FNaF World Pulled From Sale, Will Return Free

Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon has pulled his newly-released RPG spin-off FNaF World [official site] from sale and plans to refund all buyers, then re-release the game later for free. He's unhappy with its reception, he says, and wants to do better. He had released it a month earlier than planned and, apparently, that hasn't quite worked out.

"Even though the game had a "Very Positive" rating with 87%, I was not satisfied with the reviews and ratings it was getting," Cawthon explained in a post on Steam.

"For that reason, I've decided to remove the game from Steam. I've also asked Valve to make it so that the game can be refunded regardless of the amount of the time it has been owned, meaning that anyone can get a refund at any time. It may take them a while to set that up, but it will be in place soon."

That's... an uncommon response. Heck, few folks would do that even if they'd made a game everyone loathed.

"I'm still going to work on FNaF World and polish it up. I'm busy creating a fully 3D overworld for the game," he explains. "When I'm ready to update the game, I will replace the demo currently on GameJolt with the full game. From this point forward, the game will always be free."

And that's near-unheard-of.

FNaF World is Cawthon's first not-jumpscare-y game since making his name with the Five Nights games. I wondered aloud before whether making an RPG with Five Nights characters was an attempt to get back to making other sorts of games while luring Five Nights fans along for the ride. His response to the reviews has made me a bit of a fan, though I now want to pat this stranger on the back. Don't worry, pal. It's the Internet: it's always awful.