============================ *_IMPORTANT! FAQ & Other Notes_* ============================ Hi all, thank you so much for watching! It means a lot that you would engage in this journey. Your *_viewership and Liking & Commenting_* on the video and especially *_watching past and future videos_* help a ton with the RUclips algorithm. Check the description for other methods of supporting the channel and free case studies. Regardless, *_I greatly appreciate each one of you!_*_ Your viewership means everything._ I try to Heart or respond to comments as much as I can, but time limits my ability to read and respond to every comment. _Therefore, if you want a guaranteed response to your comments on this channel, Join as a channel Member._ _Please do not comment underneath this pinned comment since it's more difficult for me to see and respond to. Additionally, it may be subject to deletion if it requires a response or an open dialogue but I cannot reciprocate due to the nature of a thread._ _This pinned comment is where I'll update with any corrections or FAQ._ ============================ *_FAQ_* ============================ *0. **_Prerequisite Mindset & Personal Experience_* ► There's nothing wrong with finding the game fun in your personal experience, but your enjoyment of something doesn't mean it is without flaw nor does it change objective design flaws. We can all agree that we want to see Steel Wool and the industry improve as they continue to make games. I provide the evidence and means to do so in the behind-the-scenes game design space (and much more in the next FNaF videos), and I hope you find value in that rather than a shallow reinforcement of your feelings. This does not mean that your personal experience is invalid. You are free to enjoy what you want. In fact, I very much love and appreciate hearing your personal experiences in the comments. In the case of Security Breach, it's clear cut where the enjoyment derives from, so don't allow branding to cause you to deceive yourself. If you truly care about FNaF, this video should be meaningful to you. I hold myself to a high standard and provide evidence and game design information in what I hope is in a digestible format. I am not always correct; I am human, and I am always learning. I welcome constructive feedback. I'm also happy to assist in clarifying concerns or questions, if I have the time. However, I don't accept dismissive or unsubstantiated comments. Also, interpreting others unfavorably is not constructive. Please treat everyone here with respect. Thank you for being awesome and I hope to see you around! *1. **_Tone, Repeated Words, SW Quotes, etc._* ► I've heard the constructive feedback and so I'll address several under one point here. Most people seem to enjoy the voiceover, but it also seems like I'm wavering into territory again where my voiceover can, possibly, come across as certain negative emotions instead of the passion that it's rooted in. I'll continue to improve, though the passion will always be present! Please keep in mind that some of that (and further corrections below) may derive from a detachment or misunderstanding of the evidence provided in the video (which is possible since the video is quite scathing and blunt near the beginning before the overwhelming evidence piles up) and how the overall tone can come across as scathing. Outside of the improvements that I'll be addressing, the scathing nature of the video is earned, and I feel that removing the blunt honesty and truth of the matter would be a disservice to the franchise and players. For those who know this channel, I always give the benefit of the doubt in whatever way I can, sometimes excessively so, always for the benefit of the studio. For those who watched this video through to the end, you know that I did give benefit of the doubt where applicable, and even potential improvements and useful quotes from industry veterans, but Steel Wool set the entire bridge on fire _even before_ they were wrongly trusted with FNaF, and since then it got exponentially worse. Also keep in mind, this video didn't even contain the additional communication and broken promise issues from their past games. I'll address that later along with the areas in SB that I didn't mention in my first SB video. Also, an exclusive, behind-the-scenes interview. Very exciting! The clips where I repeat words or phrases is for emphasis. However, this is another point of improvement since it can come across as sudden or abrasive. I'll mess with slightly slowing the speed of the repeated phrases in an attempt to address that issue. And I'm sure there are other methods for emphasis, like words on screen. However, it may be unlikely that I repeat like that in future videos. This case study was a very special and distinct one on this channel that very likely won't be pursued again. It would be better to read their SW quotes in a more neutral tone, no matter how difficult it is not to laugh at their indescribable quotes. I understand that some of the quotes require further watching to truly understand the lessons/takeaways. I'll be more considerate to that context. I didn't realize how often I snuck in my new consulting opportunity. I must have been overly excited and didn't realize at the time when I was recording the voiceover. Also keep in mind, part of this case study's purpose is to simply show how this happened, though it quickly evolves into so much more once Scott steps into the picture. That's out of my control. Again, I'm not going to coddle one of the biggest gaming franchises, and certainly not when they ran away with millions of dollars from their fans without an ounce of accountability or, bafflingly, introspection. We've all seen what happens when SW are coddled: endlessly patting themselves on the back in an echo chamber without an attempt at introspection. I don't think I need to recount the video here. I believe it would be disingenuous for those who care about the franchise not to call out when enough is enough. I appreciate the feedback, as always! Stay frosty, friends. *2. **_Clips_* ► Yes, there are a lot of clips -- likely more than usual due to the unusual topic of this video. I spread them out as much as I can. They're also sometimes part of explicit compilations. They're also part of the entertainment value. And they give the points in the video extra substance. It's important to be able to study the reactions of player experiences and determine how to translate that into something usable in the design space, so my goal is to continue to utilize clips/experiences for both informative and entertainment purposes without sacrificing the quality of the video. The clips where I repeat words or phrases is for emphasis. However, this is another point of improvement since it can come across as sudden or abrasive. I'll mess with slightly slowing the speed of the repeated phrases in an attempt to address that issue. And I'm sure there are other methods for emphasis. However, it may be unlikely that I repeat like that in future videos. This case study was a very special and distinct one on this channel that very likely won't be pursued again. Many interview clips are used multiple times throughout the video. However, I did purposely ensure that each time was for a different context, purpose, or point. For repeats, I either shorten the clip or splice different words in the clip, knowing that I had to repeat some of the interview clips. *3. **_SW's silence must be PR_* ► Yes, I'm sure Steel Wool's management and co-founders are attempting to keep their heads down, and it might have worked if they actually cared. While I always try to give the benefit of the doubt on this channel, the rabbit hole runs deep, and the hole is much deeper than it seems according to new, behind-the-scenes, exclusive Design Frame sources coming soon. The evidence is overwhelming for me that SW doesn't know how bad the game truly is. They genuinely think the game is fine beyond the bugs and maybe a couple design things here and there, if I'm generous. But that's surface level (though I don't want to discount how horrendous the technical side of SB is). Their design changes and especially the save system change are some of the worst updates I've ever seen. There's really no way around the fact that they still, to this day, absolutely refuse to turn the save stations on -- the easiest update they could ever release. They refuse to fix Moon getting stuck on everything. They refuse to fix misapplied textures and sprays. They refuse to optimize the game. They refuse to add the required FOV slider. They refuse to care enough to fix the several floating objects, and even a charge station that's unironically halfway in the ground. They refuse to fix the default alignment for the loading screens. They refuse to even try to introspect on why players aren't using the cameras. They still think plopping in more roaming staff bots improves the game. They somehow thought the pass scanner bot should disappear into a wall (I'll mention the really easy solution in a future video). They're still proud of the blatantly overscoped, mismanaged Pizzaplex. There's soooo much more, all stuff that Scott approved and left in the game instead of even attempting to make it right by reinvesting a portion of the millions of dollars of profit from Security Breach, like when he cared about his fanbase and franchise's image post-release of FNaF World. This is the reality of the franchise. The evidence cannot reasonably conclude that this is a PR move, or at least, it's a very bad, failed attempt at PR. Post-patched SB is lazy and lacks any modicum of self-awareness and introspection. Both SW and Scott doubled down in every conceivable way. They have absolutely burned the PR bridge, credibility, and any possible benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise beyond a shadow of a doubt.
My only question is how on earth did Scott think it was a good idea to get Steelwool to work on a non vr title in the first place? Did he not care or did he want to dump the IP on a studio so he wouldn't have to deal with the games anymore?
@@danpaz9485 I think Scott is just horribly under-informed on the ins and outs of developing a larger game and had more faith in Steel Wool than he should've as a result
@@BullFrogFace"Open world" is clearly a broad term. Of course most games are going to have open world elements. But the other commenter was right, the open world era died a while ago.
glad im not the only one who felt that, idk much about vrchat but i play a shit ton of tf2 and this literally just looks like a trade/silly/hangout server map. i wouldnt be surprised if it's been ported to source lmao
@DesignFrameCaseStudies Easy, make her spawn in EVERY area Gregory goes in, upgrade her AI so she's not always aware of where you are, but your overall location. Think the Xenomorph from Alien Isolation. Give her a knife, she's meant to be a killer, give her more voice lines, give her more abilities other than just walking (there are unused animations of her walking in pretty creepy ways as well as crouching, suggesting she could go inside vents with gregory). The game would still be crap, but Vanny would be respected.
@@InfiniteWatcher I think the issue with Vanny is at first they wanted her to be the main villain, but half way through someone changed their mind and wanted her to have some redeeming qualities, so they pull this mind-control twist and put Afton as the actual bad guy.
@@InfiniteWatcher It wouldn't be "easy". The terror of Mr X in RE2 was the claustrophobia, caused by the cramped map and just the sheer size of Mr X himself. You felt fear, because he was like a brick wall rapidly B-lining towards you. You can't really replicate that in the Pizzaplex, it's just too big of a map for it to work, there's too much space for the player to just run and hide. Vanny fundamentally CAN NOT work as a "Mr X" type enemy with a map like this.
@reaperz5677 Which is why the map should also be smaller. Vanny should've been an unstoppable force and, given how gregory is a child, her size should be enough to overpower him and give the player that sense of being powerless. One way to do this is remove the Freddy mechanic, no titanfall protection for the player whenever Vanny is around (the excuse could be she has a way to turn off the bots when she's near)
The comedy bot being confirmed will always be hilarious to me. I just assumed its broken routine was intentional, so hearing that it actually does have jokes is ironically less funny to me.
The whole "saves are disabled to increase difficulty" debacle really is some arcade-era thinking. Dark Souls is famous and infamous for its difficulty, even though it saves your game almost constantly (which even contributes to the difficulty in some aspects - you can't easily save-scum your level-up choices, for example). Eschewing saving can be a nice self-imposed challenge, but not every challenge can be a nice requirement.
I think it's even more insane than that, because old games mostly didn't include saves because otherwise the game would be completed quickly, especially when cartridge space was so tiny and a single game was expected to last. So beating the game was the testament of mastery, sort of like modern day roguelites in a sense, except roguelites often include metaprogression and procedural generation to add short-term fresh experiences on top of the long-term mastery. SW has no reason to engage with that line of thinking whatsoever.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiesI think they were going for that “lose it all” idea of the original FNAF games but completely forgot what the actual concept was. The 6-9 minutes (depending on the game) is simply not comparable to the several hours that take place if you choose to stay. And it’s not difficult to have a large chunk of your play time happen after you choose to stay, meaning you’d loose a LOT of progress in this massive game. The first game especially turned into a pseudo rage game for people by the end but still a fun one, replacing the pure terror & horror of the first few nights with a difficult challenge and keeping the player engaged. SB just says “fuck you” for no reason and thinks you’ll enjoy it. There’s barely enough scary stuff prior to that to call it a dedicated horror title and after that most people just leave and call it a day cause staying sounds awful.
Its artificial difficulty. Instead of making the game actually difficult, you raise the stakes of loss and make the player feel more artificially stressed. Arcades did it because they ran off tokens and needed a way to get players to keep paying more money, so you lost your progress unless you put in more coins for more lives. An at-home singleplayer experience like security breach should not have them
Dark Souls is also a great example because the overall trend of Souls games has been to add even more friendly checkpoint placement and shorter boss runbacks. FromSoftware clearly heard the response from their fanbase (a fanbase that tends to love challenge and difficulty) to the longer runbacks of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 and realized that long runbacks aren't a very fun and engaging source of challenge, and that it doesn't cheapen the difficulty at all to add plenty of checkpoints, even right outside boss fights. While I do think it's kinda frustrating how so many people treat Dark Souls as completely synonymous with "difficult game" (there's more to love about Souls games than just their difficulty!), any developer who doesn't at least glance at Souls games to understand how they achieve difficulty is just not paying attention.
Aye, was playing an RPG Maker horror game and was killed about 20-30 minutes in and had forgotten to save (As I'd assumed there was auto-saves, at least after the opening) , and I didn't feel like starting over, it wasn't scary, it was just annoying.
i was learning a lot about project management for an IT class and they always talk about scope creep and how it's one of the main causes of project failures and such, but i never understood its significance and how horrible it could be until you showcased it in this case study, very informational and truly what a nightmare scenario for a project
And even then it feels kinda weird next to the rest of the game. The characters move and jump around in a very lightweight and cartoony fashion that doesn’t make a ton of sense for large metal robots. Ironically the game itself actually does seem to understand the animatronics’ weight to some extent, i.e. the walking/running animations that cause parts of their bodies to wobble (Freddy’s ears for example) and heavy footsteps that shake the screen a little when they’re nearby. You can also see this weird cartooniness in the other cutscene that plays when you confront Vanny in Fazer Blast. Freddy gets effortlessly sent flying over the (un-railed) side of a bridge by a shove from a twig-armed staff bot, then more staff bots surround and tear him apart by moving their arms up and down and causing parts to comedically fly off of him like he’s in a Lego game (and this is supposed to be a serious moment). Was the animation studio even given any idea of what this game’s tone was supposed to be?
@@thatoneguy609 I didn't mention the other cutscenes since there's no 100% evidence that Pe Grande worked on those. But it's more likely than not that Pe Grande did. I think Steel Wool's strange addition of horrible personalities in the animatronics is where my suspension of disbelief breaks haha
I mean, FNAF strayed pretty far from any kind of believable situation when it stopped being about kid ghosts possessing shitty run-down pizza animatronics. It rapidly spiraled into strange hyper-futuristic AI and robotics that would make Star Trek seem like quaint Disney trash. Especially the horrible idea of bringing book lore to the games, illusion discs and the Mimic not withstanding they even have fully advanced real-time cranial implant VR. It's just way too much, but I can't really blame Steel Wool too much for that since Scott himself has said he didn't tell them the plot of the fucking game. He gave them plot hooks and then told them to go make a game since I guess he assumed they'd just know the story entirely from that and when they checked back in with him the story they came up with wasn't what he wanted. Which is by far the stupidest decision I've ever heard EVER.
"They worked too hard on the wrong things" is a great single sentence summary of my feelings on the game. I'm very willing to forgive games being weird or jank if I can see the ambition, and Security Breach has ambition in spades. It's just clear that this studio, as passionate as they were and as many genuinely good ideas as they have, wasn't ready to make this kind of project. I thought some of the writing in the side-story with the human staff being increasingly concerned that they're being replaced by robots was genuinely a fantastic place for the series to go. The fear of being replaced is uniquely applicable to both humans and robots in a way that could create some really neat places for the story to go. I think that given (a fucking significant amount of) time, Steel Wool is capable of making really good FNAF content. They've just got some introspection to be doing.
i think they could have if given enough time and had proper communication and management its clear the game was rushed to meet an unrealistic deadline and the halfbaked communication from scott didnt help any they were basically forced to improv a giant story driven game 75% of the time
@@TheJinx64 Scott and the deadline didn't help, but I really don't like how the fanbase uses Sony and the deadline as the scapegoat when the full blame should go to SW and Scott and the issues are fundamental from the very beginning of preproduction. And the story and even storytelling that SW crafted for SB is trash, so SW doesn't get off easy for any of the story issues.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudies true, i was just using the knowledge i currently had which was from way back when the game first released and all the issues were in the spotlight
I remember watching Markiplier play Security Breach. For context, his FNAF videos have always consistently made me laugh since 2014. This one though…he looked broken by the end of it. His 2 hour livestream where Chica spawned on top of him and killed him was just the icing on the cake. When I watched him play Ruin, he seemed to enjoy it more than the main game which made me happy. I don’t have much hope but I hope someone at Steel Wool sees this video and takes all the criticisms to heart. I think what worked for Ruin was that it was a smaller experience than the main game which meant that the atmosphere could be creepy.
For me, favorite SB experience would still be Phisnom. Dude was so excited and ended up ranting in Spanish with only music man section bringing him any thrill and joy
@Brite-um2tq I mean it kinda is, it's definitely way more enjoyable than base SB, but still, Alien Isolation and Dead Space, two games that Ruin reminded me of, do what Ruin tried to do significantly better, and Isolation is a good comparison to base SB, as base SB reminded me a lot of Alien Isolation, both games were their respective studios first attempt at that kind of game, with the Creative Assembly group working on the Total War game series and Steel Wool being a VR studio, but the reason Phil got canceled was not due to his opinion of Ruin, that is factually incorrect, he was canceled due to how he handled what happened afterwards, joking about getting gore sent to him instead of a minor, who couldn't respectfully disagree with Phil's opinion on Ruin, and instead had to be a whiny toddler and say, "When FNAF+ comes out I'm gonna call it shit even if it's not"
@@rodimusmagnus5586 Dude he encouraged his fans to mob the kid with death threats, that and his extreme unprofessionalism and making a general ass of himself whilst hiding from criticism behind his toxic "persona". I used to watch his stuff cuz I agreed with his take on SB but you have to admit man's childish as all hell.
One thing that always frustrated me was the misuse of Gregory himself. Like Gregory is like what? 10? Imagine, instead of blocking off things with invisible walls and arbitrary security barriers, Gregory is to scared to go alone because freddy is hurt in this area. Like, instead of the barriers, the lights are out in that place and Gregory is to scared to go because he thinks Moon is in there and its dark (and kids are scared of the dark) so that way the player can't go into that area yet. It would be so easy to make the characters scary, Gregory is a child! Make the characters scary because the character you play has is scared! Instead of hiding from the animatronics because they teleport, have the screen darken and the characters breathe quicken as the animatronic approaches and you're stuck in place until you have to force Gregory to run. It would make the game scarier and encourage you to avoid the animatronics. You don't want to get stuck in place and you don't want the kid you're getting attached to throughout the game to get hurt so you avoid the animatronics. Steelwool refuses to use Gregory as any more than a vessel for the player when he could be so much MORE. you don't need a big pizzaplex when, in the mind of a child, EVERYTHING is ginormous. Especially when you're on your own. It would be so easy to make the game smaller and scarier but they refuse because they're just to cocky. Like, they're so caught up in the lore and the set design that they don't know how to utilize the very basic tools of storytelling. Latch on to the character and it makes everything much scarier.
Everyone who says this pretty much exposes they haven't read the story. Its clear in the story that the only reason Gregory is good at any of those things is because Glitchtrap is in the one in control of him. In Security Breach he's clearly a dumb kid who doesn't know crap about the Pizzaplex, which is weird if he is *actually* a mastermind hacker who played every game in the Pizzaplex? It's because he didn't, he wasn't even in control of his body. Which the story literally screams in your face by how he behaves and the fact he literally calls himself "Dr. Rabbit". If that isn't the most obvious reference to Glitchtrap I literally don't know what is there.
Fnaf in general has a problem of its 'characters' really not existing to have any sort of depth or personal internal agency, they mostly just exist to be twisted and contorted to whatever and wherever the plot needs, regardless of if its logical, consistent or contradictory with past actions Ie Elizabeth did like a 180 in motives between Sister Location and Pizza Sim, Afton a apparent genius murder mad scientists just walked into a trap he knew was a trap for reasons. Vanessa was a mine controlled vessel with no personal agency or motives for her actions, not even justifications for why Glitchtrap could manipulate her initially. Gregory as you said is only a kid on a surface level, and even The Mimic seems to be designed to just be something that can be twisted and written to act however they want because 'oh it mimics stuff'. Its why i have always been of the boat having Vanny herself by a Copy Cat killer who learnt about the MCI and Afton through her work on Help Wanted and it drove her to recreate it, not only does it give then the opportunity to delve into Vanessa as a character, why she would latch onto this specifically, what drives this level of obsession. Plus its then interesting having Vanny be a kinda proxy for what In Universe was know about the MCI, through what she understands to try and recreate and what she misses IE how Glitchtrap and her Rabbit suit are different from Springtrap, she knew the killer used a rabbit suit, but not what it looks like.
1 more thing I don't understand about him is when he see the front gates closing and realize he's stuck inside, why is he so afraid? His goal was to sneak inside to find the missing kids/investigate the place, so clearly doing it after hour is the best. The gates close or not does not affect his goal, so what's with the reaction? At worst he's gonna spend 1 night inside. Not to mention less staff too. This channel was right. The game was handled by the wrong people. Not saying they're all talentless charlatans, but the management and role distribution clearly went wrong.
@@TheGreenTaco999 It makes sense why he'd be angrier in this. The first one was before the "apology Free-lc" Ruin and Steel Wool essentially abandoning the game.
@@TheGreenTaco999 The first video there was still some optimism that maybe they would take criticism to heart and make a better game. They didn't. They raked in the money and abandoned the game, proving that they did not learn any lesson and instead chose to be blissfully ignorant at best to the pile of garbage they created.
4:44 NOOOOOOO they fell into the classic creative art trap! Even in scriptwriting you are not supposed to get too attached to any one idea for risk of bloat, pacing issues etc. Edit: I have a sneaking suspicion they didn’t do a Game Design Doc….
It's so true, and it's bizarre that people working in entertainment media wouldn't know that principle. When you look at an early script, or production art, or test footage for any great media, there's always cool material that got cut because it didn't add to the core goal, and time & energy had to go into polishing the top priorities. When that guy says he wouldn't want to revise anything, it's like he's never looked at how anyone makes a great game/film/etc.
I despise any author who, when interviewed about their work, gasses themselves up over how "ambitious" or "expansive" (or whatever other vague buzzword adjective) their project was. It's genuinely shocking seeing these interviews with Steel Wool, where the devs don't look even slightly concerned about the shoddy state of the game, and instead gush about how big the pizzaplex is. Insane. I wish more devs were humble and self-critical, even in the face of financial success.
I feel part of that is “PR speak” or “words for the shareholders”. Now, most of the time, lead devs (or lead workers in most industries really) are forced to say stuff that keeps the shareholders happy and keep/cause more potential consumers/investors to be interested, even if it’ll blow up in their face. The difference here is that Steel Wool (from my understanding) doesn’t have share holders (with only Scott being their investor for FNAF related stuff if I’m not mistake). They can *afford* to be honest about it’s poor progress and troubled development (maybe ask for a delay to redo the whole project), and look back on the project with regret. They’re *able* to be more transparent and open about things since they don’t have to worry about share holders withdrawing their funding. This kind of hints that Steel Wool might have/had internal issues, like something akin to toxic positivity. Considering there’s no way any dev wouldn’t feel at least a tinge of regret with the way SB turned out, especially with how “ambitious” they wanted it to be.
I think what did it in for me with this video was Scott's response trying to defend steel wool too. Like they made a bad product and a mess of his IP, if he isn't going to try to defend the IP he's worked so hard to build up then what does that tell us the fans? That Scott no longer cares enough about FNAF universe to ensure its quality?
The pizzaplex is actually an amazing design and I agree with Steel Wool that its a place I would want to go... just not in a videogame. I've had more fun bumming around in security breach vrchat worlds than playing the actual game.
@Wootmaster For sure! The only argument that matters for a game is that the Pizzaplex sucks for a game and gameplay and for a project scope. Nothing was done with it in the game! At least VR Chat got some use out of it 🤣
It's a wonderful design visually and feels like they thought about what people would want in a real attraction - but the size and bloat ruined it as a game environment, between the useless map, camera issues, and overall emptiness of the environments.
