10 Indie Horror Games That Changed Everything
2. Five Nights At Freddy's (Scott Cawthorn)
FNAF is a name known all throughout indie horror, with its countless imitators and endless sequels of varying quality.
The original game's premise and mechanics are brilliantly simple and extremely stressful—and despite criticisms of its simple and jumpscares, the nearly impossible resource management aspect really lends itself to the horror.
In the original game, the player was hired as a night watchman for a pizza place, instructed by a friendly coworker who, through a casually lighthearted recording, explains how the mascots come alive at night and will murder them by stuffing them into one of the animatronics. The player had access to security cameras they could flip through to track any movement, buttons to turn lights on and shut doors, and a fast-depleting battery for all of these.
The limited visibility and anxiety of resource management make this game a stressful and terrifying experience—which means it's a fantastic horror game.
It would spawn an entire franchise including a Hollywood film, inspire many an indie horror, but more prominently it would inspire an entire genre of "mascot horror". Its influence would almost be unparalleled, if not for the next entry.