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This page contains unmarked spoilers for Five Nights at Freddy's, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, and Five Nights at Freddy's 3. You Have Been Warned!

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"What have you brought home?"
Trailer

Hello, and welc... well, I guess there's no reason to welcome you in your own home. But hey, congrats; you're going to a party at Fredbear's Family Diner! What? You don't like it there? The animatronics creep you out? Well, don't worry, it's not like they can just crawl into your house whenever they want to, right?

Except they can — and they do. For some reason, they look mean and nasty... oh, and they're coming for you. Fortunately, you can fend them off with your flashlight and keep them out of your room with your doors if you see or hear them coming. Just survive for five days until you can go to your party and hopefully everything will turn out fine!

Won't it?

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is the fourth installment in the Five Nights at Freddy's horror-themed strategy game franchise by Scott Cawthon. The game was released on July 23rd, 2015. This game is vastly different from the previous installments: Rather than giving you cameras to monitor, this game lets you move around your bedroom, letting you check your doors, bed, and closet — and those animatronics that used to stand still when you looked at them now move freely even if you're staring them right in their creepy glowing eyes.

You can watch the trailer on YouTube and buy the game on Steam and Google Play. A version of the game on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is also available as of November 2019.

The game was originally intended to be released on Halloween, but since the base game has already been completed, Scott has since used this date for two releases. The first release is a content update to the base game, which includes a cheat menu, challenge modes, and a twist to a "familiar minigame". The second release is a special "Halloween Edition" of the game, with changed characters and other cosmetic features in celebration of the holiday. Unlike the base game, Scott has outright stated that the Halloween Edition is not canon.

Scott's website updated with Nightmare versions of new animatronics such as BB, The Puppet and Mangle. Other teasers featured orange Palette Swaps of Chica and Bonnie.