This game should've been a brand new reboot rather than a continuation of the very well wrapped up OG canon. Wtf were Scott and Steel Wool thinking when writing this thing?
Nothing about the modern lore messes with the OG lore that badly? Afton's still dead, the MCI and all his victims are all still dead likely, Mike and Henry are still dead- There's literally only just a few overlaps, like with the presence of the FFPS pizzeria, the remains of old animatronics in the Tangle, return of characters like Candy Cadet, old FNAF games having their events represented in the indie games ad FNAF VR in universe, and a few more. Like I don't get the statement anymore? It effectively IS almost a reboot/new story at this point
@@anorak3334 It can't be a reboot AND a continuation - it can only be one or the other. A reboot is something entirely different. Different lore, different characters, different universe. A continuation is just, well, a story continued. They aren't the same. You can't have both. You can't have a half-and-half. From a storytelling perspective... Yes, Security Breach at worst does the original lore an injustice, and at best is completely meaningless. When working with an IP that already exists, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Simply put. It's possible to make a continuation with an all-new setting and cast, but it *has* to be relevant. It *has* to be of substance to the core foundation of the series. It can have a different story, but the themes and narratives *have* to relate to what has already been established. I mean, look at literally anything SpiderMan related from the past 2 decades - different takes on the same characters and the same story. That is a reboot. Now imagine if instead of going the multiverse route, storytellers tried to convince us that, actually, all of these Spidermen exist in the same world, just at slightly different times! That is what Security Breach tried to do. It gave us a new setting and new characters and a lore that does not relate to the previous games at all but then chickened out the last minute and tried to tie it into the rest of the canon, so it's own detriment. There was no point in it - they didn't NEED to do it - so why do it? FNAF at its core is about A serial killer targeting kids where they were meant to be safest; said kids haunting the establishments; enacting revenge on their killer. That's it. FNAF 1 establishes this. FNAF 2 adds to this through the minigames, mostly. FNAF 3 adds to this through minigames, and through making the murderer a primary threat/antagonist. FNAF 4 adds to this through minigames, and through allowing us to play as a vital main character in the canon lore. Sister Location adds to this by giving us further insight into the murderer and his family. Pizza Simulator adds to this by, quiet literally, giving us an ending to the story and it's characters. And then Security Breach is just... There. Pointless. In a limbo. It doesn't add ANYTHING. And yet, for some godawful reason, it tries to tie itself in as if it does. It fails to establish its own core narratives because it wants to hitch off of that of the previous games, when even with that context in mind, Security Breach's story honestly makes NO SENSE! You can't make a half-reboot half-continuation that's only relevant when its convenient, that's the kind of writing I can forgive out of a 12 year old fanfic writer, not a $50 console game with an adult team behind it.
Security Breach COULD have been a good addition to the canon lore had it actually stuck to a simple script of Vanny being a copycat of Afton and the primary antagonist of the game - no crazy virus robot BS necessary, no pointless hidden pizzarias or blobs, just back to the core of the series: a serial killer, innocent kids, and some haywire animatronics. That's literally all we needed.
@@puppiekit These statements make no fucking sense. No, the spider-man comparison doesn't make sense, since when the hell was it the same as trying to say all continuities of something are in the same universe? This is nowhere near the same, it's still in the same universe, but it's not trying to tell the literal exact same fucking story. The most that it connects is with some overlaps here and there, and that's it, (FFPS pizzeria under the Pizzaplex, obvious main animatronic characters, candy cadet and helpy, the Mimic copying Afton (for like...four games, three if we're not counting AR), the indie games, whatever's going on with the character of Nightmarionne, old animatronic parts in the Tangle, and the bonnie-mask bully from FNAF 4) Saying that THOSE somehow are proof of this statement of yours is bullshit, (we literally also have Vanny/Vanessa, Gregory/GGY, the Mimic, Cassie, Roxy, Monty, whoever it's likely implying is behind FE now, etc) No it did not chicken out of shit, literally every single other modern FNAF product aside from SB has been an improvement in comparison to it. Which is also another good point, why'd you only ever bring up SB when talking about the story? Why didn't you mention, why'd you oh so conveniently leave out, HW1, AR (in terms of really only the emails), Ruin, HW2, the upcoming SOTM game (which we can prolly already tell a lot about), ITP- It's funny, people like you always only ever seem to ention SB's story specifically when talking about the new story, and then NOTHING ELSE. Why is that exactly? No it isn't in a limbo, literally all the other fucking modern FNAF games are there around it. So moral of the story; Shut the fuck up, and stop trying to use one singular game that came out three years ago to try and prove a point about the modern story, even though the fucking story itself has already moved on. It is VERY obvious, when people like you clearly just purely nowadays base your whole view of modern FNAF off of SB, and that's it, and I don't what you seriously expect to gain from that. You just look fucking retarded, because you act like one thing that almost every other person that's not also doing that, has moved on from, is somehow still relevant and at that representative of the whole lore??
I remember DJ Sterf recalling how he was brought on to play test the dlc. I believe he recalled that the reactions to his feed back were always mildly hostile, as if he was attacking the devs directly by pointing out basic bugs and glitches.
@DesignFrameCaseStudies I might be misremembering what he said, but on his RUIN chapter 2 video at 38:22 he talks about his experience being a QA tester and how he was brought on. He may have just been saying in general of what typically happens as a QA tester however.
@@tancoat1346 I watched the clip in question - his comment was saying that other people he's worked with have been aggressive towards him in terms of QA, but Steel Wool was particularly charitable to him with his involvement.
@@artydoesstuff1534 That's true, but I find it very interesting how everyone who worked with steel wool have only the highest opinions of them despite the state of the game they created. Just as well, in that clip Sterf remarks on how two QA studios on top of him joined in to bug test the DLC with him recalling over 2200 bugs found by him alone. But even then the DLC much less the base game was incredibly buggy. Though I was wrong about what was stated in the clip, I do believe the clip itself holds significance.
@@tancoat1346 I think its because Steel Wool is good at like human interaction and just being personable. So its hard to hate them even if their products are less than stellar because if you worked with the people you know them on a human level. Its not like with us. We know theyre people, but we have no emotional or social connection with them. We only know what they present to us with interviews, what products they created and sold. It is a skill you have to learn to be able to make a social connection and still be able to bluntly critique a work. Personally, Ive only ever really seen it be taught in art subjects. I could be wrong, but I havent seen other subjects in school or other fields focus on teaching that skill to kids or students
I was playing this with my child (for my child lol) and even if it was completely bug free (it absolutely isn’t) it is the epitome of a rotten foundation. It was frustrating boring and confusing from the jump. But my boy loved the characters so much I kept slogging for him. I was genuinely dumbfounded when Design Frame showed the quote saying Steel Wool was “content with the game in its current state” I had to take multiple breaks despite my son’s egging on bc I would be killed by animatronics who could not detect me in my hiding spot but never left and then lost over half an hour of progress. TBH I got the escape ending and uninstalled lol. When he asks for a revisit I tell him he can play it himself lol.
Yes! That's the exact experience that's typical in the game if people weren't so blinded by the branding! But some just don't know any better, so I think it's important to expect more than slop from our games, especially a huge franchise. Thanks for sharing :)
It truly boggles my mind why Scott wanted a VR studio to make a free roam game, and when they made it too big, why the fuck did he not say, “stop this” Edit: also note how the best fnaf game since the Steel Wool era begun wasn’t created by Steel Wool, with that game being Into The Pit.
If I had to make a genuine guess outside of "Scott is mishandling the franchise", because that's an obvious thing, I think he probably thought that VR and free roam is similar in terms of game development. As far as I'm aware, Scott mostly uses Clickteam for game development, so he probably doesn't have a whole lot of experience in developing a fully 3D free roam game or VR game. So, he probably assumed that since both VR and free roam 3D both use 3D models, that the creation and development of both types of games must be similar enough that experience in one means experience in the other. Idk I might just be stupid though.
I love how the tone of this video is very different to the first one. This one has this lowkey "It's been two years, I've had it with your nonsense Steel Wool." vibe to it and I love it. It's definitely earned.
It feels like a Greek tragedy, such a terrible mismatch of skillset. They're brilliant artists who have created arguably some of the best (or at least, most popular) character designs for FNAF in the Glamrocks and couldn't follow through on making a game that people want to play. The pizzaplex has a brilliant design visually, but is a broken slog in execution, and the fact that they can't or won't see that feels like some sort of tragic curse.
Remember aspiring artists! Each area needs their own specific skills and mindsets. Being a background artist for an animated movie is very different to being a level designer!
Im just glad thay havnt taken the Vivziepop way of taking critisism and ruining their future works becuase of mean words. Ruin was a good step in the right direction
Valve recently released a documentary and dev commentary for Half-Life 2, one of the most influential games of its time that set the bar for how games should be -at minimum-. Even then, they had some misgivings about their design decisions, even poking fun at themselves. Robin Walker referred to one questionable moment as "magical bullshit." Most players wouldn't even have noticed, but by his admission, the devs still weren't proud of it. Further ahead, you find a mortar that had been giving you hell a few maps back. Too bad you can't fire it yourself... which a dev admitted was a missed opportunity. They even address a failed attempt at preventing you from trying to go down a slide in a playground; they couldn't get the physics for it right, so they broke the ladder. But you can just climb up the slide itself, and a dev conceded that, as is often the case, we the players got the last laugh on them. Steel Wool have done no such introspection. If they have, they refuse to publicly admit it. It really worries me for their future projects. I hope they can step outside their echo chamber long enough to realize that the aggrieved among us (most of us, anyway) are more frustrated than anything else. The game screams "fizzled potential." They flew too close to the sun. FazFriends has a bunch of videos showcasing the amazing attention to detail they had, which only dials up the frustration. I love everything about Security Breach, EXCEPT the gameplay and story. I haven't played it myself, but I've seen enough to understand what I'd be getting myself into. I just hope they can partner up with some devs who know what they're doing, that way the artists can do what they do best while still crafting a worthwhile gameplay experience. I don't know what to expect, but we'll have to see. It's up to them to turn things around.
Hell, even the thing described as "magical bullshit" only happens under the specific circumstance, where you manage to kill the two miniboss enemies in the area before one of them gets a chance to shoot at a gas tanker (which only happens when the total health of the two enemies is low); causing it to explode. If you do that, and it is difficult (but I have managed to do it myself), the gas tanker just explodes on its own. I'm not sure if the Valve devs missed something or not before recording that developer commentary line given its kind of misleading phrasing, but if they didn't, that's one hell of a commitment to standards.
@@Gulliblepikmin At least it's more justifiable "magical bullshit" than teleporting animatronics, right? The exploding gas tanker falls within the realm of plausible deniability at worst. Gigamonty? Not so much.
@@XiaoXiaoMan1123 Gigamonty is actually more plausible that the standard animatronic AI. At least, until you need him to go away. But it's much scarier getting caught, and hearing heavy footsteps just getting closer and closer from far away, then to have the animatronics just _appear._
Security Breach was fucking detrimental to FNAF as a whole dude. This was supposed to be *the* breakout fnaf game that people who had no idea what FNaF was would get their first impressions of, and we got... this. The writing was on the wall when Scott made that blog post referring to the game's development as "adding more and more layers to a cake". What a wasted opportunity at every level. Not even RUIN was any better.
An opinion of mine that I think kinda delves more into lore than gameplay (depends on the team really) but i genuinely think there was no saving this game. The inherent premise of it being some gigantic pizzaplex is fundamentally flawed, and imo very unsuitable for FNaF as an IP. I don't understand why they didn't just take inspiration from the RE7+ formula. I think that would have worked fantastic for a big budget, free-roam FNaF game.
It’s not Scott’s fault. Scott literally said in an interview that Steel Wool had trouble taking certain pieces that he gave them for the story and making it into their own. They didn’t understand shit. Scott ended up blaming himself bc Steel Wool couldn’t piece together what Scott had given them. Steel Wool just doesn’t understand FNAF lore whatsoever
@@wifeburger I honestly disagree with most of the tings you said tbh, it's not Scott's fault the game turned out so bad. Scott said in an interview with Dawko this year that Steel Wool had trouble taking certain pieces that he gave them for the story and making it into their own.
@FiremanSamBoy2008 To you and comment above you, let me just start of by saying that I'm not defending steel wool, they have a lot of flaw's that they need to fix and I don't hate Scott, he's a good person. But the story part of security breach is 100% Scott's fault. Imagine your bose comes in and gives you a bunch of random stuff and tells you to put it all together, but he doesn't tell you what it's supposed to be or what it should look like. Scott just gave steel wool a bunch of pieces and didn't tell them how all of it is suppose to connect. Who do they look like? Theorist? Mind reader's? Again I'm not trying to defend steel wool, they have flaw's. But not knowing what your supposed to do because you're boss didn't tell you, is not their fault. Not asking him after because of common sense is. The story part is definitely Scott's fault, again I don't hate Scott. And everything else is their fault because they didn't ask him when they clearly should've. It's BOTH of their fault.
While the gameplay and coordination between Steel Wool and Scott were heavily lacking, I think the artists the 3D modelers deserve the most praise. The iconic designs of these maps and characters is the primary driver of this games success. It's the ONLY reason I make my music videos. When I played this game, I was an instant fan because of DJ Music Man, Gator Golf and the Daycare Attendant. I hope whatever they are cooking up in the future that Scott has more involvement, they do vigorous testing and put more effort into making this a memorable experience rather than an uncertain open world with multiple unsatisfying outcomes. Every characters needs its own significant importance and every task needs engaging gameplay. Very nice video. I whole heartedly agree with the difficult but very true statements here. We are not here to hate on them but encourage them to be the studio we know they CAN be. It's easily within their grasp.
It's very empowering to see a video like this release, with someone who is willing to talk about the legitimate problems that plague Steel Wool's mindset and how everyone surrounding them is giving them medals because they did "good enough". Games like this need to be held accountable for what they did. As good as Help Wanted was, we, as an audience, can't compare that to Security Breach, because they're ultimately suffering from the issue of biting off an entire steak's worth of food when they can only eat a meal the size of a cupcake.
Finally, someone includes Scott in this conversation. I'm tired of people idolizing him to the point where they ignore his contributions to SB development issues. Scott has a tendency to fixate on one thing at the time himself, so it shouldn't be a mystery why SB turned the way it did. He sees an issue and makes the next game focused around fixing it, but doesn't seem to care about the bigger picture. With SB everyone involved was so fixated on the game being big and impressive on the outside that they didn't bother making it an enjoyable experience. Which reminds me of how Scott treated Fnaf three. All visuals with gameplay leaving people disappointed and jumpscares being lackluster. Not to mention his history with giving the jobs to people he likes. Despite lack of quality in their work required for such projects. It's frustrating to see people put him on a pedestal. Showing off the clips, of him saying how he cares about quality or how Fnaf World taught him to never take people for granted. But if he really cared then why he gave away the rights to make plushies that looked worse than the bootleg ones? What about those graphic novels everyone laughed at and that inaccurate lore book? He handed the development of a big project to people who didn't have the experience and/or mindset to handle it. He is and always was a part of the problem. I'm quite aware we are all humans, we make mistakes. But for him, it's simply a pattern of behavior. He says one thing, and then does something contradictory. Just for others to quote him and blame all of his mess on an inexperienced team of devs. They are responsible, that's undeniable, but can we stop pretending like Scott didn't enable all of this? I wish I could see in him the stuff he says about himself, but it seems like he's manifesting making good decisions. And failing. I might be too harsh on him, but others coddled him enough over the years, so it should balance out. People seem to bash Steel Wool with no issue. But the respect for Scott seems to shield him from the criticism. I'm so invested into all of this mainly because I grew up on these games. I had a similar mindset. But ironically enough after hours of watching retrospectives, essays, revisiting my own memory and looking stuff up, suddenly I cannot take these interviews with him seriously. It sounds nice on paper, but it is not reflected in reality. I would be surprised if ONE person decided to read all that. If you do exist kind stranger, I wish you a nice day~~ (And if you like Scott more power to you, I'm just tired of pretending like he's not part of the puzzle)
Agree, especially after hearing about the weird Burntrap thing! Like, did he never think to tell someone “hey, that’s not really what I meant.” Or don’t tell them to include it if you are going to be vague about what it means
even if I'm not a game designer yet, this video gave me a bit of perspective on how mismanaged scope can consume a project and how arrogance/ignorance can kill it for good. definitely a principle I want to keep in mind for my future endeavours.
It feels like Steel Wool has just listened to all the blind positivity from fnaf fans that just enjoy anything labeled fnaf, and not a single bit of the people giving harsh (but VERY needed) criticism. Great job on this video, editing and all.
I mean no right? Ruin bought security breach from god awful to like a decently mid experience. And help wanted 2 was consistently praised. From what I've heard the newly announced mimic game demo at PAX seemed to not be terrible either. I think it's pretty clear they are listening to feedback, they just don't seem to want to admit fault in public interviews lol.
@@DetectiveYuki You're not wrong but Ruin didn't change anything about Security Breach aside from maybe a few bug fixes. It's effectively it's own, new experience.
As a FNAF fan I gotta say FNAF fans will faen over jingling keys all the time... The movie being the best example with people saying it was perfect or near perfect...
@@KumihoMahao The movie was the embodiment of what I hate in this franchise and I don't trust people who had a good time watching it. Especially since most people who liked it were screaming in union any time reference to a game was on the screen. "You had too many expectations so no wonder you didn't like it". I had none, I came with clear head. And I still think it's a boring and confusing, on many levels. Having all that knowledge about the games makes it even harder to understand. Because they share names and appearances of people who they are clearly not. "It feels like any time something fnaf-related comes out it's another universe." - Me (Right now) I think Scott forgotten that his parodies of future projects (Like Fnaf 57 Freddy in Space) were not supposed to be predictions. At this rate we might get a multiverse movie in a few years. IMAGINE - This time Afton is the kid. But the actor is the same so it's a middle-aged man in primary school. And during lunch he goes to Freddy Fazzber's cafeteria. Then he jumps into a ball pit that shows him all the lore Scott scrapped just to piss off MatPat... Then music man is an actual man, a dj school hired for a school dance. And all other students are Endos. And at the end we learn that the killings were the friends we made along the way. Also there are Aliens because we already made ghosts science and also the killer is a computer virus and can control animatronics so why shouldn't there be aliens? If that ever comes true I will sue Scott since he obviously stole this idea from me. You are my witness KumihoMahao
The game just feels unrealistic in size and that's my biggest gripe with it. Second gripe is that they don't justify the size. You're running through an area filled with stuff but it's still empty and there's nothing to do in it. In skyrim you'll never enter an area without having many many things to do in it, in this game you struggle to find one thing to do in it.
i think it was confirmed they didn't? iirc they only brought on QA testers for ruin and/or help wanted 2. although I can't remember any direct sources for this, probably just seen it from posts flying around so make of that what you will lol
I thought Comedy Bot was way funnier when it was broken. Having the big announcement for the comedy stylings of Comedy Bot, followed by silence, was actually hilarious.
With Security Breach I sorta saw it as this rag tag bunch of indie devs who got in over their heads, admirable but ambitious underdogs, but I'd never heard the interviews included in this video and it really changed my perspective. There's a certain level of seemingly selective ignorance to this entire thing that is really difficult to watch coming from the highest players in the studio and I think surrounding yourself with only 'yes men' type of people who live and breathe the fandom uncritically is not going to actually help anything get any better. There are clearly very talented people involved in the making of this game, but that is not enough. I say that with the utmost gentleness possible and as someone who genuinely wanted to see this studio knock it out of the park.
this is exactly how I felt for a while. I assumed that the Christmas release window caught them off guard and they had to quickly put together anything. now that I've seen these interviews it really has taken away any sympathy I had for them. they have no humility at all and really think they're perfect. this is the game that they wanted to make all along (according to them supposedly).
Ive always found it kinda weird that, even in interviews from months or even over a year after release, the devs still seem to believe that they delivered on their ambitions. They did not, and it is very clear that they did not. I wonder if they genuinely think it's better than it is, if they're lying to keep up an image of some sort, or if they're just ignorant of their own flaws. It'd be nice to see them address the game's shortcomings so that I could at least have some confidence in them going forward, knowing that they know they messed up and need to make some changes
@@orange_turtle3412 The impression I get is that because Scott Cawthon has chosen them as his 'golden boys', and himself is quite...'no thoughts, head empty' about Steel Wool, they have gotten some level of ego over it. I can also see how they might fear if they admit they did not perform to the level they claim to have reached, it might cost them their opportunity to work with such a huge franchise. It isn't a crime to make a mediocre game, but the way they cling to this strange wide-eyed obliviousness makes people feel a lot worse about them than if they just made a bad game and said 'yeah this wasn't our best'. I think a lot of folks would've been quite generous with them if they were more honest about its failings.
I feel like 10 years from now this game will be old enough for hobbyists to completely overhaul into a completely functional game PLUS reimplement all the cut content. We've seen it done before.
Maybe? The overhaul would be creating a brand new game from scratch, and that just wouldn't work with how the Pizzaplex is currently built. It might be possible with a huge team and several years, but no one would be dumb enough to go to that extent for free. Maybe someone will create their own game that's inspired but within a manageable scope and level. And the gameplay itself would need built from the ground up. Very little is salvageable.
This is already happening. A team are making Five Nights at Freddy’s Security Breach: Blast to the past, which is adding in a lot of cut content, new storyline stuff, overhauled graphics and UI, overhauled gameplay and more
@Owen01 I'd be curious as to how they handle it. I saw their teaser of the Daycare rework and it had some improvements but still some issues I noticed. But I don't think it's intended to be the full rework that the game requires.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiesYea this screams Cyberpunk. Game is fundamentally flawed from the complete ground up. Nothing short of a complete start from scratch could save SB. I loved Phantom Liberty but people glaze and shill Cyberpunk as if it still isn't devoid of content and features for an RPG. Exact same issue as SB. Overscoped. Except CDPR actually has proper game devs so at least the main story missions are fantastic albiet devoid of any branching
It feels like they misunderstood the trope where a scary attack happens in someone's cozy bedroom, or you visit a very elegant beautiful place but it's become all twisted and corrupted in creepy ways. The pleasant details can be a really clever way to make the horror stand out more, but these guys didn't know how to hit the balance.
Seen some people call this meanspirited, I mean i guess some points in the video with the meme clips could be considered that, but everything else, no. At some point you have to call Steelwool out for this shit and drag them a little bit. They got peoples money and put out a bad product, and then had the audacity to say they were content with the changes they made, when in reality they hardly made the game any better bug wise. It's laziness and lack of transparency
Dont forget, Steel Wool worked on DLC for Hello Neighbor 2, and those were somehow SO unfinished, even when comparative to the main game, even tiny build removed Steel Wool from the steam page for the game. With this kinda history, I don't expect something good from SW at this point unless a major change occurs. Hopefully, they dont become another studio relying on producing slop for publisher write-offs.
The Passion section was interesting because regardless of the type of person he is, Phisnom was cooking. Sws overplayed their hand because they got hype from Help Wanted. I didnt like that Dawko was glazing so hard for SWS at that time, which im sure he felt he had to because he was so deep into the community.
Phisnom is the GOAT. All the other RUclipsrs have a financial stake in maintaining the facade of this franchise always being perfect because they have merch collabs with it. They are just shills at this point, sadly. The funny thing is they don't realize that ignoring the problems just means this series is gonna keep getting worse, they think ignoring the issues will help.
