Golden Freddy, along with his withered incarnation from Ultimate Custom Night, is one of three animatronics in the series to have a non-animated jumpscare, the others being Nightmare and Nightmarionne (both in Five Nights at Freddy's 4).
They both have a trait unique to themselves, Nightmare/Nightmarionne restarts the game from the "Warning" message while Golden Freddy forces the game to close.
When asked about the story behind Golden Freddy, the first game's developer Scott Cawthon said in an interview with Geeks Under Grace, "Sometimes things just 'happen' during the game making process. I can't explain Golden Freddy."[1]
From the Clickteam Fusion 2.5 engine's MFA, on "Frame 1", Golden Freddy is revealed to be in the Office all along but remains invisible unless he is triggered.
Whenever he is activated in-game, it seems that a high pitched, jittery giggling can be heard, sounding similar to a child giggling. This can also be heard occasionally when the poster is normal if the player clicks/taps on the poster. It is unknown if this is Golden Freddy's laugh, or something else. This laugh is an unedited version of the laugh Freddy makes while he is moving.
When he attacks Mike Schmidt, the noise heard during the close-up on his face is a much slower version of the standard "death sound" heard in-game (titled XSCREAM2 and XSCREAM, respectively).
As of patch 1.13, setting the A.I. to 1/9/8/7 in the Custom Night triggers Golden Freddy in the same manner as his kill screen, force-quitting the game. This was put in by Scott Cawthon to end rumors about The Bite of '87 which stated that entering the input 1/9/8/7 would have an alternate ending.
On a very rare occasion, Golden Freddy's kill screen will appear after the Game Over screen is shown. It is confirmed that this occurs on the mobile version.
In the original mobile port, there is a 0.01% (1 in 10,000) chance of this occurring.
It was once thought that if the player switches cameras between seeing the poster and putting the Monitor down, it would not trigger Golden Freddy's summon. Bereghost's second-night play through disproves this.
Golden Freddy can still kill the night guard if the power completely runs out.
Golden Freddy is one of the animatronics not shown in the game's trailer, the other being Foxy.
Golden Freddy can only appear once per night.
Every second, a random number between 1 and 100000 is chosen, if this number is equal to 1, Golden Freddy will appear the next time the player views West Hall Corner (CAM 2B) and Bonnie is not there.
This means that repeatedly checking West Hall Corner won't increase the chance of Golden Freddy appearing.
He was called Yellow Bear in the FNaF 1 Game files.
The audio that plays while Golden Freddy is in the office is actually a reading of an excerpt from "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramhansa Yogananda, albeit lower-pitched, reversed, and put through multiple other effects.
Despite receiving a withered form for this game closely resembling the style of the withered animatronics, his name seen in the Custom Night menu and especially for Ultimate Custom Night is still referred as Golden Freddy instead of "Withered Golden Freddy", which is not directly revealed anywhere in the whole series and even books like The Freddy Files.
Golden Freddy and BB in the Office.
It is rarely possible to have Golden Freddy and BB seen in the Office together.
Golden Freddy is one of the five animatronics that can attack from the hallway, the others being Withered Freddy, Withered Foxy, Toy Freddy, and the Puppet.
Oddly, Golden Freddy's hat is tilted slightly to the left when attacking. It also appears to be tilted when he is sitting in the Office though harder to see due to the orientation of his head.
This may just be his hat shifting to the side, as Withered Freddy's hat is detachable in Parts/Service.
Golden Freddy is even more detached from reality than in the last game, as he visibly fades out of existence when encountered in-game and spends most of his time floating around like a giant disembodied head.
A costume-less endoskeleton can be seen throughout the game, most commonly in the Prize Corner (standing in front of the present box) and in the Left Air Vent. Many speculate this is Golden Freddy's endoskeleton, primarily because it shares many attributes with the regular Freddy, though it is generally considered a hallucination.
However, closer inspection of Golden Freddy's suit reveals metal endoskeleton parts, implying that there already is an endoskeleton inside of Golden Freddy, and his slumped-over position is due to said endoskeleton being deactivated.
This may just be the parts holding the suit pieces together though.
As seen in the mobile version, Golden Freddy will disappear immediately (instead of smoothly vanishing) after putting the Freddy Head on. This is likely due to limited capacities on mobile devices.
In the "Give Gifts, Give Life" death minigame, a fifth child corpse appears in the center of the room for an instant, before being obscured by Golden Freddy's jumpscare animation.
This could indicate that the fifth child was stuffed in Golden Freddy's suit, possibly after the murderer was finished using it.
At the beginning of the Five Nights at Freddy's 2 trailer, one of the children's drawings depicts Golden Freddy with squiggly stink lines drifting from his mouth, further supporting a fifth child was stuffed in the Golden Freddy Suit.
This same drawing appears in the Office to the right of the room, above the Right Air Vent.
In the "SAVETHEM" death minigame, Golden Freddy appears in different rooms at random.
Golden Freddy's name was conjectural until Five Nights at Freddy's 2, where his name was shown on the game's Custom Night screen. Until then, his name was "Yellow Bear" in the game files.
Interestingly, he is still referred to as "Yellow Bear" in the game's code, despite receiving an official name.