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    #-E 
  • The '80s: The game takes place in 1983. note 
  • Accidental Murder: The teenagers didn’t mean for their prank to end up being so deadly.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: The Crying Child is heavily implied to be hated by all the other children, up to and including his own brother.
  • Ambiguous Situation: The guidebook would eventually clear up some details, namely the alleged identity of both the child and his brother, but the ending still remains unclear. Who exactly is talking to the child, and what do they mean by "put you back together"?
  • And I Must Scream:
    • If Fredbear and the other animatronics are haunted during the Child’s birthday party, it just adds another layer of horror and sadness. Imagine being trapped in an animatronic created for the sole purpose of entertaining children, and then a group of nasty boys shove a child into your mouth. You know he's not supposed to be there, but there's nothing you can do; you can't go against your programming. You can't open your mouth wider so he can pull himself out, you can't move your arms to pull him out of your mouth, you can't even stop your mouth from clamping down on the kid's head. You continue with your performance, unable to stop yourself, and listen to the sickening crunch as you bite down against your will, feel the blood pour from your mouth, and watch as the laughter once again turns to screaming.
    • The (apparently initial) fate of the protagonist after said unfortunate accident.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: When you open up the game, the first thing it tells you to do is to turn up the volume until you hear crickets chirping. This is to ensure that you'll be able to hear the nightmares breathing so you know when to close the door and not use the flashlight. It also asks you to hold down the Shift key — which you have to do to hold the doors closed — in order to make sure Sticky Keys is turned off.
  • Anti Idling:
    • Spending too long doing nothing at your bed will get you killed much faster by Nightmare Freddy; if Nightmare Fredbear or Nightmare is active, they'll just kill you immediately after idling for 25 seconds.
    • Looking at the bed for 15 seconds consecutively summons Nightmare Foxy to kill the player.
  • Arc Number: 83 seems to be one as well, as an advertisement for "Fredbear and Friends - 1983" can be seen on the television in a minigame, and the site's source code replaced the 8s and 7s with 8s and 3s following the game's release. 1983 is the year the game takes place.
  • Arc Words:
    • "Was it me" appears on Bonnie, Chica, and the new animatronic's image teasers — most likely a reference to the Arc Words "IT'S ME" from the previous games.
    • "Nightmare" also qualifies, since it appears in the first few teaser images.
    • "[x] nights until the party" is how the game labels individual nights this time around.
    • "Tomorrow is another day" also counts, being said at the end of each minigame.
    • The "I'M STILL HERE" line from 3 briefly shows up here, as well — it's spoken to the child after his disastrous birthday party ended with him dying.
    • "Remember what you saw" comes up quite a few times.
  • Artifact of Doom: The Fredbear plush in the minigames subverts this. While the plush does guide the Child towards bad events (such as leading him to his brother), it's implied to genuinely care for him; in this light, its prodding is trying to help the child face his fears instead of hiding (they both know that the fear of his brother's scares won't stop until they get it over with, hiding only prolongs that anxiety).
  • Artifact Title: Despite the title, the protagonist, unlike his predecessors, does not spend five nights at any Freddy's. The setting is instead a house that the Nightmare Animatronics are haunting. There is a pizzeria (or rather, a diner) close to his house, though, and plays a very important part of the between-night minigames.
  • Ascended Extra: Chica's cupcake, which was immobile in previous games, can now jumpscare the player.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Only two of the Nightmares are as pristine as their original selves — Nightmarionne and Nightmare Balloon Boy. Fittingly enough, they're both based on members of the Toy generation, who were also spotless in thier debut game.
  • Big Brother Bully: The Crying Child’s older brother fits this to a T. He liked picking on his little brother and doing all sorts of horrible things to him. During his birthday party, he and his friends stuck the kid inside Fredbear's mouth to scare him. Unfortunately, the animatronic bit down and nearly killed his brother. The silence that followed makes it clear that he never meant for his brother to get hurt like that.
  • A Birthday, Not a Break: The Child is dreading his birthday because it's being held at the place he loathes so much. It gets worse when his brother and his friends' "birthday present" gets his head crushed.
  • Bloodless Carnage: When the Child is bitten, there's no blood at all.
  • Bonus Stage: "Fun with Plushtrap" has you trying to use your flashlight to stop Plushtrap on a specific spot (a white X on the floor). Succeed, and you can skip the first two hours of the next night. Fail, and you get the typical punishment.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: Like the first Five Nights at Freddy's, 20/20/20/20 mode only nets you another star on the main menu.
  • Butt-Monkey: The Crying Child. Not only is he constantly tormented by his brother, he winds up later dead via Fredbear's bite. On his birthday.
  • Call-Back: Possibly:
    • The Nightmare Freddy teaser is extremely similar to the Withered Freddy teaser for Freddy's 2.
    • The gameplay can be described as a nightmarish version of the first game. Bonnie and Chica try to get in from your left and right, respectively; Foxy has a hiding place that you have to check regularly; and Freddy can attack without any warning unless you're constantly watching for him.
    • The Nightmare Animatronics are based on their damaged designs from Five Nights At Freddy's 2, especially noticeable with Chica and Foxy, and the presence of buttons on Bonnie and Freddy.
  • Challenge Run: On top of Nightmare and 4-20 modes returning from previous games, DLC adds Blind mode, where you can't use the flashlight.
  • Creepy Doll:
    • Plushtrap is an extremely worn-down Spring Bonnie doll with extremely large, vacant eyes, and a mouthful of visible teeth.
    • Otherwise averted: The Crying Child loves his other dolls of the Freddy's characters, though he's terrified of the actual animatronics. He considers them his only friends.
  • Crying at Your Birthday Party: The Crying Child is seen, well, crying in the penultimate minigame that takes place during his birthday.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: In comparison to the other three games, 4 requires you, when you go near the doors, to wait and listen to see if you should shine your light down the hallway or shut the door in the animatronics' faces. Unfortunately, for veteran players, your first instinct will be to always light up a dark hallway, which is the wrong thing to do in most cases.
  • Darker and Edgier: Compared to the previous games, the tone of this game is bleak. The game takes on a nightmarish red color palette, the animatronics are deliberately monstrous and attack you in your own home, there's no comedic relief to balance out the horror factor, and the (presumed) main character dies on his birthday, and he was only a child.
  • Deadly Prank: This is the cause of the Crying Child's eventual death. His brother tried to scare him by putting him in Fredbear's mouth, only for the animatronic to bite down a lot harder than expected.
  • Death of a Child: The Crying Child does not survive the events showcased in this game.
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • The Purple Guy's role is severely reduced from the last three games — he only appears in a cameo, putting someone inside the Spring Bonnie suit.
    • The ghosts of the murdered kids, too. In all the other games, they were the force behind the game's events. Here? It's simply the Crying Child’s asshole brother. Unless the five kids he meets in the post-Night 3 minigame are their spirits reaching out to him, and his Fredbear plush really is haunted by one of them...
  • Didn't Think This Through: The teens, including the Crying Child’s brother, shoving the child's head into the Freddy suit. The silence that follows what happens is quite eerie.
  • Don't Celebrate Just Yet: The day after the release of Five Nights at Freddy's 3, Scott placed an image on his site that showed Freddy's iconic hat under a spotlight. This image gave off the implication of a "The End" moment without actually writing the words (and FNAF 3 had the words in its "Good" ending, besides). On the 22nd of April, the hat vanished from the spotlight. Five days later, Scott posted the first teaser image for FNAF 4: Nightmare Freddy holding the hat in his hand.
  • Don't Look At Me: This is played with in the game. Shining light on the animatronics when they're far away from you will (supposedly) scare them away. Doing the same when they're near you will instead provoke their attack.
  • Downer Ending: The Crying Child doesn't survive his brother's onslaught, being killed in a prank gone wrong that his brother orchestrated during his birthday. It becomes slightly less of a downer when the spirit haunting his Fredbear plush seemingly appologizes and promises to 'put him back together', but what exactly that means is unknown.
  • Easter Egg:
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Even the cupcake is a threat this time around.