@@Korra228Phil might be a bit of a moron (I'll never forget his insanely stupid RoN take), but I'll give him this, he ain't no shill and he ain't afraid to speak his mind. There is something quite admirable about that, for better and for worse.
I truly believe that the biggest problem with this game is its map size and all other problems would have disappeared if it weren't that big. It simply doesn't need to be this big at all. And if they really needed to do an entire mall for it, they should have made it an actual mall and not this amphitheater - factory - studio amalgamation with Old Aperture - type underground section.
I think the gameplay is a big issue too, but the map is certainly the root cause. It's difficult to design gameplay and levels in a space that doesn't really support it. Thanks for watching! :)
That map is good, the style of gameplay they were going for is good. But neither of them work together. The map does the gameplay a disservice, and the gameplay does the map a disservice. Hitman/PayDay style gameplay would fit the map beautifully. Amnesia/Bioshock style map design would fit the gameplay they tried to go for beautifully.
dude this is a DISASTER, how did steel wool even make the moderately competent help wanted games?? every part of security breach is completely wasted by these silly storytellers who couldn't tell a story in a game marketed for children.
This is what happens when you have no central focus. This is what managers are for, getting everyone on the same page and reining everyone in *before* scope creep tears them all apart. I know we as a society fucking hate meetings but this game would have been a thousand times better if they all just sat down and had a meeting and got all their ducks in a row. I don't like Security Breach, I never have and have always considered everything past UCN to be completely non-canon. But that doesn't mean Steel Wool are completely evil or incompetent for making it, this is just another Icarus situation. I don't know if you've ever met this kind of dreamer, but there's a lot of them out there, they have big ideas and big hopes and they believe if they work hard enough they can make something great, and then you toss ten of those dreamers in room together and try and get them to work and it just tears apart the project because they're all too passionate about making their vision. This almost always ends up with a project being abandoned or everyone getting so burnt out that they just half ass whatever's left and give up. I don't know if I can make you agree, but to me Security Breach is a tragedy.
@@zlbproductions7340 Yeah i feel like it’s on both Scott for not communicating with Steel Wool telling them the story, and Steel Wool making the pizzaplex unnecessarily big with no purpose, while trying to make sense of things Scott told them to add with no context without stopping to ask what and why, it seems like Scott kinda hasn’t learned either from the release of Into the Pit, in Dawko’s interview he mentioned leaving Mega Cats to develop the game for 6 months before he checked in or they went to him with a game bigger than initially intended
Help wanted is an anthology of games that already existed that they didn’t make with any original content being minigames at best. Help Wanted 2 is entirely minigames. It feels like playing Mario Party in the mode that’s just the minigames, or WarioWare. VR has always been more of a gimmick than anything so it’s not surprising they don’t know how to make an actual full game.
1:43:46 In regards to that, FNAF 2 actually does have a second mechanic to use the cameras - in that flashing animatronics stuns them for a short period of time. However, the problem with that mechanic is Scott barely even mentions it existing ingame. The only time this idea is referenced is during Night 2's call. "Those older models would always get disoriented with bright lights. It would cause a system restart, or something. Uh, come to think of it, you might want to try that on any room where something undesirable might be. It might hold them in place for a few seconds. Uh, that glitch might have carried over to the newer models too." Even if the player becomes aware of this mechanic, the Music Box becomes so polarizing in later nights, that (outside of special strategies like Minus 7), the player won't actually utilize or otherwise forget the mechanic exists.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiesFoxy's mechanic is that you have to flash him in the hallway since the mask doesn't work on him, and flashing the lights sends him back. For the other withered animatronics, I believe it just stalls their movement, and they can be stalled in the cameras
@@kwisowofer9872 Interestingly enough, that's not quite the case either. Any withered animatronic gets stunned just by looking at them regardless if the lights are on or off on the camera, except Foxy. The toys require you to look at them AND turn on the light to get the stun. The stun is about 6 seconds for all of them where the animatronic will not attempt any movement opportunities even when they would normally. Attempts to make runs of FNAF 2's Toy Bonnie mode less reliant on RNG focus heavily on this mechanic. There's some RUclips videos about it that prove to be quite interesting.
I still stand by my theory after all these years that the original concept for Security Breach was a completely open world where the player had 6 real time hours to defeat the Glamrock animatronics or survive until morning, Dead Rising style. This makes sense too when you consider all the "Walk to somewhere far away" objectives and that the average first playthrough for this game is charted at 5-8 hours, suggesting that the game's content was carefully crafted to be completeable in approximately 6 hours. There's a lot of cut content to support this but overall I think the biggest thing that supports my theory is just the massive scale of the Pizzaplex to begin with. It is unnecessarily huge unless the whole point of it is that it's so large that it takes a long time to traverse, putting pressure on the player's resource of time. Combine that with a lot of the cut mechanics and even a lot of the mechanics that actually shipped in the game (like security bot patrols and the security office challenges) and you can start to get this picture that Security Breach was dreamed up as a non-linear Metroidvania of a horror game that fell apart because of many of the factors you've outlined in your video. Security Breach always felt like a game that choked to death on it's own ambition and it's nice to see this video dive into some of that.
I’m glad you mentioned Dead Rising because I was thinking about it as he discussed the Pizzaplex. Dead Rising has a similar setting, but it works so much better. For one, there’s dangerous enemies everywhere, so there’s no empty space. Or if there is empty space, it’s a relief for the player. There also so many stores, and you can interact with everything in them. It all has meaning. Even the fact that it’s a mall with a hundred small shops, as opposed to 7 or so massive areas, make it easier and more interesting to traverse. And on top of that, you had lots of side quests you could do, in addition to the main quest. You could do it however so long as you got the main stuff finished in however many days. Meanwhile, SB has this massive, lovingly crafted setting, but the game itself is quite railroady. I’m not opposed to a game shepherding a player through the story, but it makes the Pizzaplex seem even more excessive than it is Anyway the game you’re talking about sounds pretty cool, that would’ve been better haha
33:53 Fun Fact: Spotlight Monty was supposed to get down and chase the player. But due to a bug, he was removed before release. His old AI can still be activated if you unload the Atrium, even by walking away ruclips.net/video/omcuNAdjkpg/видео.html
As an aspiring dev slowly working on my very first game, this is honestly a great dissertation and example of all the stuff I should not do with my project
I like that you're not letting Scott off the hook. He's 100% complicit in this. That being said, I think he sort of admitted the game is bad? In the interview he said that they WANTED to make a good product which implies he doesn't consider it a good product.
Maybe in a weirdly roundabout way? But the quote I used is pretty overwhelming and clear-cut, you know? Yeah he recognized it went wrong, but I got the impression he was more referring to the story and covid. He's just as willingly unaware as Steel Wool and it's definitely not okay :)
@DesignFrameCaseStudies you make a good point for sure. I think the #1 problem in the games and movie industries is megalomania. Everything has to be the biggest thing ever and cost hundreds of millions of dollars and also appeal to everyone which makes it appeal to no one.
I used to love the story of fnaf and was always excited to see what weird wacky place it'd go next. I didn't even mind the strange science fiction direction the series went in after Sister Location since I was mostly following the series for the camp that was treated overly seriously. Nothing about the nonsensical half assed attempt at re treading old stories going on in Security Breach captured my interest. Even when the series went in a more high tech direction internal logic was kept. No super intelligent ai just possessed robots being the main thing that Security Breach completely ignored. I can't even bring up the energy to care about the lore any more due to how badly Security Breach broke it. Even theories aren't fun anymore because (almost) every theory seems to be attempting to explain what tf happens in Security Breach. Learning that Scott didn’t communicate any of his ideas to Steel Wool was not surprising in the slightest. Don't get me wrong the fnaf story was confusing long before this however even when it was confusing it was fun! Fnaf had a skelton that was up to the fans to build upon which is probably why fnaf ended up with such a vibrant creative fan base. There is nothing fun about speculating on a game without even a foundation of a story to go off of. Ruins story was better but ANYTHING was better than what happened in Security Breach. Plus, if the main focus of a dlcs story is to retcon parts of the main game then you're probably doing something wrong.
SB fan theories suck because the only thing worth theorizing about in SB is how tf SB even connects to the rest of the FNAF franchise in a cohesive or engaging way.
1:42:15 I appreciate Siege being brought up, because that was the exact game I had in mind. To add to this, Siege's camera systems also include a ghostly view of your own character, it can be seen at any distance no matter where you are in the map, even for someone picking the game for the first time, it is fairly intuitive and easy to find oneself thanks to it.
Ah, crap, I would've brought that up if I played it again and noticed! I like Siege but didn't have time to play it again to record footage. Thanks for bringing that up!
Seeing the Markiplier clips in the "it's tough to look backwards" part was really painful for me. Having watched all of the fun he'd had with the other games, even when they stopped to slap his nuts, and then watching him get angrier and angrier with SB and having less fun was just... profoundly unenjoyable.
It's so weird... I feel like Steel Wool almost completely won over the love of the FNAF fanbase with FNAF vr... Then abandoned them when making Security Breach. In the process however, they found a whole new fanbase in the form of speedrunners and people who loved the open world style. And now they've completely abandoned that fanbase as well... No shame of course for them wanting to branch out and try different styles, but I feel like the only thing holding the community together between these three Steel Wool games is the funny bear man
I gotta be real with myself,I will probably never play any game in the franchise,but I will still devour this 2 hour essay as I have gotten more enjoyment from fnaf lore theories and game analysis than I think I could have ever gained actually playing the games.
EDITED. something that isn't talked nearly enough about since the fanbase is 95% casuals and kids are the technical aspects of the game. it's terrible. just terrible. they're completely incompetent. 1. you can't choose resolutions above 1440p when set to fullscreen. workaround: set to borderless fullscreen. the game will set itself to the windows resolution...but still won't show the correct resolution in the settings menu. 2. raytracing is unplayable on a 4090. fps are below 20fps and even below 10fps no matter the resolution. they didn't even try fixing the implementation. workaround: use dlss. duh. 3. the game either doesn't use or uses a very bad raytracing denoiser. the noise burns your eyes out. workaround: use dlss as a makeshift denoiser. 4. despite me mailing them multiple times they still didn't fix the broken dlss implementation. the settings are mismatched and i found that out via noticing strange fps and then proving my suspicion via checking nvidia's dlss indicator overlay. workaround: choosing dlss balanced gives you dlss quality. performance and quality give you balanced and the performance setting doesn't exist in the game. 5. they never updated the stoneage dlss dll. workaround: do it manually. EDIT: 6: the game has fps black holes. looking at and/or standing in front of specific things makes the fps fall off a cliff and the frametimes graph freak out. workaround: looking/going away fixes the fps. a good example for this is the broken bot at the start of ruin giving you the flashlight. i also dmed you the list on twitter.
I thought I already replied but not sure what happened to it. I'm planning on mentioning a couple technical stuff next video, so I may use your comment as well! The Ruin frame black hole is also interesting. I'd like to mention that in the Ruin video I think. It's very strange...
@DesignFrameCaseStudies i deleted the old comment and reposted the edited one. were you able to reproduce one of those fps black holes? if yes, did you also see the frametime graph freaking out? for example via msi afterburner's overlay.
@@roflcopter3625 I haven't tried yet. I'll try it as soon as I record more Ruin stuff. It'd be a good idea if I tracked the frames of a game that didn't do that as well, for comparison. I think that'd be interesting.
Thing is, the characters roaming the pizzaplex with increasingly more dificult mechanics as they get damaged, as you use some tools, limited battery freddy and the Faz cameras sounds amazing But the pizzaplex is so big you would never encounter them... So they added the teleport, rendering the cameras inconsequential, thats why noone uses them In conclusion, this game would honestly be incredible if the pizzaplex was smaller, no need to teleport, the pathfinding would have a much easier time to navigate, you would even encounter Vanny (yes, she roams the pizzaplex too) Imagine just a (much) smaller hub, a character specific area to introduce new mechanics that the character can usilize, and you too (kitchen for chica, use pizzas and staffbots; monty golf for Monty, the croc distractiona, walkways monty can hop between but not you, and so on) Then after each area, their mechanics change, Monty is more agressive and smaller, harder to track, maybe can crawl on small places like you, Chica is harder to hear and locate cuz of her voice, maybe doesnt get distracted as easier, and Roxy is blind, easier to distract but more agressive and cant be stunned Staffbots could just allert the animatronics instead of teleporting
I think Steel Wool needs to be told that while there are artists in game development, they're very different to artists in say the movie industry. Or even the illustration industry. Its not a one size fits all. Case and point. Because artists do play a role in good gameplay and level design. But you need to think very differently to making a background for a movie. And that mindset shift just isnt there. It shows. And it does such a disservice to the artist that help make games what they are
They want to feel part of a community, so they gas up SW and Scott so hard that the entire franchise becomes delusional and unable to grow past SW and Scott's incompetence. At least, that's the best explanation so far...
@@HallowzDev I'm more annoyed at those who say that since Security Breach was bad, the entire franchise was doomed for all eternity. I think that's kind of petty when I view it though, just because one bad game was bad doesn't mean that the whole entire franchise was done. Did Dreamworks go downhill after Shark Tale? No, did Disney go downhill after Chicken Little? No, did the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise go downhill after FNAF World? No, it picked up again. In this period when Security Breach was released, we just went through another FNAF World where some people hated it and some people disliked it and in my opinion the series picked up again (not as good as it was when Scott was making the games of course but it's still better than what it was around Security Breaches time). Just because Steel Wool fumbled on Security Breach doesn't mean the franchise was doomed altogether, in fact I would actually say that got better with RUIN (though RUIN was kind of mid) but it was still better than the base game in some aspects and I actually like Help Wanted 2.
@FiremanSamBoy2008 Only one problem with the fnaf world and security breach comparison. Fnaf world was advertised as a fun little RPG from the start. And when it had all the critical feedback, Scott took it down from steam, reworked on it and rereleased it for free. Scott even acknowledged the poor reception of the game. Security Breach on the other hand, was advertised as a triple A HORROR game, and it failed miserably. And even now, it has not improved. It also costs money, for a horrible game. And the worst part of all of this is that SW does not acknowledge the poor reception of the game. But your point about people thinking fnaf is ruined just because of security breach, yeah I kinda agree. I do think it is improving with into the pit, help Wanted 2 and Tjoc remake. I think we should wait to see how they handle the second movie, Secret of the Mimic and DBD collab before we decide if things are truly as bad as people think.
"We handed the overhead to our set guys, and they turned a two story building into a three story building...so we decided to just fill it with more stuff." This was the first mistake. Any self-respecting director/writer/artist of any caliber would have gone back to the set designers and said, "Hey, guys, you misunderstood our layout. The building is two stories, not three." The fact that they saw the mistake, recognized that it was a mistake, and decided it was an excuse to create nonsense for the sake of it, demonstrates the lack of control over the project. There's turning lemons into lemonade, and then there's making a mess.
Fantastic investigative piece. I felt I had to comment just to respectfully disagree with a few comments I saw saying the tone of your video was too mean spirited and/or condescending. Respect does not mean speaking softly and comfortingly like teaching a child. These are grown professionals that were handed one of the most profitable IPs of our time, put out a completely unacceptable product and are in full blown denial of it. CD Projekt Red had a full blown campaign launched against them for Cyberpunk 2077. I do not think large parts of that backlash were constructive in the slightest but CDR learned something, patched the hell of the game, then came back with an amazing piece of DLC. That shows what can happens when fans push studios to acknowledge and reflect on their mistakes. I understand that the tone of this video might be too much for some but I just wanted to throw my two cents out and say it was perfect. The Fnaf community seems so creepily insular and cliquey. This blunt honestly is desperately needed in my view.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that he's being disrespectful or condescending, more than some parts of this video are reminiscent of that old RUclips rant review style which can detract from the actual criticism. It's a fine line to walk.
As one of the people who made one of those comments, I don't care about being disrespectful, I've never played a FNaF game and have no connection to the franchise, and I'll gladly admit it's fun to see someone dunk on an awful bit of media. My concern is that it gives incredibly mixed signals a) tear apart a game and it's devs but also b) have a disclaimer saying all of this is just for the benefit of the devs and c) promote a games consultancy service alongside it If the point of the video is to be a case study, I would expect to see discussion of both good and bad parts of the game (as far as I can tell the only positive mentioned was SW's passion for the game, nothing about a mechanic or design element they liked). If the video is specifically about scope creep, I would expect it to be far more trimmed down and structured around that. If it's about the bugs, sure, just focus on those. If it's about their games consultancy skills, tell me _how you_ would fix an issue, not just that it exists, I read their website and it explicitly stated on it "we don't think there's such a thing as a bad mechanic", but the video is just criticism of the negatives without any of that positivity or empathy they suggest elsewhere. My issue isn't _just_ that it's a mean video, my issue is that it's a _pointlessly_ negative video, that seems to want to promote positive aspects in game design, yet doesn't take any steps in that direction. As stated before, I'm not a FNaF fan, and I've actually really enjoyed previous design frame videos (I've been subscribed since the original SB video and greatly enjoyed the cuphead ones), this isn't me trying to defend anything. I also don't think this video is awful, it makes some genuinely great points about design scope and knowing your limits. I just think the tone of the video is at serious odds with both its stated goal and previous works on the channel.
Thank you for mentioning Cyberpunk 2077's launch against SB's. It was FASCINATING being a fan of both IPs during each launch- the fandoms behaved completely differently, and SB was just as broken and unplayable as Cyberpunk. It was like talking to a brick wall on either side when trying to either preach that CDPR *was getting better* and cyberpunk was playable now, or that Steel Wool was behaving inexcusably in the face of just how broken their game was.
At some point, game designers and players both have managed to convince themselves that an Open World's value is primarily its size. Just the sheer vastness of the space you're allowed to wander and the scenery you can see. Players have realized there's more to it than that, but I feel like devs have forgotten there's more to it than just size and things to look at. I feel like devs are prone to use an open world improperly now more than ever. Security Breach is just one example of a sadly growing list.
30:48 I so wish Pizzaplex was more like this. Realistically functional as an in-universe attraction The design of the place was so bullshit that people theorized that the events of the story HAD to be distorted by Gregory's childhood perception. Edit: WAIT *FOUR* MOUTHS BEFORE RELEASE!???? WTF????
Security Breach was the Sonic 06 of its year. The current sonic team suffers from a lot of the same managerial issues of Steel Wool Studios and you can see how it ends up in Sonic Frontiers when they try new concepts. Security Breach was a failure in so many ways that it cannot be fixed. It needs a full on redesign from scratch to end product.
Im very shocked u didnt mention vanny's "boss fight" during thee patch segment. I still cant believe on release they had a "boss fight" where the "boss" wouldnt spawn but it didnt stop progression so people didnt even realize she was supposed to be there
Honestly I'm impressed. You come across not just as someone with great expertise in game design, but also an empathetic human, genuinely caring for the franchise and the people involved. I also can't not notice how nice you're being to the people commenting. Keep doing whatever this is. Love from Russia
I loved security breach solely because of how much love and passion steel wool had for this, they just couldn’t do what they wanted to. Over ambition with too big of a scope. The pizzaplex is a phenomenal location with so much love and care but they couldn’t do it. It just makes me upset when some people just shit on steel wool like they had no love because this game just BLEEDS passion. Also glad you used a lot of clips from Phil’s playthrough because this game started a domino effect that led to him losing his job for the fanverse initiative
Yeah, that's why I wanted to mention their passion, since at the same time, there's evidence pointing to a lack of care and laziness. It's a strange dichotomy. There's just so much wrong that it's overwhelming. Their passion can be seen, but it's covered up by mounds of their own doing. Any true leader who's a bit familiar with media projects would've seen it coming a mile away.
I agree that they worked too hard on the wrong things Feels weird for me, when the gameplay experience is awful and the plot is shallow, and I look around and see all of the detail that's behind the Pizzaplex, I get mad because the atention to detail is in the wrong place
The big takeaway I'm getting from this boils down to the joke "how many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? One, but the lightbulb has to want to change" Until Steel Wool recognizes the issues with the games they've created, I firmly believe nothing will change, as sad to say as that is. The "am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong!" shtick is EXACTLY what doomed Concord, and I can only pray Steel Wool can take a step back and look at themselves in the mirror before they suffer the same fate as Firewalk.
I'm more annoyed at those who say that since Security Breach was bad, the entire franchise was doomed for all eternity. I think that's kind of petty when I view it though, just because one bad game was bad doesn't mean that the whole entire franchise was done. Did Dreamworks go downhill after Shark Tale? No, did Disney go downhill after Chicken Little? No, did the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise go downhill after FNAF World? No, it picked up again. In this period when Security Breach was released, we just went through another FNAF World where some people hated it and some people disliked it and in my opinion the series picked up again (not as good as it was when Scott was making the games of course but it's still better than what it was around Security Breaches time). Just because Steel Wool fumbled on Security Breach doesn't mean the franchise was doomed altogether, in fact I would actually say that got better with RUIN (though RUIN was kind of mid) but it was still better than the base game in some aspects and I actually like Help Wanted 2.
Honestly for some reason I feel like Ruin and base SB shouldn't have been 2 separate parts, but one whole game in its entirety. Imagine the game starting with this glamorous and shiny pizzaplex that falls to literal ruin as the story progresses, turning from an exploration-like gameplay loop into a more linear experience as the pizzaplex gets destroyed by the end of it?
I feel like a big reason steel wool didn’t take accountability for security breach was because the community didn’t criticize it enough. It’s insane how the FNAF community is an echo chamber that is pleased with everything put out no matter its issues (security breach, ruin, the movie.) Like the whole reason the first game was made was because Scott was criticized for his children’s games looking too scary and horrifying. Thank you for making this video, it is such a breath of fresh air.
Learning that the main 3 creative/executive leads are animation people (and mainly lighting/vfx) instantly made the break down that happened click for me. As much as the heads of sw worked at pixar or are good enough animators to get hired right out of school, at the end of the day they arent story people and as such they arent going to be using gameplay to push story either. The fetch quest after fetch quest gameplay totally makes sense to me now because thats the easiest to write when you arent a story person/have very little experience writing story for game. Like, not to knock down any of the extremely skilled lighting and vfx people but theres a reason that storyboard artists and writers are typically promoted to director/creative lead/head of story roles on animation projects and not vfx people. The mode of thinking is completely different from one another which is why you get this gorgeous environment (when it loads properly lol) with very little substance. The leads at sw focus is on the glitz and the glamour and not necessarily the gameplay (and by extension story) of the project because its literally NOT IN THEIR TRAINING. The fact that they DIDNT bring in anyone with actual game dev experience is baffling but it lines up what you said about how the people at sw are unable to acknowledge their own shortcomings. It was honestly going to be a disaster the moment "open world exploration" was put into any of their heads cuz to me it sounds as if the team only ever yes and'd everyones ideas
"we are generally content with the game as it currently stands" reminds me of the all time classic DBD developer line "i think we did a pretty good job, so far."
