‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ theme park ride | Art from the never-built attraction
A “Five Nights at Freddy’s” dark ride concept was proposed for theme parks nearly a decade ago, but never opened.
Sally Corporation, a company specializing in creating dark rides for theme parks, revealed preliminary work on a ride themed to the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” video games during IAAPA Expo 2016, an annual convention hosted by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.
On the show floor at IAAPA Expo that year, Sally revealed a prototype animatronic for Foxy, a character from “Five Nights at Freddy’s, and after the convention shared concept artwork for the proposed ride with press partners, including Attractions Magazine.
Photo by Attractions Magazine
At the time, the ride existed in concept only; it was an officially licensed attraction with “Five Nights” creator Scott Cawthon, but hadn’t been commissioned by any particular theme park — and ultimately never got built.
In 2016, our reporters described the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” ride this way:
Like the game, this interactive dark ride centers on a fictional pizza restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, where the riders must act as night security guards. Their mission is to defend themselves from the malfunctioning animatronic animal characters that roam the restaurant at night and try to stay alive until 6 a.m.
Their only weapons are flashlights (which scare the robots away) and the ability to shut doors. Sometimes your team survives until morning, sometimes they don’t; there are multiple endings to this dark ride.
The ride would have utilized animatronics and large-scale video projection.
Sally Corporation is still in business today, having recently built SpongeBob’s Crazy Carnival Ride in Las Vegas and currently constructing Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare for Kings Island.
Photo by Matt Roseboom
As for “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” since 2016 the franchise has enjoyed a slate of multiple video game sequels and movie adaptations, including the new “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.” The series eventually made its way into theme parks, but as haunted houses rather than dark rides, during the 2025 season of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios California.
Watch our walk-through of the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” haunted house in Orlando:
Would you like to see a permanent “Five Nights at Freddy’s” ride somewhere in a theme park?
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