The player must survive their shift, lasting from midnight to 6:00 a.m. (approximately 8 minutes and 36 seconds of real time, 4 minutes and 30 seconds on the mobile and tablet editions), without being attacked by one of the animatronic animal robots roaming the facility.
The player, who sits in an office and is unable to move, is given access to a network of security cameras throughout the facility to track the movement of the animatronic robots. Four of the five characters have distinct movement patterns; however, most of the characters’ movements take place off-screen.
The camera feeds are dimly lit and distorted, one of the rooms only contains an audio feed, and the cameras do not cover certain areas of the building, most notably the two hallways directly to the left and right of the player. The player cannot leave the guard room, but can close the doors to defend themselves, and briefly turn on lights in the hallways to check for animatronics.
Use of these actions consume the player’s limited electrical power; if the power runs out, the cameras become inoperable, the doors open, and the lights go out, leaving the player with no defence against an attack. Once these things happen, music will play, it will go pitch black, and Freddy will jump scare the player, losing the game.
The game has five levels comprising five “nights” in the game, which increase in difficulty. Completion of the game unlocks an even more difficult 6th night level, and completion of this level opens up a “Custom Night” level editor where the player can adjust the AI difficulty of the individual characters.