Not gonna lie, I always thought they should've taken more inspiration from Alien: Isolation than just the save stations and other miscellaneous stuff, like a more unpredictable AI, for example. Obviously, you don't have to reach the complexity of the Xenomorph to be engaging and threatening, but at least to where you're genuinely on edge throughout the game, Monty is like the only enemy in the game where I'm like, "Oh shit," because not only can he not be impeded by anything you throw at him, he also runs faster than you as well, which incentivizes stealth to get by. Right now, the game feels like Alien: Isolation Lite, especially since there's little to no tension aside from the genuinely scary chase music and the thumping footsteps of the animatronics behind you. With RUIN, I admittedly didn't bother completing it, because 1) slower movement speed and 2) the even more scripted-ness and linearity of it all meant fewer opportunities to get random enemy encounters and use strategy to win. Currently, I'm trying to make a mod for base SB that allows the AI to have actual unpredictable roaming instead of being tethered to simple and small patrol points, only deviating from them if they either see you or are checking a hiding spot. Perhaps I'll include it with that Harder AI mod I made one time ago.
Same! The entire time I was playing sb or even ruin there was this constant thought in the back of my mind that 'they really should have heard about alien isolation'. I LOVE that game. It's also a small indie team taking on the lineage of a hugely famous and beloved franchise in a free roam horror game, but AI is just phenomenal on every level. If Scott had given security breach to Creative Assembly we would have had an infinitely better game on every level. It was exactly what he was looking for. I don't know if you can find a better match up in terms of past projects. And it's a crying shame he didn't choose them. I often refer to security breach as 'baby's first horror game' because that's exactly what it is. It has the vaguest, most sanitised allusion to the genre and utilises the most well known mechanics without containing any of the actual discomfort. It's horrors pg tutorial. An upgraded ai would do wonders for the situation XD.
37:30 On the Phisnom section, is that the Transistor soundtrack I'm hearing? I may be wrong, but it sounds so much like it. I adore Supergiants' music, and the Transistor soundtrack has a dear place in my heart.
@@Max128ping I didn't pay mind to the lyrics but that's sort of fitting, ain't it? lol (But not really, the situation could have been managed). But I use many tracks from Transistor. I can put the specific ones used in the description if requested.
the craziest part to me is the fact the game has positive reviews on steam, and people on the steam forums and reddit will constantly defend this game... some even say theyve "replayed the game multiple times".... do those people have brains?
@@TiredMoonRabbit There's a difference between having personal preference and objective truth. I personally like the Glamrocks and Sun and Moon. But that doesn't mean the game is good. And it's not. The game is objectively terrible. The problem isn't people liking the game. It's them giving a obviously horrible game good ratings just because they personally had a good time with it. To simply put, You can like the game, just remember that the game is absolutely terrible therefore you need to give it it's well deserved criticism and not just blind positive feedback.
@HasibHasan-q8y they do give it criticism, all the time, they state their personal feelings while also acknowledging the flaws that it has functionally.
@@TiredMoonRabbit Yeah, but the overwhelming amount of people gave it positive reviews, even though the game is clearly far from being good. There's nothing wrong with having personal preference, but you can't just give it a thumbs up since the game is just not good. It fails as horror game, it's buggy as fuck, The story isn't great (heck the story might not even been there to begin with, given the new interview with Scott). You can't just sweep all of that under the rug based on personal preference.
Steel Wool reminds me of, like, a shoenen anime protagonist trying to defeat the main villain in episode three using the power of friendship and passion when what they need is a season long training arc where they learn how to actually do anything
I honestly think Scott and Steel Wool are lying about how they feel about Security Breach. All the stuttering they make and the made up words feels like they’re frantically trying to come up with a good lie and not admit that the game is a disaster to the public, because as broken as Security Breach is, it was a financial hit.
@@ItsMemeTimeBoi I kinda felt that at first, but there's just too much evidence for a lack of awareness or experience or ability to discern pretty much anything. The fact that Scott even said how lucky he was and how they didn't botch anything is incredible, and Jason's quote on not wanting to change anything feels like saving face, but it also feels so genuine. His answer gives me the feeling that he's not even capable of discerning the truth. It really boggles my mind.
@ I really hope that Secret Of The Mimic has a coherent narrative and good gameplay, I really don’t want to see this franchise crumble, I loved this franchise since 2014 and I don’t want too see it end like this. I doubt the gameplay will be bad, given the fact it’s a VR game which is Steel Wool’s strong suite, but I really REALLY hope the story is good, I doubt it tho 😭😭😭
Also, I kinda wish FNAF stays as like 2D games, point and click teams, and VR games, like smaller scale games. I don’t want FNAF to have big open worlds ever again unless it’s The Joy Of Creation, because when you look at Scott’s catalogue of games and his story, as well as Steel Wool’s catalogue of games, it’s enough to realize that a non Vr free roam game made by Scott and Steel Wool will not work in the slightest. It’s like the equivalent of a middle schooler trying to do calculus.
I can believe that Scott wouldn’t recognize the flaws. His own games mostly only succeed in atmosphere or aesthetics, if even that. He doesn’t strike me as the type to play many games to develop standards with, either.
What bothers me about the Pizzaplex size is also the fact that it must be SO EXPENSIVE to build and maintain a place like that, Disneyworld levels of expensive. Yet it exists in the FNAF universe, somehow. Somehow, a pizzeria brand gathered enough money throughout the years to build a place like that, and its just too ambitious and expensive to be believable in a lore kind of way. All the space it takes, all the construction funds, all the food expenses, staff bots, energy consumption the whole place must require, I just don't buy it. An Amusement Park would be more believable than what the Pizzaplex is. I'm convinced they just wanted to make something grand and impressive to the eyes while paying very little attention to logic or if it made sense to the FNAF lore.
I can even give Scott and Steel Wool a pass to the "extremely advanced AI" Animatronics because it's been already established in the FNAF universe that technology is way more advanced than in the real world, but I drew the line with the Pizzaplex. It's just too unbelievable. They should have scaled it down imo But as you've shown in the video they were thinking too big and didn't give enough care to what was supposed to make sense, logistics and all of that.
the pizzaplex really reminds me of those super elaborate entertainment venues from the 90's, like Disney quest and the Sega arcades. Those went out business due to many of the issues you brought up (and also because of fast technological progress quickly outdating the attractions offered by them. But thats besides the point.). Even then, the pizzaplex somehow feels way too big even for that kind of place!
@@SevKast_7 I actually think that was part of the intended vibe. The Pizzaplex, the animatronics, everything about the world of FNAF SB is highly exaggerated, unbelievably over-the-top, absurdly hubristic, and _stupidly_ 80's-90's. The game definitely acknowledges how silly it is sometimes. That's where a lot of the comedy comes from. Essentially, I think you're supposed to find the Pizzaplex unrealistic, you're just supposed to accept it as How The World Is in this universe. Of course, the problem is that that tone and vibe doesn't fit in at _all_ with what was established earlier in the series. The Freddy Fazbear's Pizza established in games 1-3 and Pizza Sim (not Sister Location) is pretty grounded. The restaurants feel like something that could reasonably exist in a random population-100k town or two. Something that could be famous enough to become a successful regional chain, but still probably not enough to be known more than a state away. Certainly not enough to open a Mega Pizzaplex. If SB was a reboot or a separate canon, I don't think it would be as big an issue. The game would just take place in a world that has insane future technology, but the aesthetics and entertainment sensibilities of the 1990's. Like Fallout and the 50's. But in trying to insist that SB exists in not _only_ the same world as the FNAF 1 restaurant, but as a _direct continuation_ of the FNAF 1 brand (and it got there in only like a decade??), the game kind of ends up shooting its atmosphere in the foot. The game wants players to just be along for the ride, but the players are busy asking how it is they got here.
>they seemingly didn't anticipate how broken the game would be on release And this, kids, is what the QA department of competent studios gets paid for. Adding to the camera system point: Why in the nine hells would I try to keep tabs on enemy positions via cameras? To move when said enemies won't notice me? Yeah, that's a good strategy in a game where they don't instantly teleport right into my face every three seconds.
Yeah, they completely botched the cameras. They should have kept the animatronics silent and tracked through the building in real time so you’d never know if they were in the area you were about to enter. You’d have to scout it out beforehand and plan your route according to where the threats are
The thing is, people say that they can see the passion that went into security breach even if nothing else did, it looking good proving that they did care about it, but I find that hard to believe. It's infuriating that they say they're proud and passionate, but I can't believe any research or inspiration was done that sw could have implemented themselves. No reference is ever made to taking the time to actually understand what they had agreed to take on. No mention of the other games that inspired them, nothing they wanted to replicate. So I can't believe that this is something that they cared about beyond the most superficial, surface level glitter and glamour. Security breach *looks* amazing but there's no substance. They made no move to better themselves. They shouldn't have accepted the project to begin with. They've heard no criticism, accepted no fault, cared nothing for all the hate and frustration directed at their supposed star project they've poured their hearts and souls into. It's almost like they don't actually care about the game. I'd say they don't. And they didn't care when they took it on. All they've done is sat patting themselves on the back and surrounding themselves with yes men. I think security breach was only made for its label, its prestige of being a fnaf title. They didn't actually care about fnaf, about the game, about the fans. They wanted that prestige, the fame and money it brought. Looking at the interviews, the way they're contrasted with quotes from other, more successful dev leaders, it becomes pretty clear. All sw wants is the fame and fortune, and making a fnaf title was their key. Security breach was made for the money it brought in and nothing else. It was as much a scam as that candy land nft. And just like that nft, it would have been something infinitely better if they'd taken it seriously. I think that was why they allowed, even encouraged the scale creep from the very start. Because if this was going to be pure appearance and nothing else, then it was going to be the best and most overwhelming appearance possible, and if it hooked fans on the idea of what it could have been? Even better. This game could have gone to the creators of alien isolation, Creative Assembly. A similar smaller indie dev team who'd previously taken on the full lineage of a famous and beloved franchise full of die hard fans and turned it into a free roam horror game. Only they blew it out of the park. There could not have been a better match, better credentials for a free roaming fnaf game. Alien isolation is one of my favourite games, and it's been picked apart and analysed to death for a decade and it holds up amazingly! Alien isolation was genuinely a passion project. The aesthetics were incredible, the story was solid, the pacing was incredible, they even had wandering robots in the halls that could alert the alien to your location by making noise, it solved all the problems sb fell over itself to make anew and worse! The differences between the self aggrandised burning mess of sb and the finely tuned machine of ai just makes it even more clear - this was never a project they cared about. They didn't even try.
I don't think this is necessarily true, BUT it's the most likely explanation given the evidence. And that's very concerning and why I felt this video needed to be released. Thanks for sharing :)
honestly, this video made me realize just how long it has been since we had an actual proper fnaf game that lasted 5 or a bit more nights and had actual office survival gameplay, its been 6 entire years since UCN came out, 6 entire years since we got an actual proper fnaf game, that is crazy
Which proves that the series should have ended at UCN. Everything that came after should have just been non-canon/a what-if. I barely care about the lore post-Security Breach because it feels like Scott just pulled the rug from under us. FFPS + UCN was supposed to be the end of the story. An admittedly messy, confusing story, with somewhat shallow characters, but an end nonetheless. SB just kind of ruins that (heh)
2:12:00 There's also just, absolutely no point in Alien:Isolation where the game expects you to go on hours without a save. 20-30 minutes sure, which I think is perfectly reasonable.
20-30 is excessive, but I don't think Alien has you going that long without a save thankfully haha. Even if the manual saves serve a purpose, it's still difficult to really nail the right pacing and feeling behind it.
For some reason my comment got deleted and I cannot be bothered trying to re-type it again word for word by memory. Basically, Steel Wool really out here praising themselves on the very thing that ruined them in Security Breach - the map size. And they really are completely lacking any self-awareness by doing that. After all, had they made a more polished experience on a smaller map their game wouldnt have been anywhere near so disatrous, it's infuriating how much they lack perspective! Great video.
For sure! Thanks for the comment! Sometimes YT deletes comments for no reason from its bad bot filter. Might sometimes be the length. I don't know; I have no control over it, unfortunately. It doesn't show up in the backend for me either.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiesit seems like Steel Wool and RUclips both have a thing for incompetent product design and zero care for user feedback lmao. Even as I am writing this comment I am experiencing more incompetence from RUclips as on mobile I cannot pause the video without having to discard my comment and I cant think straight because of your commentary overlapping my internal monologue 😂.
The story is still the thing that gets me the most about this game. (Aside from Gregory’s voice acting.) FNAF games always leave you with questions, but unles you are deep theorizing for the fun of it, it gives you enough answers so that you’re satisfied. Scott’s storytelling is completely off the wall, but he knows how to end a game. This is most evident with Pizzeria Simulator, which has an ending that still gives me, a pretty casual fan with basic understanding of the lore, chills every single time. I saw that ending and had no more questions, even if l didn’t have all the answers. It all burned to the ground. I was satisfied. SB just doesn’t… present itself the way the other games do. There’s so much voice acting, so much happening, so many places to hide. Which is fine, but if you’re gonna change the way the story’s presented, you can’t expect the same leniency when it comes to narrative satisfaction. Why is Gregory there? Did they explain why Freddy wasn’t affected by the virus, or why he malfunctioned in the opening cutscene? (I know they’re related but I don’t know HOW) Does Gregory know that Vanessa is possessed and that’s why he doesn’t trust her, and if so, how does he know that? From my recollection (and it has been awhile), none of thee questions get answered. Gregory yaps so much you’d think he’d at least answer one on accident, but no. Sorry, haven’t gotten to flex my narrative design muscles much since college lol
I will never understand how Scott was like "I love FNAF, I am very careful with the reputation of this franchise and I will trust only the best people to develop the next game" and then trusted development of the next games to some unknown studio that previously did only VR games. WTF?
I think I know his thinking behind it: “I was an unknown game developer, and this is my franchise. I can’t trust a larger company with my franchise, they’ll take it take out of my creative grasp. Thus I’ll entrust my franchise on this indie game development company, it’ll lift them up from being unknown, like how FNaF did for me.” That’s probably what he was thinking and not “what is this company’s expertise?”
i honestly havent really seen other people *talking* about how severe the scope creep of Security Breach was, so thank you for this. I remember picking up on it through how the developers talked in their interviews before launch, they were so blissfully unaware of how bad what they were sayin sounded. And I was just hopeful that they weren't being as disorganized as their words came off... But then the game came out and the rest was history. sigh. Honestly I like the set design I like some of the character design, the therapist CDs were the main part of any lore in this that actually caught my interest... but it really didn't work as a game. There were too many important pieces missing with pretty flourishes shoved in to make it seem like there was no issue.
Yeah I totally agree! I feel like the comments Scott made about security breach were really telling to the state in which we got security breach. It’s clear that steel wool got over ambitious with this game and crammed content that didn’t really help with their development
Your channel is a gem. You’re dissecting games in a manner I don’t really see much on RUclips. This is something that really interests me. I like that you go into the game design and also dive into the possible mindset and attitude that goes on deeper in the developer’s minds behind these decisions. Game developer or not, I’m sure we can take something away from these tales as lessons for our personal lives
@@DesignFrameCaseStudieslooking forward to it! You also happen to cover a lot of more niche games I care about. I’ve watched your Luigi’s Mansion video already. And I think your thoughts on the common ghost battles in 3 lacking depth is pretty interesting! I’ve always felt that the fighting in 3 felt the least satisfying in the whole series but couldn’t put it into words why. Looking forward to your cuphead DLC analysis video too (genuinely super excited). I think I’ll watch it once I’m done playing through base game cuphead and dlc. I’m playing it with a friend. So far I barely have any idea of what the DLC is like so I think experiencing it first hand and then hearing your thoughts will be super fun! Really glad I ended up somehow coming across this channel Much love
Since they mentioned Alien Isolation, there's an interesting comparison you should touch on at some point. Cause Alien Isolation was made by Creative Assembly, a game studio known more for the Total War series, which are strategy games. Alien Isolation was them switching it up from their usual mold, not unlike Steel Wool and SB. Yet unlike SW, CA was able to make a better game. Could be something to explore.
I think my overall thoughts on this game can be best summarized by a certain review about another broken game from 2006: “I didn’t want to hate this game. I have no ill will towards the people responsible for making it. The people over there have made some great content, and I can’t imagine the pressure one would feel trying to make a game as big and as ambitious as it tried to be. Still, I had to play this game. It was SOUL CRUSHING.” Maybe I’m being too charitable in my outlook, but I can’t bring myself to even really be angry with Steel Wool. Maybe that’s because of my two years in game design that taught me a lot about the dangers of death by ambition without the experience or skill to back it up which makes it a bit more empathetic for whatever reason, or the fact that I’ve had a project of my own back during those classes which resulted in scope creep, albeit not to this extreme. (Of course, this doesn’t excuse the outright neglect of common, basic game design principles.) Regardless, I’m just left disappointed and wondering what could’ve been under a smaller, more focused vision where scope creep didn’t bloat the game into a broken, unstable disaster.
Dang, it's been YEARS since I've watched those videos, and I could still hear that quote loud and clear in my head when I read that. Probably what got me into watching these kinds of deep analyses on how and why certain games were designed poorly
I love how their way of making the game more difficult was adding the incapability to save instead of adding more random patrol points. I don't know game development but I can't imagine it would have been that much harder to add more patrol points and randomise their spawns whenever an area is loaded. Not to mention the game is its hardest during the 12am it actually gets easier the further you progress. With RUIN they made the game as linear as possible and took out pretty much every bit of open area. Instead of directing the player more. Also I think a lot of people became lost in Security Breach because the gameplay pretty much changes without any explanation. Previously the game was tying you down to a specific path at 4am it removes that and throws you into the entire pizza plex. This is the point in game were many people stoppped playing the game. If the game had started with no sense of direction this would have been okay but you can't just change the gameplay like that and expect people to play along.
The talk about reputation is so true! And I can look at the Sonic games as a perfect example. I'm saying this as a Sonic fan, but after the disaster of Sonic 06, the reputation of the series hit rock bottom, and that severe damage affected the series as a whole. We can see how people just made fun of every game from that moment on and so many people considered every game bad or at least flawed (sometimes unfairly, but still). Nowdays the series is more stable, and people are looking back at the games and changing their minds, and other people besides fans start giving the games another chance. But we can see it took YEARS for this to happen again, and it's a shame fnaf may go to that direction if things don't change soon.
Thank you so much for bringing up motion tracker from alien isolation. Besides what you said, it even subtly hints the direction where you're supposed to go with line at the border, so that you don't have to look at the map a single time to figure out where you need to go. Even though it is a pretty closed-environment game most of the time, devs still cared. Needless to say, other parts of this 20-hour game are as polished as this one. Still one of the best horror games of all time.
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*_IMPORTANT! FAQ & Other Notes_*
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Hi all, thank you so much for watching! It means a lot that you would engage in this journey. Your *_viewership and Liking & Commenting_* on the video and especially *_watching past and future videos_* help a ton with the RUclips algorithm. Check the description for other methods of supporting the channel and free case studies. Regardless, *_I greatly appreciate each one of you!_*_ Your viewership means everything._
I try to Heart or respond to comments as much as I can, but time limits my ability to read and respond to every comment. _Therefore, if you want a guaranteed response to your comments on this channel, Join as a channel Member._
_Please do not comment underneath this pinned comment since it's more difficult for me to see and respond to. Additionally, it may be subject to deletion if it requires a response or an open dialogue but I cannot reciprocate due to the nature of a thread._
_This pinned comment is where I'll update with any corrections or FAQ._
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*_FAQ_*
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*0. **_Prerequisite Mindset & Personal Experience_* ► There's nothing wrong with finding the game fun in your personal experience, but your enjoyment of something doesn't mean it is without flaw nor does it change objective design flaws. We can all agree that we want to see Steel Wool and the industry improve as they continue to make games. I provide the evidence and means to do so in the behind-the-scenes game design space (and much more in the next FNaF videos), and I hope you find value in that rather than a shallow reinforcement of your feelings. This does not mean that your personal experience is invalid. You are free to enjoy what you want. In fact, I very much love and appreciate hearing your personal experiences in the comments. In the case of Security Breach, it's clear cut where the enjoyment derives from, so don't allow branding to cause you to deceive yourself. If you truly care about FNaF, this video should be meaningful to you.
I hold myself to a high standard and provide evidence and game design information in what I hope is in a digestible format. I am not always correct; I am human, and I am always learning. I welcome constructive feedback. I'm also happy to assist in clarifying concerns or questions, if I have the time. However, I don't accept dismissive or unsubstantiated comments. Also, interpreting others unfavorably is not constructive. Please treat everyone here with respect. Thank you for being awesome and I hope to see you around!
*1. **_Tone, Repeated Words, SW Quotes, etc._* ► I've heard the constructive feedback and so I'll address several under one point here.
Most people seem to enjoy the voiceover, but it also seems like I'm wavering into territory again where my voiceover can, possibly, come across as certain negative emotions instead of the passion that it's rooted in. I'll continue to improve, though the passion will always be present!
Please keep in mind that some of that (and further corrections below) may derive from a detachment or misunderstanding of the evidence provided in the video (which is possible since the video is quite scathing and blunt near the beginning before the overwhelming evidence piles up) and how the overall tone can come across as scathing. Outside of the improvements that I'll be addressing, the scathing nature of the video is earned, and I feel that removing the blunt honesty and truth of the matter would be a disservice to the franchise and players. For those who know this channel, I always give the benefit of the doubt in whatever way I can, sometimes excessively so, always for the benefit of the studio. For those who watched this video through to the end, you know that I did give benefit of the doubt where applicable, and even potential improvements and useful quotes from industry veterans, but Steel Wool set the entire bridge on fire _even before_ they were wrongly trusted with FNaF, and since then it got exponentially worse.
Also keep in mind, this video didn't even contain the additional communication and broken promise issues from their past games. I'll address that later along with the areas in SB that I didn't mention in my first SB video. Also, an exclusive, behind-the-scenes interview. Very exciting!
The clips where I repeat words or phrases is for emphasis. However, this is another point of improvement since it can come across as sudden or abrasive. I'll mess with slightly slowing the speed of the repeated phrases in an attempt to address that issue. And I'm sure there are other methods for emphasis, like words on screen. However, it may be unlikely that I repeat like that in future videos. This case study was a very special and distinct one on this channel that very likely won't be pursued again.
It would be better to read their SW quotes in a more neutral tone, no matter how difficult it is not to laugh at their indescribable quotes. I understand that some of the quotes require further watching to truly understand the lessons/takeaways. I'll be more considerate to that context.
I didn't realize how often I snuck in my new consulting opportunity. I must have been overly excited and didn't realize at the time when I was recording the voiceover.
Also keep in mind, part of this case study's purpose is to simply show how this happened, though it quickly evolves into so much more once Scott steps into the picture. That's out of my control. Again, I'm not going to coddle one of the biggest gaming franchises, and certainly not when they ran away with millions of dollars from their fans without an ounce of accountability or, bafflingly, introspection. We've all seen what happens when SW are coddled: endlessly patting themselves on the back in an echo chamber without an attempt at introspection. I don't think I need to recount the video here. I believe it would be disingenuous for those who care about the franchise not to call out when enough is enough.
I appreciate the feedback, as always! Stay frosty, friends.
*2. **_Clips_* ► Yes, there are a lot of clips -- likely more than usual due to the unusual topic of this video. I spread them out as much as I can. They're also sometimes part of explicit compilations. They're also part of the entertainment value. And they give the points in the video extra substance. It's important to be able to study the reactions of player experiences and determine how to translate that into something usable in the design space, so my goal is to continue to utilize clips/experiences for both informative and entertainment purposes without sacrificing the quality of the video.
