GamingPickz
Game vs game · side by side

Five Nights at Freddy's vs Left 4 Dead 2

Five Nights at Freddy's is a horror survival game from Scott Cawthon (2014) while Left 4 Dead 2 is an FPS horror game (2009).

Quick answer: Left 4 Dead 2 rates higher, 8.8 to 8.0 on the GamingPickz Score, and Five Nights at Freddy's is the cheaper at $4.99.

Five Nights at Freddy's

2014 · Scott Cawthon

8.0GamingPickz Score

$4.99

Steam: Very Positive

Left 4 Dead 2

2009 · Studio not listed

8.8GamingPickz Score

$9.99

Steam: Overwhelmingly Positive

What each one is

Five Nights at Freddy's is filed under Horror and Survival. In contrast, Left 4 Dead 2 under FPS and Horror.

Five Nights at Freddy's

Welcome to your new summer job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where kids and parents alike come for entertainment and food! The main attraction is Freddy Fazbear, of course; and his two friends. They are animatronic robots, programmed to please the crowds!

Description from its Steam store page

Left 4 Dead 2

Set in the zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead 2 is a co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns.

Description from its Steam store page

Story, characters and reception

Five Nights at Freddy's
Reception

Video game series The Five Nights at Freddy's video game series has had a mixed reception. The original game received "generally favorable" reviews, earning a score of 78 on the review aggregator website Metacritic . Omri Petitte of PC Gamer described it as a "less-is-more" experience, where fear stemmed more from anticipation than direct threats. (Wikipedia)

Left 4 Dead 2
Plot

Setting Like its predecessor, Left 4 Dead 2 is set in the aftermath of an outbreak on the East Coast of the United States of a disease nicknamed the "Green Flu", which rapidly transforms humans into zombie -like creatures and mutated forms that demonstrate extreme aggression towards non-Infected beings. A few humans are immune to the disease, while some of those who are Infected have no symptoms . The Civil Emergency and Defense Agency (CEDA) and the U. (Wikipedia)

Characters

Left 4 Dead 2 features a new cast of four human survivors: Coach (voiced by Chad L. Coleman ), a stocky high school football coach with a bad knee (although this does not affect gameplay); Nick (voiced by Canadian singer Hugh Dillon ), a pessimistic gambler and con artist; Rochelle (voiced by Rochelle Aytes ), a low-level production assistant for a local television station that was reporting on the pandemic; and Ellis (voiced by Eric Ladin ), a friendly… (Wikipedia)

Reception

Critical reception Reception Left 4 Dead 2 received "generally favorable reviews" across both platforms according to review aggregator website Metacritic . Game journalists praised the changes made with the new melee weapons and firearms, the new strategies introduced through the new special Infected, and the details of the southern locale and individual campaigns compared with the campaigns of the first game. Ars Technica praised the game's… (Wikipedia)

At a glance

Five Nights at Freddy'sLeft 4 Dead 2
GamingPickz Score8.0/108.8/10
Steam ratingVery Positive (94%, 59,195)Overwhelmingly Positive (98%, 1,055,804)
Critic aggregate78/10089/100
Price$4.99$9.99
Install size0.24 GB13 GB
Steam Deckverifiedverified
Released20142009
DeveloperScott Cawthon

Prices and Steam ratings are read live and move over time.

Five Nights at Freddy's vs Left 4 Dead 2, point by point

Each facet side by side. A round is marked won only where a figure settles it; feel and "which is better" carry no mark, because no number we hold decides them.

  1. Genre and premise

    Five Nights at Freddy'sHorror survival game
    Left 4 Dead 2FPS horror game

    What each is filed as. Each game describes itself in full above; we do not judge a premise.

  2. How it plays

    Five Nights at Freddy'sHorror, Survival Horror, Robots
    Left 4 Dead 2Zombies, Co-op, FPS

    The tags players apply most, in order of votes. A read on feel, not a verdict.

  3. Reception

    Five Nights at Freddy'sScore 8.0 · 94% on Steam · 78 critic
    Left 4 Dead 2Score 8.8 · 98% on Steam · 89 critic

    The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.