    F-M 
  • Final Boss: Nightmare Fredbear acts very much like one, as he is the only Nightmare Animatronic in the fifth night and can attack you from any of the places the other ones could. While he is replaced by Nightmare in Night 7 (the canonically last night), Nightmare Fredbear still feels like the final boss, as the game's story ends with Night 6 (completing Night 7 only rewards you with a star and the aforementioned forever-locked box).
  • Game Over:
    • While the previous games had game over screens, this game just shows a screen flooded with blood spatters.
    • If you lose at "Fun with Plushtrap", the same blood-filled screen is shown (but it fades out quickly) with a caption that says "TOO BAD."
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: All of the animatronics' eyes glow to some degree.
  • Grand Finale: The initial teaser image referred to this game as "the final chapter". The Steam page refers to it as "last chapter of the Five Nights At Freddy's original story". This was technically true, as a spinoff and an alternate continuity novel followed 4, until Scott changed his mind and announced a fifth mainline game.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Aside from an Easter Egg showing a pair of employees putting on a mascot suit, there's no sign of any security guards at Fredbear's: nobody responds to the sight of four teenagers dragging a screaming smaller child through the restaurant and stuffing him into an onstage animatronic's mouth, which is a situation that warrants an intervention by security. This is especially noteworthy since staying near the animatronic is established as a top priority of day shift guards two games prior.
  • Halloween Episode: A special update was released on Halloween 2015, aptly titled the "Halloween Edition". It features slightly reskinned versions of Bonnie and Chica (named Jack-O-Bonnie and Jack-O-Chica) and minor Halloween-themed elements in the main story's cutscenes (such as jack-o-lanterns and decorations). It also includes Balloon Boy, the Puppet, and Mangle in major roles, replacing Plushtrap, Nightmare, and Foxy respectively.
  • He Knows Too Much: Averted; even though the Crying Child can witness the Purple Man putting a spring-locked suit on someone else, what eventually happens to him is an entirely different matter. This may be because the Purple Man may simply be helping an employee into the suit.
  • The Hero Dies: Implied, at least. At the end of Night 6's ending, you can faintly hear a flatline.
  • He's Back!:
    • After sitting Out of Focus in the second game and becoming a completely nonlethal distraction in the third, Freddy appears in the first teaser image for FNAF 4 and gives us a firm reminder of why he owns the Antagonist Title.
    • Bonnie didn't even show up as a distraction in FNAF 3, but he returns in this game with a similar nightmarish overhaul. He is the animatronic featured most prominently in the trailer — and is the one to give the obligatory Jump Scare at the end.
    • Golden Freddy, who was simply a cameo in the third game, makes his return as his original identity, Fredbear... who inspires Nightmare Fredbear.
    • Mangle, Balloon Boy, and the Puppet return in the Halloween update as genuine enemies who can kill you. In the previous game, they were nonlethal- supposed- hallucinations.
  • Imaginary Friend: Golden Freddy in the form of a teddy bear. According to the official Sanshee version of the toy, however, he's apparently very real, and very haunted.
  • Infinite Flashlight: The only game in the series to have one.
  • Invisible Parents: The child’s parents are criminally negligent to ignore what their kid is going through, and how his brother is facilitating it, though, with who his father might be, maybe that's to be expected.
  • Jump Scare:
    • Checking the closet has the possibility of being greeted by Foxy sticking his head out the door, accompanied by a brief yet still effective snippet of the game's jumpscare scream.
    • The protagonist's older brother has a hobby of leaping out from various hiding places in a Foxy mask and screaming.
    • Nightmare and Nightmarionne lack traditional jumpscare animations; getting caught by them results in a cut to a still image of the character with static noises playing over it, followed by the game resetting.
  • Kids Are Cruel: The Crying Child’s brother is, putting it lightly, a huge dick. He loves tormenting his younger sibling by locking him in frightening places or jumping out at him while wearing a Foxy mask. Most of the other kids that the player interacts with aren't much better, laughing at his peril as he dreads having his party at Freddy's. It quickly goes From Bad to Worse by showing the Crying Child being forced into Fredbear's mouth by the other kids, including his own brother. Big mistake.
  • Killer Teddy Bear: Plushtrap, being a little plush toy of Springtrap, kinda counts. The Freddles are a more literal version.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: The post-night minigames spoil some of the biggest reveals from 3. Namely that Spring Bonnie, a golden predecessor of Bonnie, exists, and he and Golden Freddy (whom this game reveals is called Fredbear in-universe) used to headline an establishment of Freddy's, overshadowing the original Fazbear gang.
  • Left Hanging: Completing Night 7 will reveal a box that cannot be opened. This was supposed to be unlocked via the Halloween update, but Scott decided to leave it alone, with the contents forever remaining unknown (beyond a vague "all the pieces put together").
  • Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Child’s brother and his friends laugh about their latest prank, then suddenly go utterly silent when the child's head gets crushed by Fredbear.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The guidebook tries to shed light on this, but many aspects are still unclear. The actual nature of the Nightmare Animatronics are still in the air, as is that of the toy Fredbear and the voice that apologizes to the Child at the end.
  • Mini-Me: Plushtrap and the three Freddles resemble smaller versions of Springtrap and Nightmare Freddy, respectively.
  • Mini Mook:
    • The Freddles. Turn your back on your bed too long and more of them gather, only running off when you shine your flashlight at them. Fail to do so and Nightmare Freddy will come after you soon after three of them gather.
    • Plushtrap is the enemy in the Fun with Plushtrap minigames. The goal is to flash him at a certain time to make him stop on the cross on the floor and win the chance to start the next night at 2 o'clock.
  • More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The Nightmare animatronics are characterized by having long, sharp teeth. Nightmare Chica, Nightmare Fredbear, and Nightmare stand out, with the former having three rows of teeth, and the latter two possessing both giant, toothy and possibly bloody maws, but also fanged Belly Mouths. Not so surprising, given what happens to the Child at the end…
  • My God, What Have I Done?: When Fredbear bites down on the Crying Child’s head, his brother and his friends instantly stop laughing.