The clips where I repeat words or phrases is for emphasis. However, this is another point of improvement since it can come across as sudden or abrasive. I'll mess with slightly slowing the speed of the repeated phrases in an attempt to address that issue. And I'm sure there are other methods for emphasis. However, it may be unlikely that I repeat like that in future videos. This case study was a very special and distinct one on this channel that very likely won't be pursued again.
Many interview clips are used multiple times throughout the video. However, I did purposely ensure that each time was for a different context, purpose, or point. For repeats, I either shorten the clip or splice different words in the clip, knowing that I had to repeat some of the interview clips.
*3. **_SW's silence must be PR_* ► Yes, I'm sure Steel Wool's management and co-founders are attempting to keep their heads down, and it might have worked if they actually cared.
While I always try to give the benefit of the doubt on this channel, the rabbit hole runs deep, and the hole is much deeper than it seems according to new, behind-the-scenes, exclusive Design Frame sources coming soon. The evidence is overwhelming for me that SW doesn't know how bad the game truly is. They genuinely think the game is fine beyond the bugs and maybe a couple design things here and there, if I'm generous. But that's surface level (though I don't want to discount how horrendous the technical side of SB is). Their design changes and especially the save system change are some of the worst updates I've ever seen. There's really no way around the fact that they still, to this day, absolutely refuse to turn the save stations on -- the easiest update they could ever release. They refuse to fix Moon getting stuck on everything. They refuse to fix misapplied textures and sprays. They refuse to optimize the game. They refuse to add the required FOV slider. They refuse to care enough to fix the several floating objects, and even a charge station that's unironically halfway in the ground. They refuse to fix the default alignment for the loading screens. They refuse to even try to introspect on why players aren't using the cameras. They still think plopping in more roaming staff bots improves the game. They somehow thought the pass scanner bot should disappear into a wall (I'll mention the really easy solution in a future video). They're still proud of the blatantly overscoped, mismanaged Pizzaplex.
There's soooo much more, all stuff that Scott approved and left in the game instead of even attempting to make it right by reinvesting a portion of the millions of dollars of profit from Security Breach, like when he cared about his fanbase and franchise's image post-release of FNaF World. This is the reality of the franchise.
The evidence cannot reasonably conclude that this is a PR move, or at least, it's a very bad, failed attempt at PR. Post-patched SB is lazy and lacks any modicum of self-awareness and introspection. Both SW and Scott doubled down in every conceivable way. They have absolutely burned the PR bridge, credibility, and any possible benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise beyond a shadow of a doubt.
My only question is how on earth did Scott think it was a good idea to get Steelwool to work on a non vr title in the first place? Did he not care or did he want to dump the IP on a studio so he wouldn't have to deal with the games anymore?
@@danpaz9485 I think Scott is just horribly under-informed on the ins and outs of developing a larger game and had more faith in Steel Wool than he should've as a result
Security Breach feels like they took a huge, lovingly crafted VRChat hangout world and poorly stapled stealth gameplay and fetch quests onto it.
Was this also the era where everyone rush to make open world games? Kinda like how in 2019 the hot topic is battle royale?
@@theotv5522not really, the open world era was done a looooong time ago.
@@thechugg4372Idk… almost every game is open world now. Even CoD and Halo incorporated open worlds into their games.
@@BullFrogFace"Open world" is clearly a broad term. Of course most games are going to have open world elements.
But the other commenter was right, the open world era died a while ago.
glad im not the only one who felt that, idk much about vrchat but i play a shit ton of tf2 and this literally just looks like a trade/silly/hangout server map. i wouldnt be surprised if it's been ported to source lmao
Vanny barely being in a game where she was meant to be the "Mr X" of it is a tragedy by itself
True, but I'm not sure how she could've been an engaging mechanic in the Pizzaplex. That's a big challenge to tackle.
@DesignFrameCaseStudies Easy, make her spawn in EVERY area Gregory goes in, upgrade her AI so she's not always aware of where you are, but your overall location. Think the Xenomorph from Alien Isolation.
Give her a knife, she's meant to be a killer, give her more voice lines, give her more abilities other than just walking (there are unused animations of her walking in pretty creepy ways as well as crouching, suggesting she could go inside vents with gregory).
The game would still be crap, but Vanny would be respected.
@@InfiniteWatcher I think the issue with Vanny is at first they wanted her to be the main villain, but half way through someone changed their mind and wanted her to have some redeeming qualities, so they pull this mind-control twist and put Afton as the actual bad guy.
@@InfiniteWatcher It wouldn't be "easy".
The terror of Mr X in RE2 was the claustrophobia, caused by the cramped map and just the sheer size of Mr X himself. You felt fear, because he was like a brick wall rapidly B-lining towards you. You can't really replicate that in the Pizzaplex, it's just too big of a map for it to work, there's too much space for the player to just run and hide. Vanny fundamentally CAN NOT work as a "Mr X" type enemy with a map like this.
@reaperz5677 Which is why the map should also be smaller. Vanny should've been an unstoppable force and, given how gregory is a child, her size should be enough to overpower him and give the player that sense of being powerless. One way to do this is remove the Freddy mechanic, no titanfall protection for the player whenever Vanny is around (the excuse could be she has a way to turn off the bots when she's near)
"Who's watching a two hour video essay on a game they've never played at 3 in the morning?"
Me: OH BOY THREE AM
haha feel free to come back to it after a good night's rest :)
wow its the same comment on every single video essay! truly incredible
@@smkslpsd Please be nice. Nothing is truly original. But it doesn't mean it isn't genuine.
@@smkslpsd"hahaha, I do that" - Left At London, 2016
Tale as old as time... Meme as old as Vine~
Literally me
The comedy bot being confirmed will always be hilarious to me.
I just assumed its broken routine was intentional, so hearing that it actually does have jokes is ironically less funny to me.
Laughing bugs would be funny when we see others encountering it. But honestly they would infuriate me when it actually happen to me.
I wish they kept it like that, the silence was so eerie and hilarious, like the poor staff bot got stage fright and froze
The silence was honestly funnier than the actual routine
The whole "saves are disabled to increase difficulty" debacle really is some arcade-era thinking. Dark Souls is famous and infamous for its difficulty, even though it saves your game almost constantly (which even contributes to the difficulty in some aspects - you can't easily save-scum your level-up choices, for example). Eschewing saving can be a nice self-imposed challenge, but not every challenge can be a nice requirement.
I think it's even more insane than that, because old games mostly didn't include saves because otherwise the game would be completed quickly, especially when cartridge space was so tiny and a single game was expected to last. So beating the game was the testament of mastery, sort of like modern day roguelites in a sense, except roguelites often include metaprogression and procedural generation to add short-term fresh experiences on top of the long-term mastery. SW has no reason to engage with that line of thinking whatsoever.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiesI think they were going for that “lose it all” idea of the original FNAF games but completely forgot what the actual concept was. The 6-9 minutes (depending on the game) is simply not comparable to the several hours that take place if you choose to stay. And it’s not difficult to have a large chunk of your play time happen after you choose to stay, meaning you’d loose a LOT of progress in this massive game. The first game especially turned into a pseudo rage game for people by the end but still a fun one, replacing the pure terror & horror of the first few nights with a difficult challenge and keeping the player engaged. SB just says “fuck you” for no reason and thinks you’ll enjoy it. There’s barely enough scary stuff prior to that to call it a dedicated horror title and after that most people just leave and call it a day cause staying sounds awful.
Its artificial difficulty. Instead of making the game actually difficult, you raise the stakes of loss and make the player feel more artificially stressed. Arcades did it because they ran off tokens and needed a way to get players to keep paying more money, so you lost your progress unless you put in more coins for more lives. An at-home singleplayer experience like security breach should not have them
Dark Souls is also a great example because the overall trend of Souls games has been to add even more friendly checkpoint placement and shorter boss runbacks. FromSoftware clearly heard the response from their fanbase (a fanbase that tends to love challenge and difficulty) to the longer runbacks of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 and realized that long runbacks aren't a very fun and engaging source of challenge, and that it doesn't cheapen the difficulty at all to add plenty of checkpoints, even right outside boss fights. While I do think it's kinda frustrating how so many people treat Dark Souls as completely synonymous with "difficult game" (there's more to love about Souls games than just their difficulty!), any developer who doesn't at least glance at Souls games to understand how they achieve difficulty is just not paying attention.
Aye, was playing an RPG Maker horror game and was killed about 20-30 minutes in and had forgotten to save (As I'd assumed there was auto-saves, at least after the opening) , and I didn't feel like starting over, it wasn't scary, it was just annoying.
i was learning a lot about project management for an IT class and they always talk about scope creep and how it's one of the main causes of project failures and such, but i never understood its significance and how horrible it could be until you showcased it in this case study, very informational and truly what a nightmare scenario for a project
I'm glad you could apply your learning here! That's awesome! Thanks for watching :)
You know it says a lot when the outsourced intro sequence is the most visually appealing part of the game despite the studio being 'art centric'...
@@boanoah6362 Exactly why I mentioned that! It's really funny 🤣
And even then it feels kinda weird next to the rest of the game. The characters move and jump around in a very lightweight and cartoony fashion that doesn’t make a ton of sense for large metal robots. Ironically the game itself actually does seem to understand the animatronics’ weight to some extent, i.e. the walking/running animations that cause parts of their bodies to wobble (Freddy’s ears for example) and heavy footsteps that shake the screen a little when they’re nearby.
You can also see this weird cartooniness in the other cutscene that plays when you confront Vanny in Fazer Blast. Freddy gets effortlessly sent flying over the (un-railed) side of a bridge by a shove from a twig-armed staff bot, then more staff bots surround and tear him apart by moving their arms up and down and causing parts to comedically fly off of him like he’s in a Lego game (and this is supposed to be a serious moment). Was the animation studio even given any idea of what this game’s tone was supposed to be?
@@thatoneguy609 I didn't mention the other cutscenes since there's no 100% evidence that Pe Grande worked on those. But it's more likely than not that Pe Grande did. I think Steel Wool's strange addition of horrible personalities in the animatronics is where my suspension of disbelief breaks haha
I mean, FNAF strayed pretty far from any kind of believable situation when it stopped being about kid ghosts possessing shitty run-down pizza animatronics. It rapidly spiraled into strange hyper-futuristic AI and robotics that would make Star Trek seem like quaint Disney trash. Especially the horrible idea of bringing book lore to the games, illusion discs and the Mimic not withstanding they even have fully advanced real-time cranial implant VR.
It's just way too much, but I can't really blame Steel Wool too much for that since Scott himself has said he didn't tell them the plot of the fucking game. He gave them plot hooks and then told them to go make a game since I guess he assumed they'd just know the story entirely from that and when they checked back in with him the story they came up with wasn't what he wanted.
Which is by far the stupidest decision I've ever heard EVER.
@@thatoneguy609 this!! like, they're /good/ cutscenes, but they're not /fnaf/ (or horror in general) cutscenes
"They worked too hard on the wrong things" is a great single sentence summary of my feelings on the game. I'm very willing to forgive games being weird or jank if I can see the ambition, and Security Breach has ambition in spades. It's just clear that this studio, as passionate as they were and as many genuinely good ideas as they have, wasn't ready to make this kind of project.
I thought some of the writing in the side-story with the human staff being increasingly concerned that they're being replaced by robots was genuinely a fantastic place for the series to go. The fear of being replaced is uniquely applicable to both humans and robots in a way that could create some really neat places for the story to go.
I think that given (a fucking significant amount of) time, Steel Wool is capable of making really good FNAF content. They've just got some introspection to be doing.
I agree! Though a big point in this video is that they're unwilling to introspect, unfortunately 😅 Or incapable of. Not sure which is worse.
i think they could have if given enough time and had proper communication and management its clear the game was rushed to meet an unrealistic deadline and the halfbaked communication from scott didnt help any
they were basically forced to improv a giant story driven game 75% of the time
@@TheJinx64 Scott and the deadline didn't help, but I really don't like how the fanbase uses Sony and the deadline as the scapegoat when the full blame should go to SW and Scott and the issues are fundamental from the very beginning of preproduction. And the story and even storytelling that SW crafted for SB is trash, so SW doesn't get off easy for any of the story issues.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudies true, i was just using the knowledge i currently had which was from way back when the game first released and all the issues were in the spotlight
They needed someone to tell them "no" instead. They needed someone to reign in the scale back to a size they could manage in reasonable time
I remember watching Markiplier play Security Breach. For context, his FNAF videos have always consistently made me laugh since 2014. This one though…he looked broken by the end of it. His 2 hour livestream where Chica spawned on top of him and killed him was just the icing on the cake. When I watched him play Ruin, he seemed to enjoy it more than the main game which made me happy.
I don’t have much hope but I hope someone at Steel Wool sees this video and takes all the criticisms to heart. I think what worked for Ruin was that it was a smaller experience than the main game which meant that the atmosphere could be creepy.
Very true! The honest or semi-honest creators convey so much pain during their playthroughs!
For me, favorite SB experience would still be Phisnom. Dude was so excited and ended up ranting in Spanish with only music man section bringing him any thrill and joy
That's how he got cancelled, he believed ruin was bad.
@Brite-um2tq I mean it kinda is, it's definitely way more enjoyable than base SB, but still, Alien Isolation and Dead Space, two games that Ruin reminded me of, do what Ruin tried to do significantly better, and Isolation is a good comparison to base SB, as base SB reminded me a lot of Alien Isolation, both games were their respective studios first attempt at that kind of game, with the Creative Assembly group working on the Total War game series and Steel Wool being a VR studio, but the reason Phil got canceled was not due to his opinion of Ruin, that is factually incorrect, he was canceled due to how he handled what happened afterwards, joking about getting gore sent to him instead of a minor, who couldn't respectfully disagree with Phil's opinion on Ruin, and instead had to be a whiny toddler and say, "When FNAF+ comes out I'm gonna call it shit even if it's not"
@@rodimusmagnus5586 Dude he encouraged his fans to mob the kid with death threats, that and his extreme unprofessionalism and making a general ass of himself whilst hiding from criticism behind his toxic "persona". I used to watch his stuff cuz I agreed with his take on SB but you have to admit man's childish as all hell.
One thing that always frustrated me was the misuse of Gregory himself. Like Gregory is like what? 10? Imagine, instead of blocking off things with invisible walls and arbitrary security barriers, Gregory is to scared to go alone because freddy is hurt in this area. Like, instead of the barriers, the lights are out in that place and Gregory is to scared to go because he thinks Moon is in there and its dark (and kids are scared of the dark) so that way the player can't go into that area yet. It would be so easy to make the characters scary, Gregory is a child! Make the characters scary because the character you play has is scared! Instead of hiding from the animatronics because they teleport, have the screen darken and the characters breathe quicken as the animatronic approaches and you're stuck in place until you have to force Gregory to run. It would make the game scarier and encourage you to avoid the animatronics. You don't want to get stuck in place and you don't want the kid you're getting attached to throughout the game to get hurt so you avoid the animatronics. Steelwool refuses to use Gregory as any more than a vessel for the player when he could be so much MORE. you don't need a big pizzaplex when, in the mind of a child, EVERYTHING is ginormous. Especially when you're on your own. It would be so easy to make the game smaller and scarier but they refuse because they're just to cocky. Like, they're so caught up in the lore and the set design that they don't know how to utilize the very basic tools of storytelling. Latch on to the character and it makes everything much scarier.
Yet then there's GGY and the therapy tapes suggesting Gregory is secretly a possibly sociopathic master hacker, such great story telling :)))
Everyone who says this pretty much exposes they haven't read the story. Its clear in the story that the only reason Gregory is good at any of those things is because Glitchtrap is in the one in control of him. In Security Breach he's clearly a dumb kid who doesn't know crap about the Pizzaplex, which is weird if he is *actually* a mastermind hacker who played every game in the Pizzaplex? It's because he didn't, he wasn't even in control of his body. Which the story literally screams in your face by how he behaves and the fact he literally calls himself "Dr. Rabbit". If that isn't the most obvious reference to Glitchtrap I literally don't know what is there.
Fnaf in general has a problem of its 'characters' really not existing to have any sort of depth or personal internal agency, they mostly just exist to be twisted and contorted to whatever and wherever the plot needs, regardless of if its logical, consistent or contradictory with past actions Ie Elizabeth did like a 180 in motives between Sister Location and Pizza Sim, Afton a apparent genius murder mad scientists just walked into a trap he knew was a trap for reasons. Vanessa was a mine controlled vessel with no personal agency or motives for her actions, not even justifications for why Glitchtrap could manipulate her initially. Gregory as you said is only a kid on a surface level, and even The Mimic seems to be designed to just be something that can be twisted and written to act however they want because 'oh it mimics stuff'.
Its why i have always been of the boat having Vanny herself by a Copy Cat killer who learnt about the MCI and Afton through her work on Help Wanted and it drove her to recreate it, not only does it give then the opportunity to delve into Vanessa as a character, why she would latch onto this specifically, what drives this level of obsession. Plus its then interesting having Vanny be a kinda proxy for what In Universe was know about the MCI, through what she understands to try and recreate and what she misses IE how Glitchtrap and her Rabbit suit are different from Springtrap, she knew the killer used a rabbit suit, but not what it looks like.
1 more thing I don't understand about him is when he see the front gates closing and realize he's stuck inside, why is he so afraid?
His goal was to sneak inside to find the missing kids/investigate the place, so clearly doing it after hour is the best. The gates close or not does not affect his goal, so what's with the reaction? At worst he's gonna spend 1 night inside. Not to mention less staff too.
This channel was right. The game was handled by the wrong people. Not saying they're all talentless charlatans, but the management and role distribution clearly went wrong.
and he's a character, too. Lean into that, give him personality!
1 hour in and it’s incredibly refreshing to hear someone say the quiet part out loud instead of this blind and nonsensical optimism.
Exactly
honestly a little too loud, I much prefer the more quiet tone and less angry attitude in the other video
@@TheGreenTaco999 It makes sense why he'd be angrier in this. The first one was before the "apology Free-lc" Ruin and Steel Wool essentially abandoning the game.
@@TheGreenTaco999 The first video there was still some optimism that maybe they would take criticism to heart and make a better game. They didn't. They raked in the money and abandoned the game, proving that they did not learn any lesson and instead chose to be blissfully ignorant at best to the pile of garbage they created.
4:44 NOOOOOOO
they fell into the classic creative art trap! Even in scriptwriting you are not supposed to get too attached to any one idea for risk of bloat, pacing issues etc.
Edit: I have a sneaking suspicion they didn’t do a Game Design Doc….
they had to havr a GDD, more realisticly they just werent very strict with sticking to it...
It's so true, and it's bizarre that people working in entertainment media wouldn't know that principle. When you look at an early script, or production art, or test footage for any great media, there's always cool material that got cut because it didn't add to the core goal, and time & energy had to go into polishing the top priorities. When that guy says he wouldn't want to revise anything, it's like he's never looked at how anyone makes a great game/film/etc.
I despise any author who, when interviewed about their work, gasses themselves up over how "ambitious" or "expansive" (or whatever other vague buzzword adjective) their project was. It's genuinely shocking seeing these interviews with Steel Wool, where the devs don't look even slightly concerned about the shoddy state of the game, and instead gush about how big the pizzaplex is. Insane.
I wish more devs were humble and self-critical, even in the face of financial success.
I agree. That's one reason I felt this video was so important to release. Thanks for watching! I appreciate you :)
I feel part of that is “PR speak” or “words for the shareholders”.
Now, most of the time, lead devs (or lead workers in most industries really) are forced to say stuff that keeps the shareholders happy and keep/cause more potential consumers/investors to be interested, even if it’ll blow up in their face.
The difference here is that Steel Wool (from my understanding) doesn’t have share holders (with only Scott being their investor for FNAF related stuff if I’m not mistake). They can *afford* to be honest about it’s poor progress and troubled development (maybe ask for a delay to redo the whole project), and look back on the project with regret. They’re *able* to be more transparent and open about things since they don’t have to worry about share holders withdrawing their funding.
This kind of hints that Steel Wool might have/had internal issues, like something akin to toxic positivity. Considering there’s no way any dev wouldn’t feel at least a tinge of regret with the way SB turned out, especially with how “ambitious” they wanted it to be.
@@Dr.Oofers Great point!
toxic positivity is what fueled the disaster piece known as concord.
I think what did it in for me with this video was Scott's response trying to defend steel wool too. Like they made a bad product and a mess of his IP, if he isn't going to try to defend the IP he's worked so hard to build up then what does that tell us the fans? That Scott no longer cares enough about FNAF universe to ensure its quality?
The pizzaplex is actually an amazing design and I agree with Steel Wool that its a place I would want to go...
just not in a videogame. I've had more fun bumming around in security breach vrchat worlds than playing the actual game.
@Wootmaster For sure! The only argument that matters for a game is that the Pizzaplex sucks for a game and gameplay and for a project scope. Nothing was done with it in the game! At least VR Chat got some use out of it 🤣
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiespizzaplex haters 🤝 pizzaplex lovers
this building was not meant to be in this game
It's a wonderful design visually and feels like they thought about what people would want in a real attraction - but the size and bloat ruined it as a game environment, between the useless map, camera issues, and overall emptiness of the environments.
@@rowandoyle7I believe that better developers could utilize the space effectively.
Makes for a pretty good GMod map, at least
This game should've been a brand new reboot rather than a continuation of the very well wrapped up OG canon. Wtf were Scott and Steel Wool thinking when writing this thing?
It was going to be a reboot, but when they scaled back the game Vanny was left on the cutting room floor and they shoved in Afton to fill the cracks.
Nothing about the modern lore messes with the OG lore that badly? Afton's still dead, the MCI and all his victims are all still dead likely, Mike and Henry are still dead- There's literally only just a few overlaps, like with the presence of the FFPS pizzeria, the remains of old animatronics in the Tangle, return of characters like Candy Cadet, old FNAF games having their events represented in the indie games ad FNAF VR in universe, and a few more. Like I don't get the statement anymore? It effectively IS almost a reboot/new story at this point
@@anorak3334 It can't be a reboot AND a continuation - it can only be one or the other. A reboot is something entirely different. Different lore, different characters, different universe. A continuation is just, well, a story continued. They aren't the same. You can't have both. You can't have a half-and-half.
From a storytelling perspective... Yes, Security Breach at worst does the original lore an injustice, and at best is completely meaningless.
When working with an IP that already exists, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Simply put.
It's possible to make a continuation with an all-new setting and cast, but it *has* to be relevant. It *has* to be of substance to the core foundation of the series. It can have a different story, but the themes and narratives *have* to relate to what has already been established.
I mean, look at literally anything SpiderMan related from the past 2 decades - different takes on the same characters and the same story. That is a reboot. Now imagine if instead of going the multiverse route, storytellers tried to convince us that, actually, all of these Spidermen exist in the same world, just at slightly different times! That is what Security Breach tried to do.
It gave us a new setting and new characters and a lore that does not relate to the previous games at all but then chickened out the last minute and tried to tie it into the rest of the canon, so it's own detriment. There was no point in it - they didn't NEED to do it - so why do it?
FNAF at its core is about A serial killer targeting kids where they were meant to be safest; said kids haunting the establishments; enacting revenge on their killer. That's it.
