The loud Five Nights at Freddy's jumpscare sound effect, a sudden scream and crash from the horror game used to scare viewers in memes and videos.
This is the sudden, ear-splitting jumpscare from Five Nights at Freddy's, the moment an animatronic lunges at the screen and the game ends. It opens with a sharp, distorted scream layered over a harsh metallic crash, then cuts off abruptly, leaving a tense silence that makes the scare feel even sharper. The volume jumps without warning, so listeners flinch, jump back, or laugh nervously as soon as it hits. Because the sound is so closely tied to being caught in the game, it instantly signals danger, failure, and a classic horror-game shock, even for people who have only seen it in clips.
Five Nights at Freddy's began as an indie horror game in 2014, built around surviving nights against hostile animatronic characters, and its jumpscare quickly became one of the most recognisable sounds in gaming. Early Let's Play videos and reaction clips spread the scare far beyond players of the original game, turning it into shorthand for a sudden horror moment online. It remains popular because it is short, instantly recognisable, and works without context, much like the FNAF jumpscare scream used in memes and edits today.