Scott Cawthon has stated he will no longer work on Five Nights At Freddy’s and is stepping down from his role.
Cawthon has been the subject of controversy recently after it was revealed that on several occasions he donated large sums of money to multiple conservative politicians and committees, including Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell. The information spread like wildfire across social media and soon began an onslaught of fans upset to see the creator behind one of their favourite series support people who actively caused harm to LGBTQ+ communities and other marginalized people.
This also unfortunately led to personal attacks and threats against Cawthon and his family, to which Cawthon replied in a Reddit post as a way of explaining his actions and calling on people to stop threatening his pregnant wife and surrounding family. “I’d like to think that the last seven years would have given me the benefit of the doubt in regards to how I try to treat people,” Cawthon said in the post, “but there I was, trending on twitter for being a homophobe, getting doxed, with people threatening to come to my house. My wife is six weeks pregnant and she spent last night in fear because of what was being said online.”
Four days after that post, Cawthon took to his website to announce his retirement. He spoke again about his family, and how he misses making games “just for fun” and how things were before Five Nights At Freddy’s became such a phenomenon. He also makes it clear that this won’t be the end of the series, and that a successor will be chosen by him at some time in the future.
The next game within the Five Nights At Freddy’s franchise was shown last at a Sony State of Play, and is set to come out sometime this year. There is also a movie adaptation currently in the works, though we’ve been given no indication as to how the production has been progressing and when it will be releasing.