FNAF 1 establishes this. FNAF 2 adds to this through the minigames, mostly. FNAF 3 adds to this through minigames, and through making the murderer a primary threat/antagonist. FNAF 4 adds to this through minigames, and through allowing us to play as a vital main character in the canon lore. Sister Location adds to this by giving us further insight into the murderer and his family. Pizza Simulator adds to this by, quiet literally, giving us an ending to the story and it's characters.
And then Security Breach is just... There. Pointless. In a limbo. It doesn't add ANYTHING. And yet, for some godawful reason, it tries to tie itself in as if it does. It fails to establish its own core narratives because it wants to hitch off of that of the previous games, when even with that context in mind, Security Breach's story honestly makes NO SENSE!
You can't make a half-reboot half-continuation that's only relevant when its convenient, that's the kind of writing I can forgive out of a 12 year old fanfic writer, not a $50 console game with an adult team behind it.
Security Breach COULD have been a good addition to the canon lore had it actually stuck to a simple script of Vanny being a copycat of Afton and the primary antagonist of the game - no crazy virus robot BS necessary, no pointless hidden pizzarias or blobs, just back to the core of the series: a serial killer, innocent kids, and some haywire animatronics. That's literally all we needed.
@@puppiekit These statements make no fucking sense. No, the spider-man comparison doesn't make sense, since when the hell was it the same as trying to say all continuities of something are in the same universe? This is nowhere near the same, it's still in the same universe, but it's not trying to tell the literal exact same fucking story. The most that it connects is with some overlaps here and there, and that's it, (FFPS pizzeria under the Pizzaplex, obvious main animatronic characters, candy cadet and helpy, the Mimic copying Afton (for like...four games, three if we're not counting AR), the indie games, whatever's going on with the character of Nightmarionne, old animatronic parts in the Tangle, and the bonnie-mask bully from FNAF 4) Saying that THOSE somehow are proof of this statement of yours is bullshit, (we literally also have Vanny/Vanessa, Gregory/GGY, the Mimic, Cassie, Roxy, Monty, whoever it's likely implying is behind FE now, etc)
No it did not chicken out of shit, literally every single other modern FNAF product aside from SB has been an improvement in comparison to it. Which is also another good point, why'd you only ever bring up SB when talking about the story? Why didn't you mention, why'd you oh so conveniently leave out, HW1, AR (in terms of really only the emails), Ruin, HW2, the upcoming SOTM game (which we can prolly already tell a lot about), ITP- It's funny, people like you always only ever seem to ention SB's story specifically when talking about the new story, and then NOTHING ELSE. Why is that exactly?
No it isn't in a limbo, literally all the other fucking modern FNAF games are there around it. So moral of the story; Shut the fuck up, and stop trying to use one singular game that came out three years ago to try and prove a point about the modern story, even though the fucking story itself has already moved on. It is VERY obvious, when people like you clearly just purely nowadays base your whole view of modern FNAF off of SB, and that's it, and I don't what you seriously expect to gain from that. You just look fucking retarded, because you act like one thing that almost every other person that's not also doing that, has moved on from, is somehow still relevant and at that representative of the whole lore??
19:26
This whole segment and beyond reminds me of a quote.
"An architect's dream is an engineer's nightmare"
@@gjeraonyt1356 Beautifully said!
facts
"Shoot for the moon, if you miss you'll land among the stars."
Yeah, tell that to the _Challenger_ crew...
@@theflyingspagetlmao, very dark but very funny
@@theflyingspaget The core tenet of flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing. Luckily, they're professionals that never miss.
I remember DJ Sterf recalling how he was brought on to play test the dlc. I believe he recalled that the reactions to his feed back were always mildly hostile, as if he was attacking the devs directly by pointing out basic bugs and glitches.
That's really interesting and certainly lines up with SW's disposition. Do you recall where he talks about that?
@DesignFrameCaseStudies I might be misremembering what he said, but on his RUIN chapter 2 video at 38:22 he talks about his experience being a QA tester and how he was brought on. He may have just been saying in general of what typically happens as a QA tester however.
@@tancoat1346 I watched the clip in question - his comment was saying that other people he's worked with have been aggressive towards him in terms of QA, but Steel Wool was particularly charitable to him with his involvement.
@@artydoesstuff1534 That's true, but I find it very interesting how everyone who worked with steel wool have only the highest opinions of them despite the state of the game they created. Just as well, in that clip Sterf remarks on how two QA studios on top of him joined in to bug test the DLC with him recalling over 2200 bugs found by him alone. But even then the DLC much less the base game was incredibly buggy. Though I was wrong about what was stated in the clip, I do believe the clip itself holds significance.
@@tancoat1346 I think its because Steel Wool is good at like human interaction and just being personable.
So its hard to hate them even if their products are less than stellar because if you worked with the people you know them on a human level.
Its not like with us. We know theyre people, but we have no emotional or social connection with them. We only know what they present to us with interviews, what products they created and sold.
It is a skill you have to learn to be able to make a social connection and still be able to bluntly critique a work. Personally, Ive only ever really seen it be taught in art subjects. I could be wrong, but I havent seen other subjects in school or other fields focus on teaching that skill to kids or students
I was playing this with my child (for my child lol) and even if it was completely bug free (it absolutely isn’t) it is the epitome of a rotten foundation. It was frustrating boring and confusing from the jump. But my boy loved the characters so much I kept slogging for him. I was genuinely dumbfounded when Design Frame showed the quote saying Steel Wool was “content with the game in its current state” I had to take multiple breaks despite my son’s egging on bc I would be killed by animatronics who could not detect me in my hiding spot but never left and then lost over half an hour of progress. TBH I got the escape ending and uninstalled lol. When he asks for a revisit I tell him he can play it himself lol.
Yes! That's the exact experience that's typical in the game if people weren't so blinded by the branding! But some just don't know any better, so I think it's important to expect more than slop from our games, especially a huge franchise. Thanks for sharing :)
You should teach your kid about taste. I am a FNaF fanboy and I despise this game.
maybe once your kid actually plays the game, he will quickly realize something is wrong with it.
If I were you I would just let them play the old fnaf games, 10 year old me loved them lol (at 12 doom2016 should also be fine xD)
@@Korra228 yep. Before he asks for "the mascot game I will not name" merch.
It truly boggles my mind why Scott wanted a VR studio to make a free roam game, and when they made it too big, why the fuck did he not say, “stop this”
Edit: also note how the best fnaf game since the Steel Wool era begun wasn’t created by Steel Wool, with that game being Into The Pit.
Because Scott constantly mishandles the franchise since retiring
If I had to make a genuine guess outside of "Scott is mishandling the franchise", because that's an obvious thing, I think he probably thought that VR and free roam is similar in terms of game development. As far as I'm aware, Scott mostly uses Clickteam for game development, so he probably doesn't have a whole lot of experience in developing a fully 3D free roam game or VR game. So, he probably assumed that since both VR and free roam 3D both use 3D models, that the creation and development of both types of games must be similar enough that experience in one means experience in the other.
Idk I might just be stupid though.
@@sinfulpuritan3430 Tbh, he was right that the experience carried over in some way. The visual assets in the game are generally top tier.
Do people not remember the Reddit Vote? He asked of people were willing to wait longer for a bigger game and the fanbase wanted bigger
@@lazycloud4684 No he doesn't 💀
I love how the tone of this video is very different to the first one. This one has this lowkey "It's been two years, I've had it with your nonsense Steel Wool." vibe to it and I love it. It's definitely earned.
It feels like a Greek tragedy, such a terrible mismatch of skillset. They're brilliant artists who have created arguably some of the best (or at least, most popular) character designs for FNAF in the Glamrocks and couldn't follow through on making a game that people want to play. The pizzaplex has a brilliant design visually, but is a broken slog in execution, and the fact that they can't or won't see that feels like some sort of tragic curse.
Icarus except Daedalus was just advising from afar and watched while his son made the most shoddy ass wings and flew straight up...
Remember aspiring artists! Each area needs their own specific skills and mindsets.
Being a background artist for an animated movie is very different to being a level designer!
Im just glad thay havnt taken the Vivziepop way of taking critisism and ruining their future works becuase of mean words. Ruin was a good step in the right direction
Valve recently released a documentary and dev commentary for Half-Life 2, one of the most influential games of its time that set the bar for how games should be -at minimum-. Even then, they had some misgivings about their design decisions, even poking fun at themselves. Robin Walker referred to one questionable moment as "magical bullshit." Most players wouldn't even have noticed, but by his admission, the devs still weren't proud of it. Further ahead, you find a mortar that had been giving you hell a few maps back. Too bad you can't fire it yourself... which a dev admitted was a missed opportunity. They even address a failed attempt at preventing you from trying to go down a slide in a playground; they couldn't get the physics for it right, so they broke the ladder. But you can just climb up the slide itself, and a dev conceded that, as is often the case, we the players got the last laugh on them.
Steel Wool have done no such introspection. If they have, they refuse to publicly admit it.
It really worries me for their future projects. I hope they can step outside their echo chamber long enough to realize that the aggrieved among us (most of us, anyway) are more frustrated than anything else. The game screams "fizzled potential." They flew too close to the sun. FazFriends has a bunch of videos showcasing the amazing attention to detail they had, which only dials up the frustration. I love everything about Security Breach, EXCEPT the gameplay and story. I haven't played it myself, but I've seen enough to understand what I'd be getting myself into. I just hope they can partner up with some devs who know what they're doing, that way the artists can do what they do best while still crafting a worthwhile gameplay experience. I don't know what to expect, but we'll have to see. It's up to them to turn things around.
Hell, even the thing described as "magical bullshit" only happens under the specific circumstance, where you manage to kill the two miniboss enemies in the area before one of them gets a chance to shoot at a gas tanker (which only happens when the total health of the two enemies is low); causing it to explode.
If you do that, and it is difficult (but I have managed to do it myself), the gas tanker just explodes on its own.
I'm not sure if the Valve devs missed something or not before recording that developer commentary line given its kind of misleading phrasing, but if they didn't, that's one hell of a commitment to standards.
@@Gulliblepikmin At least it's more justifiable "magical bullshit" than teleporting animatronics, right? The exploding gas tanker falls within the realm of plausible deniability at worst. Gigamonty? Not so much.
@@XiaoXiaoMan1123 Yeah. I wouldn't try to deny that it's on the low end of unbelievability.
@@XiaoXiaoMan1123 Gigamonty is actually more plausible that the standard animatronic AI. At least, until you need him to go away. But it's much scarier getting caught, and hearing heavy footsteps just getting closer and closer from far away, then to have the animatronics just _appear._
Security Breach was fucking detrimental to FNAF as a whole dude. This was supposed to be *the* breakout fnaf game that people who had no idea what FNaF was would get their first impressions of, and we got... this. The writing was on the wall when Scott made that blog post referring to the game's development as "adding more and more layers to a cake". What a wasted opportunity at every level. Not even RUIN was any better.
An opinion of mine that I think kinda delves more into lore than gameplay (depends on the team really) but i genuinely think there was no saving this game. The inherent premise of it being some gigantic pizzaplex is fundamentally flawed, and imo very unsuitable for FNaF as an IP. I don't understand why they didn't just take inspiration from the RE7+ formula. I think that would have worked fantastic for a big budget, free-roam FNaF game.
It’s not Scott’s fault. Scott literally said in an interview that Steel Wool had trouble taking certain pieces that he gave them for the story and making it into their own. They didn’t understand shit. Scott ended up blaming himself bc Steel Wool couldn’t piece together what Scott had given them. Steel Wool just doesn’t understand FNAF lore whatsoever
@@wifeburger I honestly disagree with most of the tings you said tbh, it's not Scott's fault the game turned out so bad.
Scott said in an interview with Dawko this year that Steel Wool had trouble taking certain pieces that he gave them for the story and making it into their own.
@FiremanSamBoy2008 To you and comment above you, let me just start of by saying that I'm not defending steel wool, they have a lot of flaw's that they need to fix and I don't hate Scott, he's a good person. But the story part of security breach is 100% Scott's fault.
Imagine your bose comes in and gives you a bunch of random stuff and tells you to put it all together, but he doesn't tell you what it's supposed to be or what it should look like.
Scott just gave steel wool a bunch of pieces and didn't tell them how all of it is suppose to connect. Who do they look like? Theorist? Mind reader's?
Again I'm not trying to defend steel wool, they have flaw's. But not knowing what your supposed to do because you're boss didn't tell you, is not their fault.
Not asking him after because of common sense is.
The story part is definitely Scott's fault, again I don't hate Scott. And everything else is their fault because they didn't ask him when they clearly should've.
It's BOTH of their fault.
nah, ruin is a mass improvement over the base game
While the gameplay and coordination between Steel Wool and Scott were heavily lacking, I think the artists the 3D modelers deserve the most praise. The iconic designs of these maps and characters is the primary driver of this games success. It's the ONLY reason I make my music videos. When I played this game, I was an instant fan because of DJ Music Man, Gator Golf and the Daycare Attendant. I hope whatever they are cooking up in the future that Scott has more involvement, they do vigorous testing and put more effort into making this a memorable experience rather than an uncertain open world with multiple unsatisfying outcomes. Every characters needs its own significant importance and every task needs engaging gameplay. Very nice video. I whole heartedly agree with the difficult but very true statements here. We are not here to hate on them but encourage them to be the studio we know they CAN be. It's easily within their grasp.
Well-made music videos! Thanks for watching, Kyle :)
It's very empowering to see a video like this release, with someone who is willing to talk about the legitimate problems that plague Steel Wool's mindset and how everyone surrounding them is giving them medals because they did "good enough".
Games like this need to be held accountable for what they did. As good as Help Wanted was, we, as an audience, can't compare that to Security Breach, because they're ultimately suffering from the issue of biting off an entire steak's worth of food when they can only eat a meal the size of a cupcake.
Thank you very much for your support! I appreciate you :)
Finally, someone includes Scott in this conversation. I'm tired of people idolizing him to the point where they ignore his contributions to SB development issues. Scott has a tendency to fixate on one thing at the time himself, so it shouldn't be a mystery why SB turned the way it did. He sees an issue and makes the next game focused around fixing it, but doesn't seem to care about the bigger picture.
With SB everyone involved was so fixated on the game being big and impressive on the outside that they didn't bother making it an enjoyable experience. Which reminds me of how Scott treated Fnaf three. All visuals with gameplay leaving people disappointed and jumpscares being lackluster.
Not to mention his history with giving the jobs to people he likes. Despite lack of quality in their work required for such projects. It's frustrating to see people put him on a pedestal. Showing off the clips, of him saying how he cares about quality or how Fnaf World taught him to never take people for granted.
But if he really cared then why he gave away the rights to make plushies that looked worse than the bootleg ones? What about those graphic novels everyone laughed at and that inaccurate lore book? He handed the development of a big project to people who didn't have the experience and/or mindset to handle it. He is and always was a part of the problem.
I'm quite aware we are all humans, we make mistakes. But for him, it's simply a pattern of behavior. He says one thing, and then does something contradictory. Just for others to quote him and blame all of his mess on an inexperienced team of devs. They are responsible, that's undeniable, but can we stop pretending like Scott didn't enable all of this? I wish I could see in him the stuff he says about himself, but it seems like he's manifesting making good decisions. And failing. I might be too harsh on him, but others coddled him enough over the years, so it should balance out. People seem to bash Steel Wool with no issue. But the respect for Scott seems to shield him from the criticism.
I'm so invested into all of this mainly because I grew up on these games. I had a similar mindset. But ironically enough after hours of watching retrospectives, essays, revisiting my own memory and looking stuff up, suddenly I cannot take these interviews with him seriously. It sounds nice on paper, but it is not reflected in reality.
I would be surprised if ONE person decided to read all that. If you do exist kind stranger, I wish you a nice day~~
(And if you like Scott more power to you, I'm just tired of pretending like he's not part of the puzzle)
Spot on! I appreciate you :)
@@DesignFrameCaseStudies Aww
Agree, especially after hearing about the weird Burntrap thing! Like, did he never think to tell someone “hey, that’s not really what I meant.” Or don’t tell them to include it if you are going to be vague about what it means
Scott is very much an enabler and the root of the problem lol
I love your comment! Super well written and exactly what I’ve been thinking!
even if I'm not a game designer yet, this video gave me a bit of perspective on how mismanaged scope can consume a project and how arrogance/ignorance can kill it for good. definitely a principle I want to keep in mind for my future endeavours.
@@Chillipeffer I'm very glad you found this informative! Thank you for watching :)
It feels like Steel Wool has just listened to all the blind positivity from fnaf fans that just enjoy anything labeled fnaf, and not a single bit of the people giving harsh (but VERY needed) criticism. Great job on this video, editing and all.
They listened to feedback for Ruin and HW2, though?
I mean no right? Ruin bought security breach from god awful to like a decently mid experience. And help wanted 2 was consistently praised. From what I've heard the newly announced mimic game demo at PAX seemed to not be terrible either. I think it's pretty clear they are listening to feedback, they just don't seem to want to admit fault in public interviews lol.
@@DetectiveYuki You're not wrong but Ruin didn't change anything about Security Breach aside from maybe a few bug fixes. It's effectively it's own, new experience.
As a FNAF fan I gotta say FNAF fans will faen over jingling keys all the time... The movie being the best example with people saying it was perfect or near perfect...
@@KumihoMahao The movie was the embodiment of what I hate in this franchise and I don't trust people who had a good time watching it. Especially since most people who liked it were screaming in union any time reference to a game was on the screen.
"You had too many expectations so no wonder you didn't like it". I had none, I came with clear head. And I still think it's a boring and confusing, on many levels. Having all that knowledge about the games makes it even harder to understand. Because they share names and appearances of people who they are clearly not.
"It feels like any time something fnaf-related comes out it's another universe." - Me (Right now)
I think Scott forgotten that his parodies of future projects (Like Fnaf 57 Freddy in Space) were not supposed to be predictions. At this rate we might get a multiverse movie in a few years.
IMAGINE - This time Afton is the kid. But the actor is the same so it's a middle-aged man in primary school. And during lunch he goes to Freddy Fazzber's cafeteria. Then he jumps into a ball pit that shows him all the lore Scott scrapped just to piss off MatPat... Then music man is an actual man, a dj school hired for a school dance. And all other students are Endos. And at the end we learn that the killings were the friends we made along the way. Also there are Aliens because we already made ghosts science and also the killer is a computer virus and can control animatronics so why shouldn't there be aliens?
If that ever comes true I will sue Scott since he obviously stole this idea from me.
You are my witness KumihoMahao
“They worked too hard on the wrong things”
All these years, I could never put it into words more perfectly than that
The game just feels unrealistic in size and that's my biggest gripe with it. Second gripe is that they don't justify the size. You're running through an area filled with stuff but it's still empty and there's nothing to do in it. In skyrim you'll never enter an area without having many many things to do in it, in this game you struggle to find one thing to do in it.
I honestly believe they had no game testers. The amount of basic mistakes made that would of been found if someone played it once is insane
i think it was confirmed they didn't? iirc they only brought on QA testers for ruin and/or help wanted 2. although I can't remember any direct sources for this, probably just seen it from posts flying around so make of that what you will lol
Hearing Steel Wool talk about a FNAF game like it’s Pathologic or The Path or some other art game is legitimately the most wild thing I’ve ever heard.
I thought Comedy Bot was way funnier when it was broken. Having the big announcement for the comedy stylings of Comedy Bot, followed by silence, was actually hilarious.
With Security Breach I sorta saw it as this rag tag bunch of indie devs who got in over their heads, admirable but ambitious underdogs, but I'd never heard the interviews included in this video and it really changed my perspective. There's a certain level of seemingly selective ignorance to this entire thing that is really difficult to watch coming from the highest players in the studio and I think surrounding yourself with only 'yes men' type of people who live and breathe the fandom uncritically is not going to actually help anything get any better. There are clearly very talented people involved in the making of this game, but that is not enough.
I say that with the utmost gentleness possible and as someone who genuinely wanted to see this studio knock it out of the park.
Honestly same!
They sound very high on their own supply - normally you only see that with arteests like kojima or del Torro
this is exactly how I felt for a while. I assumed that the Christmas release window caught them off guard and they had to quickly put together anything. now that I've seen these interviews it really has taken away any sympathy I had for them. they have no humility at all and really think they're perfect. this is the game that they wanted to make all along (according to them supposedly).
Ive always found it kinda weird that, even in interviews from months or even over a year after release, the devs still seem to believe that they delivered on their ambitions. They did not, and it is very clear that they did not. I wonder if they genuinely think it's better than it is, if they're lying to keep up an image of some sort, or if they're just ignorant of their own flaws.
It'd be nice to see them address the game's shortcomings so that I could at least have some confidence in them going forward, knowing that they know they messed up and need to make some changes
@@orange_turtle3412 The impression I get is that because Scott Cawthon has chosen them as his 'golden boys', and himself is quite...'no thoughts, head empty' about Steel Wool, they have gotten some level of ego over it. I can also see how they might fear if they admit they did not perform to the level they claim to have reached, it might cost them their opportunity to work with such a huge franchise.
It isn't a crime to make a mediocre game, but the way they cling to this strange wide-eyed obliviousness makes people feel a lot worse about them than if they just made a bad game and said 'yeah this wasn't our best'. I think a lot of folks would've been quite generous with them if they were more honest about its failings.
I feel like 10 years from now this game will be old enough for hobbyists to completely overhaul into a completely functional game PLUS reimplement all the cut content. We've seen it done before.
Maybe? The overhaul would be creating a brand new game from scratch, and that just wouldn't work with how the Pizzaplex is currently built. It might be possible with a huge team and several years, but no one would be dumb enough to go to that extent for free. Maybe someone will create their own game that's inspired but within a manageable scope and level. And the gameplay itself would need built from the ground up. Very little is salvageable.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudies"no one would be dumb enough to go to that extent for free" you underestimate the power of a fandom :')
This is already happening. A team are making Five Nights at Freddy’s Security Breach: Blast to the past, which is adding in a lot of cut content, new storyline stuff, overhauled graphics and UI, overhauled gameplay and more
@Owen01 I'd be curious as to how they handle it. I saw their teaser of the Daycare rework and it had some improvements but still some issues I noticed. But I don't think it's intended to be the full rework that the game requires.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiesYea this screams Cyberpunk. Game is fundamentally flawed from the complete ground up. Nothing short of a complete start from scratch could save SB.
I loved Phantom Liberty but people glaze and shill Cyberpunk as if it still isn't devoid of content and features for an RPG. Exact same issue as SB. Overscoped. Except CDPR actually has proper game devs so at least the main story missions are fantastic albiet devoid of any branching
If you're making a location in a horror game and saying "I wanna go there" you must have 0 idea of what your job is and what you're doing.
It feels like they misunderstood the trope where a scary attack happens in someone's cozy bedroom, or you visit a very elegant beautiful place but it's become all twisted and corrupted in creepy ways. The pleasant details can be a really clever way to make the horror stand out more, but these guys didn't know how to hit the balance.
Seen some people call this meanspirited, I mean i guess some points in the video with the meme clips could be considered that, but everything else, no. At some point you have to call Steelwool out for this shit and drag them a little bit. They got peoples money and put out a bad product, and then had the audacity to say they were content with the changes they made, when in reality they hardly made the game any better bug wise. It's laziness and lack of transparency
Dont forget, Steel Wool worked on DLC for Hello Neighbor 2, and those were somehow SO unfinished, even when comparative to the main game, even tiny build removed Steel Wool from the steam page for the game.
