Those who haven't jumped in on the "Five Nights at Freddy's" hype train will never understand what makes the horror game enticing. It's been dubbed the "scariest game in years," has topped iOS and Android app stores and made history on Steam. With over millions of views on YouTube and a crazy amount of fan theories, the point-and-click survival game has already set a niche of its own.

"Five Nights at Freddy's" Explained

The "Five Nights at Freddy's" series lets players take on the role of a security guard at a local pizza place. Working on night shifts, your goal is to stay alive until the morning for five nights in a row, hence the name.

The first "Five Nights at Freddy's" game debuted on a distribution service called Desura in 2014, where it blew so much that creator Scott Cawthon claimed he receives hundreds of emails every hour, according to Kotaku. In a span of two years, the franchise now has five games in all, the latest of which released in 2016, "Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location." Last year also saw the release of a spin-off titled "FNaF World."

"Strange" Is What Makes It Scary

Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, the pizza place you're working for in "Five Nights at Freddy's", for some reason is stocked with animatronic animals. Freddy is one of those animatronics, a bear that's bad news to players. There are others too, which include a fox, a chicken, a bunny, among other ones. The thing is, the people in charge of the pizza place don't shut down the animatronics at night, which is essentially why your life is in danger.

While animal robots roaming at night doesn't seem all that frightening, the thing about "Five Nights at Freddy's" is that it plays with your vulnerability. Your flashlight dies, you'll hear animatronics crawling toward you even if you can't actually see them, the doors refuse to close, your cameras stop working, and then - the jump scares. Your life is always in danger, which makes things interesting.

Why Makes FNaF Notorious?

If you've noticed, a huge number of viral games in recent years have mostly been horror games. The way horror games blow out is amazing in itself. People hear about how scary the games are, and they can't help but want to experience it themselves. It's the same thing with how Creepypasta spreads.

What makes "Five Nights at Freddy's" spread is that if you're too much of a wimp to play it, you can watch someone else do it on YouTube. But then, curiosity sets in, and then you decide to play the game yourself. Once you start playing, it's hard not to get absorbed in the story, too.

If you haven't tried any FNaF game before, check out some of the most popular Let's Plays. Be warned, though: you're going to hear a lot of screams.