Five Nights at Freddy’s Secret of the Mimic is an interesting entry in the Fnaf discography. You play as an overworked Fazbear Entertainment, Inc technician named Arnold who is assigned to go to Murray’s Costume Manor to retrieve company property (blueprints). Once inside you find the place abandoned with the only sign of movement being an Endoskeleton out to get you. This Endoskeleton (Mimic) is unique due to the fact that it can take over any of the mascot costumes around the facility at any time, keeping you on your toes. Arnold is given this data driver which can be used as a pass to access certain levels of the Manor. You spend most of the game running around trying to upgrade your pass to allow you to enter the room where the blueprints are. This game also has “boss” chases where you basically run down an area trying to avoid obstacles with very little room for error. It’s a lot of trial and error and not a lot of skill.
This game feels like it was originally supposed to be a VR title. In fact the demo for this game was a VR title. However, it was released only on PC and Playstation as a standard “flat mode” game with plans to release in VR later down the line. Its movements are very push and pull similar to games made by Frictional Games like the Amnesia series. You’re going to be solving a lot of puzzles and waiting in hiding spots for enemies to go away. Even though they said the Mimic can be anywhere it definitely has certain areas that it’s allowed to spawn and will always spawn at. It’s also pretty easy to avoid it, as long as you don’t run or make eye contact with it while standing you will be fine. They set up little environmental hazards to try and make it harder like chains hanging from the ceiling or mannequins that speak if they sense movement but the Mimic is pretty dumb and you can just run to the nearest locker.
You will be solving the same puzzles a lot, one if similar to that Bioshock hacking puzzle, where you move the pipes to get the energy juice from one side to the other. When upgrading your permissions you will solve a pretty tricky clearance puzzle. You will fix an elevator more than once. There are some moving objects around with a crane to create a platform, but most of the time you will be searching around for codes and objects. Be careful with the codes because some of them are randomized with each playthrough.
As you run around the Manor you learn the tragic tale of the owner and his family through notes, tape recorders and collectable items. The computers you can access to read the notes has a game called moon.exe which is a choose your own adventure text based game that adds the items you collect into the game. Once you collect the item from the present jack in the boxes scattered throughout the game you have to physically take the item to a dispensary box then the item will show up in Moon.exe. You can also put items in there to access later like an item box, but only for certain items. One of those items are film reels you can find around the facility, then when you come across a projector you can access those reels and watch them to your heart’s content.
Secret of the Mimic has three different endings, sadly you can only access one ending during your first playthrough. Lucky when you start a new game plus all the items you collected will follow you to your new playthrough. You can only access new game+ after completing another game on the first security office computer called parachute.exe.
Overall Secret of the Mimic has an interesting idea going for it. I like the general concept of the Mimic being able to take over but knowing when and where it was going to attack me took the mystery and horror away. I wish the chase sequences were a little more loose with errors. It would be nice to be able to look back and see the terrifying thing chasing me. There were some genuinely scary moments (especially with that white tiger). It had some interesting secret areas you could explore if you remembered where to look. It reminds me a little bit of a Resident Evil style game but with one enemy pursuing you the whole time. I only wish that enemy was a little less predictable.
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