign of Raglan... but while the trail has gone cold, a statewide manhunt is out to look for him... or whatever might have finally gotten to take a few pounds of flesh from him after all these graveyard shifts.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: While hunting you down, the animatronics' eyes are notably a sickly, bloodshot red, reflecting their more organic origins.
- Slow-Loading Internet Image: The monitoring system utilizes Wi-Fi, and on occasion the camera feed's quality will get throttled or the connection will drop entirely. To fix this, you need to restart the router located on your desk.
- Super Window Jump: Played for Horror. Should you fail to close the shutter door while an animatronic is behind it, they throw towards the player with frightening velocity, tackling you to the floor before tearing you to ribbons.
- The Insomniac: During the first shift's phone call, Steve Raglan will mention Rodriguez's resume. Claiming that the reason he applied for the job was that he "Couldn't sleep well at night."
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: After dying, you're given a Game Over screen with flashing distorted text and a flickering black and white image of what's implied to be your body with its eyes gouged out and barring an expression frozen in terror. The text itself, when read clearly, also states that your ribcage was also completely exposed and one of your hands was torn off.
- To Serve Man: It is implied that the animatronics are organic and Raglan has to feed them live humans, with the remains being tossed into a cellar underneath the restaurant. They get increasingly agitated the longer they go without food, with Rodriguez surviving long enough to witness Freddybear transforming into the monstrous Dreadybear as a last-ditch effort to kill him.
- Unreliable Expositor: Ralgan deliberately doesn't tell Rodriguez about the animatronics on the first night, only coming clean if the latter manages to survive for another shift. Even then, Ralgan downplays the danger, claiming that the animatronics would just give Rodriguez a big hug. Ralgan is actually hoping for Rodriguez to get killed early on, and he becomes very concerned if the guard makes it all the way to the final night.
- Unrobotic Reveal: The first sign that the puppets may not be entirely metallic is their eyes, which become bloodshot overnight. Then the end of Shift 2 mentions that Wolfgang had bones inside of him, not an endoskeleton. Finally, there's Freddybear's transformation into Dreadybear, which looks to be a process beyond what a normal animatronic is capable of. The reason these puppets kill humans is implied to not be paranormal malevolence, but rather a natural instinct to feed on their flesh.
- Unstoppable Rage: More accurately, unstoppable "hanger." By the end of Shift 5, Freddybear hasn't eaten in so long that he turns into Dreadybear and rips the shutter open to get at Rodriguez - after 6 AM, no less.
- Video-Game Lives: Grave Danger mode, unlocked after completing the game, introduces these into the mix. You're given 3 lives to complete the entire game from start to finish. Lose them all at any point and you're back to Shift 1.
TIME'S UP!