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Actor

1978-06-04 · Texas, United States · Male

1 series in the catalog

Scott Braden Cawthon (born June 4, 1978) is an American video game developer, writer, and producer best known for creating Five Nights at Freddy's, a series of horror video games which expanded into a media franchise.

Cawthon began his career developing family-friendly Christian video games to minimal success. He transitioned to horror in 2014 with the game Five Nights at Freddy's, which was a major commercial and critical success, leading to a franchise that gained a large fanbase. Cawthon has led development for eight games in the main series, as well as four spin-offs. Outside of the games, Cawthon wrote several stories, including novels and the screenplay for the Five Nights at Freddy's film (2023) and its sequel Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2025), both of which he also produced.

In 2021, following extensive doxing and harassment incidents due to the publicization of his donations to the Republican Party, Cawthon announced his retirement and has since largely stepped away from game development, although still retaining exclusivity rights and overarching creative control over the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise.

Life and career

Scott Braden Cawthon was born on June 4, 1978, in Houston, Texas, to Linda (née Friedrich) and Joseph H. Cawthon (1949–2019). He has one sister and one brother.

1996–2014: Early work

As a Christian, Cawthon began his career in game development, making self-funded adventure-oriented Christian video games. Cawthon's first professional game was called Iffermoon. He attended the Art Institute of Houston in 1996, where he learned how to create computer graphics, and taught himself to develop games using the engine Clickteam Fusion. A member of a group of Christian artists known as Hope Animation, Cawthon also made animated Christian films.

Cawthon's religious projects included The Pilgrim's Progress: The Video Game (2011) and The Desolate Hope (2012). Based on the religious allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress: The Video Game is a role-playing video game with enemies such as Beelzebub, Apollyon, Shame, and Giant Despair. The Desolate Hope is a role-playing video game with platforming and top-down elements. Set in a "dark, brooding, and twisted industrial landscape", the dystopian story follows a robotic coffee pot who must rescue a fetus being used as a scientific specimen. Rock Paper Shotgun praised the game's art style, describing it as akin to a "glorious artifact from the nineties, hand-crafted [and] bizarre". Kill Screen wrote that the themes of adventure and the unique art style of Cawthon's early works would reappear in some of his later projects such as FNaF World (2016). After the release of Five Nights at Freddy's (2014), The Desolate Hope received both attention and criticism for the plot's perceived pro-life message, although Cawthon later clarified that the game "was not designed with abortion specifically in mind."

Cawthon's Christian games were generally well received but were not financially successful enough to support his wife and two children. He reluctantly stopped making religious games and instead produced cheap computer games and free-to-play mobile titles which could provide him with a steady source of income. Calum Marsh, in his profile of Cawthon for The New York Times, wrote that these games "might bring in $40 or $50 each month". He also took on programming and retail work.

In 2013, Cawthon submitted the family-friendly game Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. to Steam Greenlight. It was a resource management title featuring anthropomorphic animals; the player character was a beaver. However, players and reviewers such as James Stephanie Sterling ridiculed the game because they thought the characters were unintentionally "creepy" and resembled "scary" animatronics. One writer described it as an example of the uncanny valley.

Cawthon's financial situation and Chipper & Sons' criticism led to him becoming depressed. He thought that he had squandered his life by becoming a game developer and attempted to pursue other professions. Cawthon underwent a crisis of faith: "Either God didn't exist, or God hated me." When his life insurance policy got cancelled after the company found out that he had expressed suicidal ideation to his doctor, he realized that "now even my death had no value" and asked God to "use me somehow". With his faith restored, Cawthon took inspiration from Chipper & Sons' reception and decided to make something intentionally scarier. This was the impetus for Five Nights at Freddy's.

2014–2021: Five Nights at Freddy's

Scott Cawthon–made games

Cawthon submitted Five Nights at Freddy's to Steam's Greenlight system in the summer of 2014, releasing a trailer and later a demo. He submitted it to IndieDB, where it gained popularity, and submitted the game a third time to Desura. The game was accepted on Steam's Greenlight in August 2014. The game was well received by critics, and became the subject of numerous popular Let's Play videos on YouTube. A prequel, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, was released later that year on Steam. Soon after the release of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Cawthon removed all information from his personal website and replaced it with an image of the word "offline". His website later began to show teaser images promoting Five Nights at Freddy's 3, which was released in March 2015.

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 was released in July 2015, with a free Halloween update following. The development of a game, titled FNaF World, was announced, ditching the formula of the other games and instead being a role-playing video game. It was released on January 21, 2016. FNaF World received mixed reviews due to glitches and other issues, and Cawthon pulled it from Steam four days later. An altered version was released on Game Jolt for free on February 8.

On May 21, 2016, Cawthon released a teaser trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location. The game was released on October 7, 2016, and was generally well received. Cawthon released the update "Custom Night" on December 1, with "Golden Freddy Mode" being added to the update soon after.

On July 3, 2017, Cawthon announced the cancellation of a sixth main installment to Five Nights at Freddy's, after previously stating a month earlier that a sixth game was in development. He opined that he had been neglecting other aspects of his life but said that he was not planning to abandon the series and was considering developing a FNaF World-styled spin-off game in the future. However, with the release of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator on December 4, 2017, this was confirmed to be a joke.

On June 28, 2018, the seventh main installment to the series, Ultimate Custom Night, was released on Steam for free. It features over 50 characters from the franchise. In Cawthon's Upcoming Projects post on Steam, he noted that deals for console ports have been signed, as well as announcing virtual reality and augmented reality games.

Steel Wool Studios–made games

In early 2019, Cawthon announced he had joined with video game studio Steel Wool Studios, with whom he intended to develop additional Five Nights at Freddy's games, and that he would primarily be responsible for storylines, character design, and gameplay. On May 28, 2019, Cawthon released the teased virtual reality game Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted for both PC and PlayStation VR. A downloadable content update, Curse of Dreadbear, was released on October 23, 2019.

In September 2019, a teaser and announcement trailers were posted to Illumix's YouTube channel regarding the augmented reality game. The title was revealed to be Five Nights at Freddy's: Special Delivery. It was released for free on November 25, 2019, on iOS and Android.

On August 8, 2019, during the first game's fifth anniversary, Cawthon posted an image on his website, teasing the tenth installment of the series. It shows a modernized shopping mall containing a laser tag arena, an arcade, a large cinema, and a Freddy…