In the original mobile version, when viewing the Monitor and lowering it again, if Golden Freddy is in the Office, he moves a little bit to the left and starts vanishing.
Golden Freddy's kill sound in Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is slightly louder and sharper than all of the other animatronic sounds.
Golden Freddy does not disable the Flashlight when he enters or leaves the Office hallway.
Golden Freddy is one of the six animatronics who does not trigger the alert ambiance in select situations, with the others being Mangle, Withered Bonnie, BB, the Puppet, and Toy Chica.
Golden Freddy does not activate the alarm at all.
Golden Freddy is one of the three animatronics not shown in the trailer, two others are the Puppet and Toy Chica.
He and the Puppet, however, are shown on drawings in the opening scene, and Toy Chica is shown on various posters throughout the trailer.
Golden Freddy is the only old animatronic not to have his endoskeleton teeth visible, even though he shows signs of possessing an endoskeleton.
If he is set on 20 in the Custom Night, Golden Freddy may sometimes kill the night guard without appearing in the Office or the hallway. It is unknown if this is a glitch or not.
Golden Freddy can appear on Night 2, although the likelihood of encountering him on this night is extremely low. See here at 4:24.
Golden Freddy can appear in the Office and the hallway simultaneously as proven here at 7:52.
Golden Freddy's appearance in the hallway outside the Office is extremely similar to Nightmare Fredbear's appearance in the Closet from the fourth game.
Golden Freddy is one of the few animatronics to not have a repeating jumpscare.
Golden Freddy is one of the animatronics in the series to have an exclusive jumpscare sound, the others being his first game's counterpart, Nightmare Foxy/Nightmare Mangle (closet jumpscare only), Plushtrap/Nightmare Balloon Boy (if Nightmare Cupcake's jumpscare sound from the Extra menu is excluded), Nightmare/Nightmarionne, Funtime Freddy, and Ennard in the Private Room.
Golden Freddy is also the only animatronic in the series to have his jumpscare sound in more than one game.
Golden Freddy's AI level is determined by a formula in Nights 2-5 and early in Night 6, giving him a rare chance to spawn at AI level 1. This is done at 1 a.m. on Night 2-5 and at 12 a.m on Nights 3-6. The formula determining his AI for each night is shown below (with the function Random(x) generating a random number between 0 and x-1).
At 2 a.m. on Night 6, Golden Freddy's AI is set to 3.
His AI is reset to 0 on 12AM on Nights 1-5, meaning he can actually only appear on Night 2, since it's done on 1AM.
Night
Formula
Spawn Chance
2-3
[Random(1000) + 1] ÷ 1000
1 in 1000
4-5
[Random(100) + 1] ÷ 100
1 in 100
6
[Random(10) + 1] ÷ 10
1 in 10
Golden Freddy has two separate behavior patterns for his appearances in the office and hallway, which are both active simulataneously:
Office: Every 5 seconds, the game generates a random number from 0-19. If the number generated is less than Golden Freddy's AI level and the player is currently looking at the Monitor, Golden Freddy will appear directly in the office.
Hallway: While Golden Freddy's AI is 1 or higher, every 1 second, the game generates a random number from 0-9. If the number generated is 1 and no other animatronics are present in the hallway, Golden Freddy appears in the hallway. If the player flashes their light on Golden Freddy 100 times while he is in the hallway, he will trigger a Game Over.
Bugs[]
There is a rare glitch where Golden Freddy can appear in the Office, and if the player immediately brings up the Monitor, then his sprite will appear on the camera.
There is a bug where Golden Freddy didn't vanished until he vanished whil put the mask on, as seen in here in 1:16
The Bad Ending after Night 5 features another obscured head in the background which is speculated to be Golden Freddy's. It would fit thematically with Golden Freddy's ghastly attributes and with him being "hidden in the back" by the company.
However, upon brightening the "Good Ending" image, it is revealed that the head is completely absent from the image, rather than simply being obscured from lack of sufficient lighting.
If the fifth head in the Bad Ending and the suit in the Office are, in fact, Golden Freddy, this would tie Golden Freddy with Toy Freddy for the least amount of appearances in the entire series - only seven each.
Phantom Freddy's model, however, bears more resemblance to Golden Freddy from the second game, meaning he could be Golden Freddy's counterpart.
In Help Wanted however, Phantom Freddy’s appearance has been changed to resemble FNaF 1’s Freddy, suggesting this connection was not intended.
This is the first game (excluding the end-of-night cutscenes from Five Nights at Freddy's 2) where Golden Freddy can stand up.
This is also the first game where Golden Freddy can stand up during in-game attack phases.
However, Golden Freddy does not stand up straight and instead stands up sort of hunched and wonky.
Unlike other animatronics, Golden Freddy's animations show his endoskeleton not attaching his pieces together, resulting in them appearing very choppy.
Unlike previous appearances, Golden Freddy is actually colored completely golden (including his teeth) besides his normal yellow shade of color on him.
This is probably a reference to how Golden Freddy was originally called Yellow Bear as seen in the game files and how his name Golden Freddy now matches his appearance properly.
Golden Freddy emits the same scream audio as Freddy Fazbear, however the audio is edited.
↑ Sometimes things just 'happen' during the game making process. I can't explain Golden Freddy. - Scott Cawthon, Geeks Under Grace
