By Negaduck9 Watch 47 Favourites 46 Comments 12K Views

The following is all my own speculation. I have no inside info whatsoever.



So, a while back Scott announced that the next FNAF game has been placed on hiatus, not exactly canceled because he might come back to it. At first many fans (including me) didn't believe him because this fits his pattern of trolling the fans right before releasing a new game. Except this time that didn't happen.



First of all, it seems clear to me that Scott is not done with FNAF. There's the "Freakshow Baby" in "The Freddy Files." There's the Baby image on Scott's website. And there's the fact that the merchandise is still coming strong. If Scott really intended to wash his hands of FNAF, then the merchandisers would get off the FNAF train like rats off a sinking ship, otherwise they'd end up with tons of toys that nobody would buy.



Now, Scott has made all of his games in Clickteam Fusion. He's pushed the engine to its limits. And it is limiting. Scott has made 3D models of all his characters--but the games are collections of still images only. When a character jumpscares you, you're seeing a series of prerendered images being played for you like a flipbook. In FNAF 3 and Sister Location you have the illusion of limited free movement, but that's only because he has created flipbooks to give that impression. Contrast that with true 3-D, in which you can roam freely throughout environments, as you can in Bendy and the Ink Machine. Wouldn't that be awesome in a FNAF game? Except Clickteam Fusion (CTF, okay?) simply doesn't do that.



In the past, when people have asked Scott about getting into video games, he has recommended people not use CTF just because he does. One that he suggested was Unity, which is the engine that Bendy was built with.



So, what if Scott is taking his own advice?



Scott has pulled the plug on the console port (for now) because he wants it to be awesome, and a straight regurgitation of the PC game onto a console would not fit that definition. The impression I have gotten is that he wants bigger and better, both for FNAF and as a game developer. If he has reached the limits of what CTF has done, then either he can stagnate there, or he can pursue new options in the form of working with a different software package that would allow him to add more to his games, for example true free roam.



I don't have a lot of experience (read: any at all) working with game creation software like Unity or CTF, but I'm confident that it takes no small investment of time to learn any of them thoroughly. (Shoot, I've been using Photoshop for decades and I've only scratched the surface.) So, it would make sense that if he wanted to learn a new engine, he would tell fans something to the effect of "Look, don't expect a game any time soon." If we knew he was still working on a game fans would still be going "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" So he has told us a half-truth: He has put the game aside, not because he's bored working with FNAF, but because it's not fun working within CTF's limitations. When he's ready--when he can work comfortably and confidently within the new software--then he'll return to FNAF, because it will be fun again.



So, TL;DR, there's my theory: Scott is taking a break from active game making to learn Unity or another engine, which would enable him to grow as a game maker. If that turns out to be the case, then bravo to him! If not, well, I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again.