With this kinda history, I don't expect something good from SW at this point unless a major change occurs. Hopefully, they dont become another studio relying on producing slop for publisher write-offs.
That's very good to know! And quite incredible. I'll include that in a future video for sure, since I have more to mention about their past projects.
Yeah, they also worked on Hello Neighbor Search and Rescue, a VR game that was somewhat well recieved.
@@PsychoDarkLordthe VR Game was SOOO glitchy and confusing. I wonder how it went well received tbh
The Passion section was interesting because regardless of the type of person he is, Phisnom was cooking. Sws overplayed their hand because they got hype from Help Wanted.
I didnt like that Dawko was glazing so hard for SWS at that time, which im sure he felt he had to because he was so deep into the community.
I completely agree! I don't comment on Phisnom's character. He's just spot on with his Security Breach reality check.
Phisnom is the GOAT. All the other RUclipsrs have a financial stake in maintaining the facade of this franchise always being perfect because they have merch collabs with it. They are just shills at this point, sadly. The funny thing is they don't realize that ignoring the problems just means this series is gonna keep getting worse, they think ignoring the issues will help.
@@Korra228Phil might be a bit of a moron (I'll never forget his insanely stupid RoN take), but I'll give him this, he ain't no shill and he ain't afraid to speak his mind. There is something quite admirable about that, for better and for worse.
@@vinegar4556 RoN being?..
What is RoN?
I truly believe that the biggest problem with this game is its map size and all other problems would have disappeared if it weren't that big. It simply doesn't need to be this big at all.
And if they really needed to do an entire mall for it, they should have made it an actual mall and not this amphitheater - factory - studio amalgamation with Old Aperture - type underground section.
I think the gameplay is a big issue too, but the map is certainly the root cause. It's difficult to design gameplay and levels in a space that doesn't really support it. Thanks for watching! :)
That map is good, the style of gameplay they were going for is good. But neither of them work together. The map does the gameplay a disservice, and the gameplay does the map a disservice.
Hitman/PayDay style gameplay would fit the map beautifully. Amnesia/Bioshock style map design would fit the gameplay they tried to go for beautifully.
dude this is a DISASTER, how did steel wool even make the moderately competent help wanted games?? every part of security breach is completely wasted by these silly storytellers who couldn't tell a story in a game marketed for children.
They are a vr developer and then they decided to make a non vr game and had no experience with it and this was the result
To be fair, we currently know that Scott Cawthon did the opposite of helping them with the story, but the story they made is...still not great?
This is what happens when you have no central focus. This is what managers are for, getting everyone on the same page and reining everyone in *before* scope creep tears them all apart. I know we as a society fucking hate meetings but this game would have been a thousand times better if they all just sat down and had a meeting and got all their ducks in a row.
I don't like Security Breach, I never have and have always considered everything past UCN to be completely non-canon. But that doesn't mean Steel Wool are completely evil or incompetent for making it, this is just another Icarus situation. I don't know if you've ever met this kind of dreamer, but there's a lot of them out there, they have big ideas and big hopes and they believe if they work hard enough they can make something great, and then you toss ten of those dreamers in room together and try and get them to work and it just tears apart the project because they're all too passionate about making their vision. This almost always ends up with a project being abandoned or everyone getting so burnt out that they just half ass whatever's left and give up.
I don't know if I can make you agree, but to me Security Breach is a tragedy.
@@zlbproductions7340 Yeah i feel like it’s on both Scott for not communicating with Steel Wool telling them the story, and Steel Wool making the pizzaplex unnecessarily big with no purpose, while trying to make sense of things Scott told them to add with no context without stopping to ask what and why, it seems like Scott kinda hasn’t learned either from the release of Into the Pit, in Dawko’s interview he mentioned leaving Mega Cats to develop the game for 6 months before he checked in or they went to him with a game bigger than initially intended
Help wanted is an anthology of games that already existed that they didn’t make with any original content being minigames at best. Help Wanted 2 is entirely minigames. It feels like playing Mario Party in the mode that’s just the minigames, or WarioWare. VR has always been more of a gimmick than anything so it’s not surprising they don’t know how to make an actual full game.
1:43:46 In regards to that, FNAF 2 actually does have a second mechanic to use the cameras - in that flashing animatronics stuns them for a short period of time.
However, the problem with that mechanic is Scott barely even mentions it existing ingame. The only time this idea is referenced is during Night 2's call.
"Those older models would always get disoriented with bright lights. It would cause a system restart, or something. Uh, come to think of it, you might want to try that on any room where something undesirable might be. It might hold them in place for a few seconds. Uh, that glitch might have carried over to the newer models too."
Even if the player becomes aware of this mechanic, the Music Box becomes so polarizing in later nights, that (outside of special strategies like Minus 7), the player won't actually utilize or otherwise forget the mechanic exists.
I thought that was only for Foxy's mechanic?
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiesFoxy's mechanic is that you have to flash him in the hallway since the mask doesn't work on him, and flashing the lights sends him back. For the other withered animatronics, I believe it just stalls their movement, and they can be stalled in the cameras
@kwisowofer9872 That's really funny; I had no idea. There's so much to unpack with the past games haha.
@@kwisowofer9872 Interestingly enough, that's not quite the case either. Any withered animatronic gets stunned just by looking at them regardless if the lights are on or off on the camera, except Foxy. The toys require you to look at them AND turn on the light to get the stun. The stun is about 6 seconds for all of them where the animatronic will not attempt any movement opportunities even when they would normally.
Attempts to make runs of FNAF 2's Toy Bonnie mode less reliant on RNG focus heavily on this mechanic. There's some RUclips videos about it that prove to be quite interesting.
I still stand by my theory after all these years that the original concept for Security Breach was a completely open world where the player had 6 real time hours to defeat the Glamrock animatronics or survive until morning, Dead Rising style. This makes sense too when you consider all the "Walk to somewhere far away" objectives and that the average first playthrough for this game is charted at 5-8 hours, suggesting that the game's content was carefully crafted to be completeable in approximately 6 hours. There's a lot of cut content to support this but overall I think the biggest thing that supports my theory is just the massive scale of the Pizzaplex to begin with. It is unnecessarily huge unless the whole point of it is that it's so large that it takes a long time to traverse, putting pressure on the player's resource of time. Combine that with a lot of the cut mechanics and even a lot of the mechanics that actually shipped in the game (like security bot patrols and the security office challenges) and you can start to get this picture that Security Breach was dreamed up as a non-linear Metroidvania of a horror game that fell apart because of many of the factors you've outlined in your video.
Security Breach always felt like a game that choked to death on it's own ambition and it's nice to see this video dive into some of that.
I’m glad you mentioned Dead Rising because I was thinking about it as he discussed the Pizzaplex. Dead Rising has a similar setting, but it works so much better. For one, there’s dangerous enemies everywhere, so there’s no empty space. Or if there is empty space, it’s a relief for the player. There also so many stores, and you can interact with everything in them. It all has meaning. Even the fact that it’s a mall with a hundred small shops, as opposed to 7 or so massive areas, make it easier and more interesting to traverse. And on top of that, you had lots of side quests you could do, in addition to the main quest. You could do it however so long as you got the main stuff finished in however many days. Meanwhile, SB has this massive, lovingly crafted setting, but the game itself is quite railroady. I’m not opposed to a game shepherding a player through the story, but it makes the Pizzaplex seem even more excessive than it is
Anyway the game you’re talking about sounds pretty cool, that would’ve been better haha
33:53
Fun Fact: Spotlight Monty was supposed to get down and chase the player. But due to a bug, he was removed before release. His old AI can still be activated if you unload the Atrium, even by walking away
ruclips.net/video/omcuNAdjkpg/видео.html
Our boi Giga Monty
GIGA MONTY
As an aspiring dev slowly working on my very first game, this is honestly a great dissertation and example of all the stuff I should not do with my project
Same here.
I like that you're not letting Scott off the hook. He's 100% complicit in this. That being said, I think he sort of admitted the game is bad? In the interview he said that they WANTED to make a good product which implies he doesn't consider it a good product.
Maybe in a weirdly roundabout way? But the quote I used is pretty overwhelming and clear-cut, you know? Yeah he recognized it went wrong, but I got the impression he was more referring to the story and covid. He's just as willingly unaware as Steel Wool and it's definitely not okay :)
@DesignFrameCaseStudies you make a good point for sure. I think the #1 problem in the games and movie industries is megalomania. Everything has to be the biggest thing ever and cost hundreds of millions of dollars and also appeal to everyone which makes it appeal to no one.
I used to love the story of fnaf and was always excited to see what weird wacky place it'd go next. I didn't even mind the strange science fiction direction the series went in after Sister Location since I was mostly following the series for the camp that was treated overly seriously. Nothing about the nonsensical half assed attempt at re treading old stories going on in Security Breach captured my interest.
Even when the series went in a more high tech direction internal logic was kept. No super intelligent ai just possessed robots being the main thing that Security Breach completely ignored.
I can't even bring up the energy to care about the lore any more due to how badly Security Breach broke it. Even theories aren't fun anymore because (almost) every theory seems to be attempting to explain what tf happens in Security Breach. Learning that Scott didn’t communicate any of his ideas to Steel Wool was not surprising in the slightest.
Don't get me wrong the fnaf story was confusing long before this however even when it was confusing it was fun! Fnaf had a skelton that was up to the fans to build upon which is probably why fnaf ended up with such a vibrant creative fan base. There is nothing fun about speculating on a game without even a foundation of a story to go off of.
Ruins story was better but ANYTHING was better than what happened in Security Breach. Plus, if the main focus of a dlcs story is to retcon parts of the main game then you're probably doing something wrong.
It just got to overly complicated and not in a fun metal gear solid type way where that's part of the charm it just became a chore to put together
SB fan theories suck because the only thing worth theorizing about in SB is how tf SB even connects to the rest of the FNAF franchise in a cohesive or engaging way.
1:42:15 I appreciate Siege being brought up, because that was the exact game I had in mind. To add to this, Siege's camera systems also include a ghostly view of your own character, it can be seen at any distance no matter where you are in the map, even for someone picking the game for the first time, it is fairly intuitive and easy to find oneself thanks to it.
Ah, crap, I would've brought that up if I played it again and noticed! I like Siege but didn't have time to play it again to record footage. Thanks for bringing that up!
Seeing the Markiplier clips in the "it's tough to look backwards" part was really painful for me. Having watched all of the fun he'd had with the other games, even when they stopped to slap his nuts, and then watching him get angrier and angrier with SB and having less fun was just... profoundly unenjoyable.
didn't mark say in a past video that even if he didn't at the time he now looks back fondly at SB
It's so weird... I feel like Steel Wool almost completely won over the love of the FNAF fanbase with FNAF vr...
Then abandoned them when making Security Breach. In the process however, they found a whole new fanbase in the form of speedrunners and people who loved the open world style.
And now they've completely abandoned that fanbase as well... No shame of course for them wanting to branch out and try different styles, but I feel like the only thing holding the community together between these three Steel Wool games is the funny bear man
I gotta be real with myself,I will probably never play any game in the franchise,but I will still devour this 2 hour essay as I have gotten more enjoyment from fnaf lore theories and game analysis than I think I could have ever gained actually playing the games.
I totally agree. FNaF is entertaining to watch other people play haha!
Thank you so much for the support! :)
Play FNAF World! It's super easy and feels like a love letter to the fans who cheer from the sidelines.
You should play the ones Scott made. Most of them are great.
@@Korra228Don't forget into the pit and The joy of creation remake (when it comes out). Their good too.
Honestly that's what the entire fan base does never actually play the games and just watches Markiplier play them
EDITED.
something that isn't talked nearly enough about since the fanbase is 95% casuals and kids are the technical aspects of the game. it's terrible. just terrible. they're completely incompetent.
1. you can't choose resolutions above 1440p when set to fullscreen.
workaround: set to borderless fullscreen. the game will set itself to the windows resolution...but still won't show the correct resolution in the settings menu.
2. raytracing is unplayable on a 4090. fps are below 20fps and even below 10fps no matter the resolution. they didn't even try fixing the implementation.
workaround: use dlss. duh.
3. the game either doesn't use or uses a very bad raytracing denoiser. the noise burns your eyes out.
workaround: use dlss as a makeshift denoiser.
4. despite me mailing them multiple times they still didn't fix the broken dlss implementation. the settings are mismatched and i found that out via noticing strange fps and then proving my suspicion via checking nvidia's dlss indicator overlay.
workaround: choosing dlss balanced gives you dlss quality. performance and quality give you balanced and the performance setting doesn't exist in the game.
5. they never updated the stoneage dlss dll.
workaround: do it manually.
EDIT: 6: the game has fps black holes. looking at and/or standing in front of specific things makes the fps fall off a cliff and the frametimes graph freak out.
workaround: looking/going away fixes the fps. a good example for this is the broken bot at the start of ruin giving you the flashlight.
i also dmed you the list on twitter.
I thought I already replied but not sure what happened to it. I'm planning on mentioning a couple technical stuff next video, so I may use your comment as well! The Ruin frame black hole is also interesting. I'd like to mention that in the Ruin video I think. It's very strange...
@DesignFrameCaseStudies i deleted the old comment and reposted the edited one. were you able to reproduce one of those fps black holes? if yes, did you also see the frametime graph freaking out? for example via msi afterburner's overlay.
@@roflcopter3625 I haven't tried yet. I'll try it as soon as I record more Ruin stuff. It'd be a good idea if I tracked the frames of a game that didn't do that as well, for comparison. I think that'd be interesting.
Thing is, the characters roaming the pizzaplex with increasingly more dificult mechanics as they get damaged, as you use some tools, limited battery freddy and the Faz cameras sounds amazing
But the pizzaplex is so big you would never encounter them... So they added the teleport, rendering the cameras inconsequential, thats why noone uses them
In conclusion, this game would honestly be incredible if the pizzaplex was smaller, no need to teleport, the pathfinding would have a much easier time to navigate, you would even encounter Vanny (yes, she roams the pizzaplex too)
Imagine just a (much) smaller hub, a character specific area to introduce new mechanics that the character can usilize, and you too (kitchen for chica, use pizzas and staffbots; monty golf for Monty, the croc distractiona, walkways monty can hop between but not you, and so on)
Then after each area, their mechanics change, Monty is more agressive and smaller, harder to track, maybe can crawl on small places like you, Chica is harder to hear and locate cuz of her voice, maybe doesnt get distracted as easier, and Roxy is blind, easier to distract but more agressive and cant be stunned
Staffbots could just allert the animatronics instead of teleporting
I think Steel Wool needs to be told that while there are artists in game development, they're very different to artists in say the movie industry. Or even the illustration industry.
Its not a one size fits all. Case and point.
Because artists do play a role in good gameplay and level design.
But you need to think very differently to making a background for a movie.
And that mindset shift just isnt there. It shows. And it does such a disservice to the artist that help make games what they are
i never understood how the fnaf fandom at large seemed to gaslight itself into thinking this game was good
They want to feel part of a community, so they gas up SW and Scott so hard that the entire franchise becomes delusional and unable to grow past SW and Scott's incompetence. At least, that's the best explanation so far...
100% true
@@HallowzDev I'm more annoyed at those who say that since Security Breach was bad, the entire franchise was doomed for all eternity. I think that's kind of petty when I view it though, just because one bad game was bad doesn't mean that the whole entire franchise was done.
Did Dreamworks go downhill after Shark Tale? No, did Disney go downhill after Chicken Little? No, did the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise go downhill after FNAF World? No, it picked up again.
In this period when Security Breach was released, we just went through another FNAF World where some people hated it and some people disliked it and in my opinion the series picked up again (not as good as it was when Scott was making the games of course but it's still better than what it was around Security Breaches time).
Just because Steel Wool fumbled on Security Breach doesn't mean the franchise was doomed altogether, in fact I would actually say that got better with RUIN (though RUIN was kind of mid) but it was still better than the base game in some aspects and I actually like Help Wanted 2.
@FiremanSamBoy2008 Only one problem with the fnaf world and security breach comparison.
Fnaf world was advertised as a fun little RPG from the start. And when it had all the critical feedback, Scott took it down from steam, reworked on it and rereleased it for free. Scott even acknowledged the poor reception of the game.
Security Breach on the other hand, was advertised as a triple A HORROR game, and it failed miserably. And even now, it has not improved. It also costs money, for a horrible game. And the worst part of all of this is that SW does not acknowledge the poor reception of the game.
But your point about people thinking fnaf is ruined just because of security breach, yeah I kinda agree. I do think it is improving with into the pit, help Wanted 2 and Tjoc remake. I think we should wait to see how they handle the second movie, Secret of the Mimic and DBD collab before we decide if things are truly as bad as people think.
@FiremanSamBoy2008
I agree with everything you said (especially on ruin being mid)
"We handed the overhead to our set guys, and they turned a two story building into a three story building...so we decided to just fill it with more stuff."
This was the first mistake. Any self-respecting director/writer/artist of any caliber would have gone back to the set designers and said, "Hey, guys, you misunderstood our layout. The building is two stories, not three." The fact that they saw the mistake, recognized that it was a mistake, and decided it was an excuse to create nonsense for the sake of it, demonstrates the lack of control over the project. There's turning lemons into lemonade, and then there's making a mess.
The subtle Fuhnaff shade lmfao
Fr- What did bro do to deserve that 💀
Fantastic investigative piece. I felt I had to comment just to respectfully disagree with a few comments I saw saying the tone of your video was too mean spirited and/or condescending. Respect does not mean speaking softly and comfortingly like teaching a child. These are grown professionals that were handed one of the most profitable IPs of our time, put out a completely unacceptable product and are in full blown denial of it. CD Projekt Red had a full blown campaign launched against them for Cyberpunk 2077. I do not think large parts of that backlash were constructive in the slightest but CDR learned something, patched the hell of the game, then came back with an amazing piece of DLC. That shows what can happens when fans push studios to acknowledge and reflect on their mistakes. I understand that the tone of this video might be too much for some but I just wanted to throw my two cents out and say it was perfect. The Fnaf community seems so creepily insular and cliquey. This blunt honestly is desperately needed in my view.
Thank you so much! I personally think you're spot on. I really appreciate it :)
I don't think anyone is suggesting that he's being disrespectful or condescending, more than some parts of this video are reminiscent of that old RUclips rant review style which can detract from the actual criticism. It's a fine line to walk.
As one of the people who made one of those comments, I don't care about being disrespectful, I've never played a FNaF game and have no connection to the franchise, and I'll gladly admit it's fun to see someone dunk on an awful bit of media.
My concern is that it gives incredibly mixed signals a) tear apart a game and it's devs but also b) have a disclaimer saying all of this is just for the benefit of the devs and c) promote a games consultancy service alongside it
If the point of the video is to be a case study, I would expect to see discussion of both good and bad parts of the game (as far as I can tell the only positive mentioned was SW's passion for the game, nothing about a mechanic or design element they liked). If the video is specifically about scope creep, I would expect it to be far more trimmed down and structured around that. If it's about the bugs, sure, just focus on those. If it's about their games consultancy skills, tell me _how you_ would fix an issue, not just that it exists, I read their website and it explicitly stated on it "we don't think there's such a thing as a bad mechanic", but the video is just criticism of the negatives without any of that positivity or empathy they suggest elsewhere.
My issue isn't _just_ that it's a mean video, my issue is that it's a _pointlessly_ negative video, that seems to want to promote positive aspects in game design, yet doesn't take any steps in that direction.
As stated before, I'm not a FNaF fan, and I've actually really enjoyed previous design frame videos (I've been subscribed since the original SB video and greatly enjoyed the cuphead ones), this isn't me trying to defend anything. I also don't think this video is awful, it makes some genuinely great points about design scope and knowing your limits. I just think the tone of the video is at serious odds with both its stated goal and previous works on the channel.
Thank you for mentioning Cyberpunk 2077's launch against SB's. It was FASCINATING being a fan of both IPs during each launch- the fandoms behaved completely differently, and SB was just as broken and unplayable as Cyberpunk. It was like talking to a brick wall on either side when trying to either preach that CDPR *was getting better* and cyberpunk was playable now, or that Steel Wool was behaving inexcusably in the face of just how broken their game was.
The game is so broken that the "glitchless" category for speedruns doesn't exist. It's called "skipless"
At some point, game designers and players both have managed to convince themselves that an Open World's value is primarily its size. Just the sheer vastness of the space you're allowed to wander and the scenery you can see. Players have realized there's more to it than that, but I feel like devs have forgotten there's more to it than just size and things to look at. I feel like devs are prone to use an open world improperly now more than ever. Security Breach is just one example of a sadly growing list.
30:48 I so wish Pizzaplex was more like this. Realistically functional as an in-universe attraction
The design of the place was so bullshit that people theorized that the events of the story HAD to be distorted by Gregory's childhood perception.
Edit: WAIT *FOUR* MOUTHS BEFORE RELEASE!???? WTF????
Security Breach was the Sonic 06 of its year. The current sonic team suffers from a lot of the same managerial issues of Steel Wool Studios and you can see how it ends up in Sonic Frontiers when they try new concepts. Security Breach was a failure in so many ways that it cannot be fixed. It needs a full on redesign from scratch to end product.
Im very shocked u didnt mention vanny's "boss fight" during thee patch segment. I still cant believe on release they had a "boss fight" where the "boss" wouldnt spawn but it didnt stop progression so people didnt even realize she was supposed to be there
Honestly I'm impressed. You come across not just as someone with great expertise in game design, but also an empathetic human, genuinely caring for the franchise and the people involved. I also can't not notice how nice you're being to the people commenting. Keep doing whatever this is. Love from Russia
I still regularly reference "NOOOO not the cactus", so I think that counts as an iconic channel moment
@@gavinislightning Ah, good one! 😂
I loved security breach solely because of how much love and passion steel wool had for this, they just couldn’t do what they wanted to. Over ambition with too big of a scope. The pizzaplex is a phenomenal location with so much love and care but they couldn’t do it. It just makes me upset when some people just shit on steel wool like they had no love because this game just BLEEDS passion. Also glad you used a lot of clips from Phil’s playthrough because this game started a domino effect that led to him losing his job for the fanverse initiative
Yeah, that's why I wanted to mention their passion, since at the same time, there's evidence pointing to a lack of care and laziness. It's a strange dichotomy. There's just so much wrong that it's overwhelming. Their passion can be seen, but it's covered up by mounds of their own doing. Any true leader who's a bit familiar with media projects would've seen it coming a mile away.
I agree that they worked too hard on the wrong things
Feels weird for me, when the gameplay experience is awful and the plot is shallow, and I look around and see all of the detail that's behind the Pizzaplex, I get mad because the atention to detail is in the wrong place
Which one is phil?
@@LanaLlama20 Phisnom
Phil didn't lose his job because of security breach
He lost it because he mishandled drama
Steel Wool doesn't seem to realize we're not laughing with them, we're laughing at them.
This truly is the Morbius of video games
The big takeaway I'm getting from this boils down to the joke "how many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? One, but the lightbulb has to want to change"
Until Steel Wool recognizes the issues with the games they've created, I firmly believe nothing will change, as sad to say as that is.
The "am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong!" shtick is EXACTLY what doomed Concord, and I can only pray Steel Wool can take a step back and look at themselves in the mirror before they suffer the same fate as Firewalk.
