10 Amazing Game Spin-Offs You Totally Forgot Existed

While the height of Five Nights at Freddy’s mania may have cooled off, the franchise is far from forgotten. What began as a low-budget indie horror title built on a simple idea - flicking lights on and off to keep haunted mascots at bay - exploded into one of the most recognizable gaming IPs of the past decade. With films, novels, and spin-offs still appearing, the brand remains firmly lodged in the public consciousness, even as it faces the fatigue of oversaturation.

Judging the series by quality, however, tells a mixed story. Many of the mainline entries have offered only slight tweaks to the original formula or added unnecessary complications. At the same time, larger-scale efforts like Security Breach struggled for popularity in the zeitgeist and looked meager compared to actual AAA horror. Ironically, one of the franchise’s best instalments flew under the radar of most mainstream players - all because it launched primarily as a VR experience.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted reimagines the first four games with modern tech, while adding several other suspenseful scenarios and lore expansions. Available in both VR and standard versions, the flatscreen port was dismissed as a novelty, but in VR it becomes something else entirely - for the first time, you actually are that night guard sitting at that desk, hitting that security door, and on game over, have to face the wrath of that evil bear face-to-face.

It's an experience hard to beat, and for a title that was sinking into predictability, it managed to become one of the scariest of its gaming generation.