Making games is hard, and when you are predominantly a one-man show, it can be even harder. Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon has found that out the hard way. After announcing a sixth installment to the point-and-click horror series, he has abruptly cancelled the project. 

"For the last month or so I’ve been dropping hints about a new game; and it’s true that I’d been working on one (call it FNaF 6 if you’d like)," Cawthon said in a blog post on the game's Steam page. "But after forcing myself to keep working on it day after day, I realized something- I just don’t want to work on this. With each game's release, I think the expectations get higher and higher for the next, and rightfully so. Each game SHOULD be better than the last! But that pressure starts to mount, and I fear that I've been neglecting other things in my life for the sake of trying to keep up with those mounting expectations."

He said that he hasn't soured on game development as a whole, but wants to go back to doing something fun for his fans. "Remember Foxy Fighters from Update 2? I loved working on that game. It was a lot of fun, and it took a lot of the pressure off me knowing that it was just for the fans of the games. That’s the kind of project that I'd like to work on again. Maybe I’ll try my hand at a pizzeria tycoon game, who knows. The point is that it would be something for fun, and something for the fans."

Cawthon said that cancelling the game was the easiest way to let fans know his intentions without trying to string them along that a sequel may be coming. "I would rather just say that it's cancelled, rather than say 'I may get back to it at some point,' because the second just puts people on hold indefinitely. If I ever did start work on it again, I'm not sure if I would pick up where I left off, or if I would completely start over." 

In the end, this is not the end of the franchise, though, he said. "There are some big things in the works elsewhere. The movie is in amazing hands with Blumhouse. I’m also still working to get a VR title out at some point (because that would be awesome). And of course I can’t leave everyone hanging with the cliffhanger at the end of the second book. But as far as the games are concerned, I think this is where I step back. I actually have a lot of catching up to do myself when it comes to fan-games."