Summary
Five Nights At Freddy’screator Scott Cawthon has addressed the franchise’s biggest mystery: the mysterious locked box shown inFive Nights At Freddy’s 4. At the end cutscene for Night 7, the box was revealed, with two locks and text appears above it saying “Perhaps some things are best left forgotten, for now.” Despite an opened sprite for the box being found in theFNAF World’s game files, players have been unable to open the box inFNAF 4, merely rattling the locks as they click on them, which has led to plenty of speculation as to what was inside.
English gaming YouTuberDawko- who is known for his Five Nights at Freddy’s gameplay videos, theories, songs, and interviews - recently interviewed Cawthon and inquired about the box, stating that it was the biggest thing the community wanted an answer to. In response,Cawthon did provide an answer, although he did warn that it “might not be extremely satisfying to some people.”
Cawthon confirmed the box isn’t empty, saying “I feel that there is something there” andhe did have a plan for it at one point along with many other “flowing ideas” that he had when making the game, but ultimately, as part of the creative process, it just didn’t work out, saying:
I feel that there is something there, and I make the roads to get there for that to be revealed, but then sometimes when things do progress, the roads aren’t always the same roads as the ones that had been planned before and so what that means is, even though at the time, something was definitely reaching out to be there, and I could feel that it was there, the progression of the story didn’t go there and so I those strings never got pulled on and the other half of that idea remained in The Ether, in my subconscious. All of that to say there is something in the box, but I never pursued that, and I don’t know if I can find it again. I think that’s the best answer that I can possibly give for that.
In a previous interview withDawko, Cawthon addressed the contents of the box when talking about the community’s various theories, most notably YouTuber MatPat, who theorized that the context of the box had changed over the years, stating, “He’s absolutely right” before explaining how the story idea changed between conceptualization and the reaction to it, where Cawthon wanted to try to “craft it into something better.”
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The FNAF Community Has Been Trying To Open The Box For Nearly A Decade
With Many Plausible Theories About What’s Inside
Five Nights at Freddy’s 4launched almost a decade ago on July 23rd, 2015, meaning this mystery has been the topic of speculation from the community for almost a decade. There have been several theories surrounding how to open it, with not just one lock, but two to find keys for. To do this, players scoured the game and even any promotional material for it to try to find some clues that could lead to unlocking it.
It was determined through this effort that the box has a terrible thing in it that is “something put together” but that it is regrettable and causes pain to remember, with there being a connection to the Happiest Day Minigame and the overall story ofFNAF. Therefore, theytheorized that the box contains the body of the Crying Child and that William Afton put him there to “put him back together.“The Crying Child is the main protagonist ofFive Nights at Freddy’s 4minigames, each of which depicts the events during the days leading up to their birthday party, where they were hospitalized.
The Crying Child bears a striking similarity to the fifth child in the Happiest Day minigame, with both being the birthday boys, and both being associated with thesame animatronic, Fredbear.
While it would make a lot of sense for the Crying Child to be inside the box, Cawthon’s comments suggest that there may never be an official answer to this question as the mystery is simply a casualty of a changing creative process. This will undoubtedly disappoint many fans who have been waiting nearly a decade for an answer to the mystery. Of course, even though Cawthon stated that he doesn’t know if he will pursue that plot thread again, with the amount of times theFive Nights at Freddy’sstory seems to have changed already and the fluid nature of his creative process, there’s still some hope that one day he will find a way to tie up this mystery in a more satisfying manner.
Sources: Dawko/YouTube (1,2)
Five Nights at Freddy’s 4
Initially considered the final chapter, Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 is a survival horror game that centers on surviving several nights of animatronics stalking the player at night, with no means of fighting back. A departure from the previous three games in the series, FNAF 4 puts players in the role of a child who must survive several nights from being attacked by far more sinister-looking versions of the animatronics from the previous entries in the series.
