Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon is retiring from making games. The FNAF mastermind was recently the subject of controversy after it emerged that he made donations to Republican figures including Donald Trump
Why is Scott Cawthon retiring, and what was the controversy about?
This news comes via an announcement on Cawthon's official website. In the announcement, FNAF creator Cawthon shares a piece of fanart drawn by a young fan and reminisces about his "blessed, fulfilling, and rich" career. Despite this satisfaction, Cawthon says he misses "a lot of things" that he focused on prior to creating the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. He goes on to say he wants to "focus [his attention]" on protecting and making things for his six children. Cawthon says he'll still be around, but not in the same capacity as he has been for the past few years.
Earlier this week, it emerged that Scott Cawthon made several donations to prominent Republican politicians including Donald Trump. A backlash ensued from members of the FNAF fan community who disagreed with his positions, with Cawthon making a lengthy post on Reddit answering some of the criticisms made against him. In that post, Cawthon says "if I get cancelled, then I get cancelled", going to say that it might be better to "get cancelled and retire" if the FNAF (or Freddit) community thinks he's doing more harm than good. It seems Cawthon felt that he was 'canceled', as he is retiring now, although he doesn't specifically mention the controversy in his retirement announcement save for a brief asseration that a lot of the support he's received this week "has come from the LGBTQ community".
What will happen to FNAF now?
In his retirement post, Cawthon reassures fans that this isn't the end of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. He says he'll be appointing a successor "of my choosing, and someone that I trust". It might be a little while until we know who that is; Cawthon says "an announcement will be made at some point", but that the FNAF franchise will definitely be continuing. Given Cawthon's assertion that he will "still be around, just not in the capacity that I used to be", it's likely he'll still be involved in FNAF in an advisory capacity, just not as a developer.
As far as we know, development on Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is continuing apace and won't be affected by Cawthon's retirement. It's being developed by Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted studio Steel Wool, which is a completely separate entity to Cawthon. Again, Cawthon will almost certainly still be involved in the project as an advisor, but he likely wasn't directly involved in development in the first place, so if you're excited for that game - which was recently delayed until late 2021 - then you shouldn't have too much to worry about. We'll bring you more on this as soon as we get it.
How do you feel about Scott Cawthon retiring? Let us know in the comments below!
