The Five Nights at Freddy's franchise has always been one steeped in lore and engrossing backstory detailing the tragic history behind the pizza parlors that players monitor while trying to evade murderous animatronics come to nightmarish life. One of the more enigmatic figures appearing throughout the game series is the unnamed man that leaves phone messages for the player character offering them pointers and observations each night as they run the respective facility's security room after-hours. And with the unnamed phone guy abruptly disappearing and their true identity never fully disclosed to the player, this leaves a couple of glaring questions: who exactly is the phone guy and what happened to them prior to the events of the games?
On the first night of the original game, the player character -- whose name is revealed to be Mike Schmidt if all five nights are completed successfully -- begins their shift receiving a phone message. The unidentified phone guy welcomes Mike to their new job and reveals the animatronics' bloodthirsty true nature before advising him on monitoring the monsters through the pizza parlor's closed-circuit security cameras and to lower the blast doors if they approach the security office to kill him. The prequel game Five Nights at Freddy's 2 reveals that the phone guy usually works the day shift and isn't completely aware of how lethal the animatronics are at night. Archival audio featuring phone guy is heard in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, set in the dilapidated pizza parlor after the first game's events and in the VR experience title, Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted.
By the sixth night of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the phone guy appears to comprehend that the animatronics are becoming more lethal than he initially realized as he leaves a message for the player to come in for one last shift. Following the incident that shuts the game's location down, the phone guy indicates he will begin working the night shift himself, setting up his role in the original game. Phone guy's fate is even more ominous in the original game, with the phone message he leaves at the beginning of the fourth night revealing the security office is being besieged by several of the animatronics before the mysterious Golden Freddy is overheard attacking him, abruptly cutting off the message. The fifth night, a garbled recording message with a demonic voice plays instead of phone guy's familiar voice, suggesting he has been killed.
The voice actor behind the phone guy across the entire series is actually franchise creator Scott Cawthon, who has worked on every title, including last year's mobile AR installment Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery. The phone guy himself has never been explicitly named in any of the ancillary material, but archival audio found in Five Nights at Freddy's 3 reveals that, in addition to his duties as a security guard, he is also has taken on responsibilities as a mentor for new employees, recording formal training tapes. While the character has no new dialogue in Five Nights at Freddy's 4, the phone message from the first night in the original game can be heard playing in reverse as an audio cameo.
In addition to a feature film adaptation that has been in various stages of development for years, Five Nights at Freddy's is poised to continue on the PlayStation 5 and PC this year in the announced title Five Night's at Freddy's: Security Breach. Little is known about the details and mechanics of the upcoming game, but hopefully, phone guy will make a return in some capacity and potentially unveil new tidbits about his identity and final fate. And with Cawthon involved in both the film's and upcoming video game installment's development, the voice of phone guy is never too far away from the franchise.
Developed by Steel Wool Studios, Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach will be released for Playstation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2021.