Similar to the previous game, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 centers around the fictional Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where the player acts as a security guard and must defend himself from the restaurant's animatronic mascots, who are possessed by the souls of murdered children out for revenge on their murderer. The game also introduces several new gameplay components, such as a flashlight and 8-bit minigames.[5][6]
The player cannot leave the
security office, but can track the animatronics' movements via a network of surveillance cameras placed throughout the building. The office has three entrances (a hallway and two side air vents);
in a departure from the previous game, none of these can be sealed off to block enemies from entering. Each vent is equipped with a light that can be used to check for any characters that are
about to crawl into the office. Players are given a spare animatronic mask to ward off approaching animatronics, however, this strategy will not work on certain characters, who must be repelled
by other means.