I'm more annoyed at those who say that since Security Breach was bad, the entire franchise was doomed for all eternity. I think that's kind of petty when I view it though, just because one bad game was bad doesn't mean that the whole entire franchise was done.
Did Dreamworks go downhill after Shark Tale? No, did Disney go downhill after Chicken Little? No, did the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise go downhill after FNAF World? No, it picked up again.
In this period when Security Breach was released, we just went through another FNAF World where some people hated it and some people disliked it and in my opinion the series picked up again (not as good as it was when Scott was making the games of course but it's still better than what it was around Security Breaches time).
Just because Steel Wool fumbled on Security Breach doesn't mean the franchise was doomed altogether, in fact I would actually say that got better with RUIN (though RUIN was kind of mid) but it was still better than the base game in some aspects and I actually like Help Wanted 2.
@FiremanSamBoy2008
Are you a bot or something
Honestly for some reason I feel like Ruin and base SB shouldn't have been 2 separate parts, but one whole game in its entirety. Imagine the game starting with this glamorous and shiny pizzaplex that falls to literal ruin as the story progresses, turning from an exploration-like gameplay loop into a more linear experience as the pizzaplex gets destroyed by the end of it?
That'd be a cool way to dynamically change the environment, if the Pizzaplex was so much smaller haha 😄
Not even the animatronics like walking around the atrium
🤣
42:44 With the power of Remenant, it would seem one of Steelwools few playtesters have been trapped inside the game as Gregory.
Duuude I literally rewatched your sb analysis like yesterday and now I see this! You really make great videos. Keep it up!
Thank you for the support! Enjoy! :)
Something I fear when getting ambitious ideas, is building big, empty, boring worlds. Clearly they didn't fear that enough...
I feel like a big reason steel wool didn’t take accountability for security breach was because the community didn’t criticize it enough. It’s insane how the FNAF community is an echo chamber that is pleased with everything put out no matter its issues (security breach, ruin, the movie.) Like the whole reason the first game was made was because Scott was criticized for his children’s games looking too scary and horrifying. Thank you for making this video, it is such a breath of fresh air.
Learning that the main 3 creative/executive leads are animation people (and mainly lighting/vfx) instantly made the break down that happened click for me. As much as the heads of sw worked at pixar or are good enough animators to get hired right out of school, at the end of the day they arent story people and as such they arent going to be using gameplay to push story either. The fetch quest after fetch quest gameplay totally makes sense to me now because thats the easiest to write when you arent a story person/have very little experience writing story for game.
Like, not to knock down any of the extremely skilled lighting and vfx people but theres a reason that storyboard artists and writers are typically promoted to director/creative lead/head of story roles on animation projects and not vfx people. The mode of thinking is completely different from one another which is why you get this gorgeous environment (when it loads properly lol) with very little substance. The leads at sw focus is on the glitz and the glamour and not necessarily the gameplay (and by extension story) of the project because its literally NOT IN THEIR TRAINING.
The fact that they DIDNT bring in anyone with actual game dev experience is baffling but it lines up what you said about how the people at sw are unable to acknowledge their own shortcomings. It was honestly going to be a disaster the moment "open world exploration" was put into any of their heads cuz to me it sounds as if the team only ever yes and'd everyones ideas
100% spot on! Very good insight here. Thank you for watching and the support! :)
"we are generally content with the game as it currently stands" reminds me of the all time classic DBD developer line "i think we did a pretty good job, so far."
Security Breach is this generation's Sonic 06
Not gonna lie, I always thought they should've taken more inspiration from Alien: Isolation than just the save stations and other miscellaneous stuff, like a more unpredictable AI, for example. Obviously, you don't have to reach the complexity of the Xenomorph to be engaging and threatening, but at least to where you're genuinely on edge throughout the game, Monty is like the only enemy in the game where I'm like, "Oh shit," because not only can he not be impeded by anything you throw at him, he also runs faster than you as well, which incentivizes stealth to get by.
Right now, the game feels like Alien: Isolation Lite, especially since there's little to no tension aside from the genuinely scary chase music and the thumping footsteps of the animatronics behind you. With RUIN, I admittedly didn't bother completing it, because 1) slower movement speed and 2) the even more scripted-ness and linearity of it all meant fewer opportunities to get random enemy encounters and use strategy to win. Currently, I'm trying to make a mod for base SB that allows the AI to have actual unpredictable roaming instead of being tethered to simple and small patrol points, only deviating from them if they either see you or are checking a hiding spot. Perhaps I'll include it with that Harder AI mod I made one time ago.
Same! The entire time I was playing sb or even ruin there was this constant thought in the back of my mind that 'they really should have heard about alien isolation'. I LOVE that game. It's also a small indie team taking on the lineage of a hugely famous and beloved franchise in a free roam horror game, but AI is just phenomenal on every level.
If Scott had given security breach to Creative Assembly we would have had an infinitely better game on every level. It was exactly what he was looking for. I don't know if you can find a better match up in terms of past projects. And it's a crying shame he didn't choose them.
I often refer to security breach as 'baby's first horror game' because that's exactly what it is. It has the vaguest, most sanitised allusion to the genre and utilises the most well known mechanics without containing any of the actual discomfort. It's horrors pg tutorial.
An upgraded ai would do wonders for the situation XD.
It's funny how all the animatronics can teleport behind you, all of them... Except freddy
37:30 On the Phisnom section, is that the Transistor soundtrack I'm hearing? I may be wrong, but it sounds so much like it. I adore Supergiants' music, and the Transistor soundtrack has a dear place in my heart.
Yep! One of my favorite games :)
@@DesignFrameCaseStudies If I have to guess, It's Signals? It's a song about hopelessness in a situation, no matter what youdo
@@Max128ping I didn't pay mind to the lyrics but that's sort of fitting, ain't it? lol (But not really, the situation could have been managed). But I use many tracks from Transistor. I can put the specific ones used in the description if requested.
the craziest part to me is the fact the game has positive reviews on steam, and people on the steam forums and reddit will constantly defend this game... some even say theyve "replayed the game multiple times".... do those people have brains?
Nope!
@@DesignFrameCaseStudies what happened to people are aloud to enjoy things and are more than welcome to state there reasons why?
@@TiredMoonRabbit There's a difference between having personal preference and objective truth.
I personally like the Glamrocks and Sun and Moon. But that doesn't mean the game is good. And it's not. The game is objectively terrible. The problem isn't people liking the game. It's them giving a obviously horrible game good ratings just because they personally had a good time with it.
To simply put, You can like the game, just remember that the game is absolutely terrible therefore you need to give it it's well deserved criticism and not just blind positive feedback.
@HasibHasan-q8y they do give it criticism, all the time, they state their personal feelings while also acknowledging the flaws that it has functionally.
@@TiredMoonRabbit Yeah, but the overwhelming amount of people gave it positive reviews, even though the game is clearly far from being good. There's nothing wrong with having personal preference, but you can't just give it a thumbs up since the game is just not good. It fails as horror game, it's buggy as fuck, The story isn't great (heck the story might not even been there to begin with, given the new interview with Scott). You can't just sweep all of that under the rug based on personal preference.
Steel Wool reminds me of, like, a shoenen anime protagonist trying to defeat the main villain in episode three using the power of friendship and passion when what they need is a season long training arc where they learn how to actually do anything
I love this analogy!
I honestly think Scott and Steel Wool are lying about how they feel about Security Breach. All the stuttering they make and the made up words feels like they’re frantically trying to come up with a good lie and not admit that the game is a disaster to the public, because as broken as Security Breach is, it was a financial hit.
@@ItsMemeTimeBoi I kinda felt that at first, but there's just too much evidence for a lack of awareness or experience or ability to discern pretty much anything. The fact that Scott even said how lucky he was and how they didn't botch anything is incredible, and Jason's quote on not wanting to change anything feels like saving face, but it also feels so genuine. His answer gives me the feeling that he's not even capable of discerning the truth. It really boggles my mind.
@ I really hope that Secret Of The Mimic has a coherent narrative and good gameplay, I really don’t want to see this franchise crumble, I loved this franchise since 2014 and I don’t want too see it end like this. I doubt the gameplay will be bad, given the fact it’s a VR game which is Steel Wool’s strong suite, but I really REALLY hope the story is good, I doubt it tho 😭😭😭
Also, I kinda wish FNAF stays as like 2D games, point and click teams, and VR games, like smaller scale games. I don’t want FNAF to have big open worlds ever again unless it’s The Joy Of Creation, because when you look at Scott’s catalogue of games and his story, as well as Steel Wool’s catalogue of games, it’s enough to realize that a non Vr free roam game made by Scott and Steel Wool will not work in the slightest. It’s like the equivalent of a middle schooler trying to do calculus.
Also, Secret of the Mimic will support flat mode on release... so I'm gonna expect the game to hold up as a standard non-VR game haha
I can believe that Scott wouldn’t recognize the flaws. His own games mostly only succeed in atmosphere or aesthetics, if even that. He doesn’t strike me as the type to play many games to develop standards with, either.
What bothers me about the Pizzaplex size is also the fact that it must be SO EXPENSIVE to build and maintain a place like that, Disneyworld levels of expensive. Yet it exists in the FNAF universe, somehow. Somehow, a pizzeria brand gathered enough money throughout the years to build a place like that, and its just too ambitious and expensive to be believable in a lore kind of way. All the space it takes, all the construction funds, all the food expenses, staff bots, energy consumption the whole place must require, I just don't buy it. An Amusement Park would be more believable than what the Pizzaplex is. I'm convinced they just wanted to make something grand and impressive to the eyes while paying very little attention to logic or if it made sense to the FNAF lore.
I can even give Scott and Steel Wool a pass to the "extremely advanced AI" Animatronics because it's been already established in the FNAF universe that technology is way more advanced than in the real world, but I drew the line with the Pizzaplex. It's just too unbelievable. They should have scaled it down imo
But as you've shown in the video they were thinking too big and didn't give enough care to what was supposed to make sense, logistics and all of that.
the pizzaplex really reminds me of those super elaborate entertainment venues from the 90's, like Disney quest and the Sega arcades. Those went out business due to many of the issues you brought up (and also because of fast technological progress quickly outdating the attractions offered by them. But thats besides the point.).
Even then, the pizzaplex somehow feels way too big even for that kind of place!
I can agree with that. Hell in my fnaf au I replaced the mall with a indoors theme park called fazbear’s fantasy land
Yeah, especially considering Fazbear Entertainment _went out of business_ at the end of Pizzeria Simulator.
@@SevKast_7 I actually think that was part of the intended vibe. The Pizzaplex, the animatronics, everything about the world of FNAF SB is highly exaggerated, unbelievably over-the-top, absurdly hubristic, and _stupidly_ 80's-90's. The game definitely acknowledges how silly it is sometimes. That's where a lot of the comedy comes from. Essentially, I think you're supposed to find the Pizzaplex unrealistic, you're just supposed to accept it as How The World Is in this universe.
Of course, the problem is that that tone and vibe doesn't fit in at _all_ with what was established earlier in the series. The Freddy Fazbear's Pizza established in games 1-3 and Pizza Sim (not Sister Location) is pretty grounded. The restaurants feel like something that could reasonably exist in a random population-100k town or two. Something that could be famous enough to become a successful regional chain, but still probably not enough to be known more than a state away. Certainly not enough to open a Mega Pizzaplex.
If SB was a reboot or a separate canon, I don't think it would be as big an issue. The game would just take place in a world that has insane future technology, but the aesthetics and entertainment sensibilities of the 1990's. Like Fallout and the 50's. But in trying to insist that SB exists in not _only_ the same world as the FNAF 1 restaurant, but as a _direct continuation_ of the FNAF 1 brand (and it got there in only like a decade??), the game kind of ends up shooting its atmosphere in the foot. The game wants players to just be along for the ride, but the players are busy asking how it is they got here.
>they seemingly didn't anticipate how broken the game would be on release
And this, kids, is what the QA department of competent studios gets paid for.
Adding to the camera system point: Why in the nine hells would I try to keep tabs on enemy positions via cameras? To move when said enemies won't notice me? Yeah, that's a good strategy in a game where they don't instantly teleport right into my face every three seconds.
Yeah, they completely botched the cameras. They should have kept the animatronics silent and tracked through the building in real time so you’d never know if they were in the area you were about to enter. You’d have to scout it out beforehand and plan your route according to where the threats are
The thing is, people say that they can see the passion that went into security breach even if nothing else did, it looking good proving that they did care about it, but I find that hard to believe.
It's infuriating that they say they're proud and passionate, but I can't believe any research or inspiration was done that sw could have implemented themselves. No reference is ever made to taking the time to actually understand what they had agreed to take on. No mention of the other games that inspired them, nothing they wanted to replicate. So I can't believe that this is something that they cared about beyond the most superficial, surface level glitter and glamour. Security breach *looks* amazing but there's no substance.
They made no move to better themselves. They shouldn't have accepted the project to begin with. They've heard no criticism, accepted no fault, cared nothing for all the hate and frustration directed at their supposed star project they've poured their hearts and souls into. It's almost like they don't actually care about the game. I'd say they don't. And they didn't care when they took it on. All they've done is sat patting themselves on the back and surrounding themselves with yes men.
I think security breach was only made for its label, its prestige of being a fnaf title. They didn't actually care about fnaf, about the game, about the fans. They wanted that prestige, the fame and money it brought. Looking at the interviews, the way they're contrasted with quotes from other, more successful dev leaders, it becomes pretty clear.
All sw wants is the fame and fortune, and making a fnaf title was their key. Security breach was made for the money it brought in and nothing else. It was as much a scam as that candy land nft. And just like that nft, it would have been something infinitely better if they'd taken it seriously.
I think that was why they allowed, even encouraged the scale creep from the very start. Because if this was going to be pure appearance and nothing else, then it was going to be the best and most overwhelming appearance possible, and if it hooked fans on the idea of what it could have been? Even better.
This game could have gone to the creators of alien isolation, Creative Assembly. A similar smaller indie dev team who'd previously taken on the full lineage of a famous and beloved franchise full of die hard fans and turned it into a free roam horror game. Only they blew it out of the park. There could not have been a better match, better credentials for a free roaming fnaf game. Alien isolation is one of my favourite games, and it's been picked apart and analysed to death for a decade and it holds up amazingly!
Alien isolation was genuinely a passion project. The aesthetics were incredible, the story was solid, the pacing was incredible, they even had wandering robots in the halls that could alert the alien to your location by making noise, it solved all the problems sb fell over itself to make anew and worse!
The differences between the self aggrandised burning mess of sb and the finely tuned machine of ai just makes it even more clear - this was never a project they cared about. They didn't even try.
I don't think this is necessarily true, BUT it's the most likely explanation given the evidence. And that's very concerning and why I felt this video needed to be released. Thanks for sharing :)
The most shocking thing about this game is the sea of positive reviews on steam. Did we play the same game???
basically toxic positivity
honestly, this video made me realize just how long it has been since we had an actual proper fnaf game that lasted 5 or a bit more nights and had actual office survival gameplay, its been 6 entire years since UCN came out, 6 entire years since we got an actual proper fnaf game, that is crazy
Yeah, one would think Scott would at least hire folks to create actual FNaF games haha
Which proves that the series should have ended at UCN. Everything that came after should have just been non-canon/a what-if. I barely care about the lore post-Security Breach because it feels like Scott just pulled the rug from under us. FFPS + UCN was supposed to be the end of the story. An admittedly messy, confusing story, with somewhat shallow characters, but an end nonetheless. SB just kind of ruins that (heh)
2:12:00 There's also just, absolutely no point in Alien:Isolation where the game expects you to go on hours without a save. 20-30 minutes sure, which I think is perfectly reasonable.
20-30 is excessive, but I don't think Alien has you going that long without a save thankfully haha. Even if the manual saves serve a purpose, it's still difficult to really nail the right pacing and feeling behind it.
For some reason my comment got deleted and I cannot be bothered trying to re-type it again word for word by memory.
Basically, Steel Wool really out here praising themselves on the very thing that ruined them in Security Breach - the map size. And they really are completely lacking any self-awareness by doing that.
After all, had they made a more polished experience on a smaller map their game wouldnt have been anywhere near so disatrous,
it's infuriating how much they lack perspective!
Great video.
For sure! Thanks for the comment! Sometimes YT deletes comments for no reason from its bad bot filter. Might sometimes be the length. I don't know; I have no control over it, unfortunately. It doesn't show up in the backend for me either.
@@DesignFrameCaseStudiesit seems like Steel Wool and RUclips both have a thing for incompetent product design and zero care for user feedback lmao.
Even as I am writing this comment I am experiencing more incompetence from RUclips as on mobile I cannot pause the video without having to discard my comment and I cant think straight because of your commentary overlapping my internal monologue 😂.
The story is still the thing that gets me the most about this game. (Aside from Gregory’s voice acting.) FNAF games always leave you with questions, but unles you are deep theorizing for the fun of it, it gives you enough answers so that you’re satisfied. Scott’s storytelling is completely off the wall, but he knows how to end a game. This is most evident with Pizzeria Simulator, which has an ending that still gives me, a pretty casual fan with basic understanding of the lore, chills every single time. I saw that ending and had no more questions, even if l didn’t have all the answers. It all burned to the ground. I was satisfied.
SB just doesn’t… present itself the way the other games do. There’s so much voice acting, so much happening, so many places to hide. Which is fine, but if you’re gonna change the way the story’s presented, you can’t expect the same leniency when it comes to narrative satisfaction. Why is Gregory there? Did they explain why Freddy wasn’t affected by the virus, or why he malfunctioned in the opening cutscene? (I know they’re related but I don’t know HOW) Does Gregory know that Vanessa is possessed and that’s why he doesn’t trust her, and if so, how does he know that? From my recollection (and it has been awhile), none of thee questions get answered. Gregory yaps so much you’d think he’d at least answer one on accident, but no.
Sorry, haven’t gotten to flex my narrative design muscles much since college lol
Spot on :)
I will never understand how Scott was like "I love FNAF, I am very careful with the reputation of this franchise and I will trust only the best people to develop the next game" and then trusted development of the next games to some unknown studio that previously did only VR games. WTF?
I think I know his thinking behind it: “I was an unknown game developer, and this is my franchise. I can’t trust a larger company with my franchise, they’ll take it take out of my creative grasp. Thus I’ll entrust my franchise on this indie game development company, it’ll lift them up from being unknown, like how FNaF did for me.”
That’s probably what he was thinking and not “what is this company’s expertise?”
i honestly havent really seen other people *talking* about how severe the scope creep of Security Breach was, so thank you for this.
I remember picking up on it through how the developers talked in their interviews before launch, they were so blissfully unaware of how bad what they were sayin sounded. And I was just hopeful that they weren't being as disorganized as their words came off... But then the game came out and the rest was history. sigh. Honestly I like the set design I like some of the character design, the therapist CDs were the main part of any lore in this that actually caught my interest... but it really didn't work as a game. There were too many important pieces missing with pretty flourishes shoved in to make it seem like there was no issue.
Yeah I totally agree! I feel like the comments Scott made about security breach were really telling to the state in which we got security breach. It’s clear that steel wool got over ambitious with this game and crammed content that didn’t really help with their development
Your channel is a gem. You’re dissecting games in a manner I don’t really see much on RUclips. This is something that really interests me. I like that you go into the game design and also dive into the possible mindset and attitude that goes on deeper in the developer’s minds behind these decisions. Game developer or not, I’m sure we can take something away from these tales as lessons for our personal lives
Thank you so much! It means a lot to hear that you value this channel. I'm very excited for the projects I have lined up :)
@@DesignFrameCaseStudieslooking forward to it! You also happen to cover a lot of more niche games I care about.
I’ve watched your Luigi’s Mansion video already. And I think your thoughts on the common ghost battles in 3 lacking depth is pretty interesting! I’ve always felt that the fighting in 3 felt the least satisfying in the whole series but couldn’t put it into words why.
Looking forward to your cuphead DLC analysis video too (genuinely super excited). I think I’ll watch it once I’m done playing through base game cuphead and dlc. I’m playing it with a friend. So far I barely have any idea of what the DLC is like so I think experiencing it first hand and then hearing your thoughts will be super fun!
Really glad I ended up somehow coming across this channel
Much love
@@cuber759 ❤️
Since they mentioned Alien Isolation, there's an interesting comparison you should touch on at some point. Cause Alien Isolation was made by Creative Assembly, a game studio known more for the Total War series, which are strategy games. Alien Isolation was them switching it up from their usual mold, not unlike Steel Wool and SB. Yet unlike SW, CA was able to make a better game. Could be something to explore.
I think my overall thoughts on this game can be best summarized by a certain review about another broken game from 2006:
“I didn’t want to hate this game. I have no ill will towards the people responsible for making it. The people over there have made some great content, and I can’t imagine the pressure one would feel trying to make a game as big and as ambitious as it tried to be. Still, I had to play this game. It was SOUL CRUSHING.”
Maybe I’m being too charitable in my outlook, but I can’t bring myself to even really be angry with Steel Wool. Maybe that’s because of my two years in game design that taught me a lot about the dangers of death by ambition without the experience or skill to back it up which makes it a bit more empathetic for whatever reason, or the fact that I’ve had a project of my own back during those classes which resulted in scope creep, albeit not to this extreme. (Of course, this doesn’t excuse the outright neglect of common, basic game design principles.)
Regardless, I’m just left disappointed and wondering what could’ve been under a smaller, more focused vision where scope creep didn’t bloat the game into a broken, unstable disaster.
Dang, it's been YEARS since I've watched those videos, and I could still hear that quote loud and clear in my head when I read that. Probably what got me into watching these kinds of deep analyses on how and why certain games were designed poorly
just from your pfp alone, I know exactly what you are talking about.
I love how their way of making the game more difficult was adding the incapability to save instead of adding more random patrol points. I don't know game development but I can't imagine it would have been that much harder to add more patrol points and randomise their spawns whenever an area is loaded. Not to mention the game is its hardest during the 12am it actually gets easier the further you progress.
With RUIN they made the game as linear as possible and took out pretty much every bit of open area. Instead of directing the player more.
Also I think a lot of people became lost in Security Breach because the gameplay pretty much changes without any explanation. Previously the game was tying you down to a specific path at 4am it removes that and throws you into the entire pizza plex. This is the point in game were many people stoppped playing the game. If the game had started with no sense of direction this would have been okay but you can't just change the gameplay like that and expect people to play along.
The talk about reputation is so true! And I can look at the Sonic games as a perfect example. I'm saying this as a Sonic fan, but after the disaster of Sonic 06, the reputation of the series hit rock bottom, and that severe damage affected the series as a whole.
We can see how people just made fun of every game from that moment on and so many people considered every game bad or at least flawed (sometimes unfairly, but still).
Nowdays the series is more stable, and people are looking back at the games and changing their minds, and other people besides fans start giving the games another chance. But we can see it took YEARS for this to happen again, and it's a shame fnaf may go to that direction if things don't change soon.
Thank you so much for bringing up motion tracker from alien isolation. Besides what you said, it even subtly hints the direction where you're supposed to go with line at the border, so that you don't have to look at the map a single time to figure out where you need to go. Even though it is a pretty closed-environment game most of the time, devs still cared. Needless to say, other parts of this 20-hour game are as polished as this one. Still one of the best horror games of all time.
Even better, yeah! Thanks for bringing that up!