  4. Content and scale

    Five Nights at Freddy's59,195 reviews · 0.24 GB
    Left 4 Dead 21,055,804 reviews · 13 GB

    Reach and footprint, not quality: more reviews or a bigger install is not a better game.

  5. Price

    Five Nights at Freddy's$4.99
    Left 4 Dead 2$9.99

    Read live from Steam and subject to change.

  6. On a Steam Deck

    Five Nights at Freddy'sVerified
    Left 4 Dead 2Verified

    Valve's own Deck compatibility rating.

Across the rounds a number can settle, it is level at 1 each. Which one is "better" is the part no figure decides, so we leave it to what you want from the two.

The two on the grid

Compare the whole catalogue

Five Nights at Freddy's and Left 4 Dead 2 on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so each dot is its real position. Change either axis to compare them on any measure.

2 games have both

01000100PlayersPopularityFive Nights at Freddy's

Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.

Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.

  • Mobile
  • Xbox

Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.

See the whole grid

How positions are decided

No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
  • Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
  • Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
  • No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
  • A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
  • Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.

Which to pick, by what you want

  • The higher-rated of the two: Left 4 Dead 2 (GamingPickz Score 8.8)
  • The cheaper right now: Five Nights at Freddy's ($4.99)
  • Lighter on storage: Five Nights at Freddy's (0.24 GB)
  • The safer bet by weight of reviews: Left 4 Dead 2 (1,055,804 reviews)

What they have in common

Both are tagged by Steam players with:

HorrorSingleplayerSurvival HorrorFirst-PersonSurvival

Where they differ

Five Nights at Freddy's is also

RobotsPsychological HorrorIndieDifficultPoint & ClickDark

Left 4 Dead 2 is also

ZombiesCo-opFPSMultiplayerShooterOnline Co-Op

Tags players apply to one game and not the other.

Difficulty and who each is for

By the tags players apply, Five Nights at Freddy's is demanding, for players who want a challenge. Left 4 Dead 2 is middle-of-the-road on difficulty.

System requirements, side by side

Five Nights at Freddy'sLeft 4 Dead 2
Minimum GPUVideo card with 128 MB
Minimum CPUPentium 4 3.0GHz
Minimum RAM2 GB
Install size0.24 GB13 GB

Can your PC run them? Check each against your own kit: Five Nights at Freddy's · Left 4 Dead 2.

Accessibility features

Steam store pages declare 0 accessibility features for Five Nights at Freddy's and 8 for Left 4 Dead 2. A declaration is a floor, not a review.

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Common questions

How different are Five Nights at Freddy's and Left 4 Dead 2 in scope?

Five Nights at Freddy's has drawn 59,195 Steam reviews and installs in 0.24 GB. Left 4 Dead 2 has drawn 1,055,804 Steam reviews and installs in 13 GB.

Is Five Nights at Freddy's or Left 4 Dead 2 better?

By the GamingPickz Score, Left 4 Dead 2 rates higher (8.8 to 8.0). That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, not our taste. "Better" also depends on price, length and platform, which the table above lays out.

Which is cheaper, Five Nights at Freddy's or Left 4 Dead 2?

Five Nights at Freddy's is cheaper right now at $4.99, against $9.99. Prices move, so this is read live from Steam and can change.

Should I get Five Nights at Freddy's or Left 4 Dead 2?

Left 4 Dead 2 rates higher, 8.8 to 8.0 on the GamingPickz Score, and Five Nights at Freddy's is the cheaper at $4.99. It also depends on what you want: the "which to pick" section above calls out which is cheaper, lighter on storage, better on a Steam Deck and the safer bet by weight of reviews.

Do you rank one above the other for a fee?

No. Neither game, nor anyone else, pays for placement or a verdict here. The order and every figure come out of the same public data the rest of the site uses.

How we compare, and what we will not do

The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment (adjusted for sample size), the critic aggregate and popularity, computed by the same code every ranked list on this site uses. The Steam rating label is Valve's own, reconstructed from the positive percentage and review count. Prices are read live. We do not write an opinion of which game is "better": we report the numbers and say which wins each measurable question above.

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