    N-Z 
  • Non-Standard Game Over: If you get caught by Nightmare, the game will reset, much like how in the first game getting caught by Golden Freddy would crash the game.
  • Oddball in the Series: The gameplay takes place in a house instead of the titular establishment (which is still seen in between-night minigames), the protagonist is a child rather than a security guard, cameras are absent, and the story deviates from the main serial killer plot and focuses on the events leading up to an animatronic's bite (though not the one in 1987). Unlike other examples of this trope, this is actually a celebrated aspect of this installment.
  • Oh, Crap!: The Crying Child and his plushie have some moments, especially where his brother’s abuse is involved.
    • Every time the Child is scared by his brother.
    • When someone sees the Child at Fredbear's Family Diner and an adult in a Fredbear suit starts chasing him.
    • When the Child’s locked in the Spare Parts room and is banging to escape.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: The Child, while stuck in Fredbear's Diner, can catch a glimpse of William Afton, who is helping another employee with the spring-lock suit. While running from a man in a yellow suit, the child hides under a table and gets into a Troubled Fetal Position. Because other employees are still there, the Purple Man spares the Child.
  • Properly Paranoid: This child is the only person in the games scared of Fredbear's Diner and the murderous, haunted animatronics. While Afton clearly still has his job—implying that the murders are still relatively unknown—five kids that he sees on his way home validate his fears.
  • Protect This House: Instead of a pizzeria, the animatronics have decided to terrorize a largely defenseless home. Too bad there are no fancy cameras to see them coming or help ward them off.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Averted by the new golden animatronic, who's actually the original form of Golden Freddy. We also learn he's Fredbear, from Fredbear's Family Diner, as namedropped in the second game.
  • The Reveal:
    • Golden Freddy's real name is Fredbear.
    • Mangle appears in the Child’s house. Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, and Toy Chica also appear as toys owned by a local kid. After the Halloween update, there is "Fun with Balloon Boy", which highly suggests that the child is aware of the original BB's existence. With the indirect confirmation by Scott that the game takes place in 1983, all of these mean that the Toy animatronics weren't introduced in 1987; they have existed since long before that (possibly as a parallel roster of the original Fazbear gang).
    • The kid you're controlling in the minigames was the victim of an unfortunate and lethal brain injury. His brother and some of the brother's friends lifted the kid up towards Fredbear during the kid's birthday party as a prank. The kid ended up crushed in Fredbear's jaw.
  • Revisiting the Roots:
    • It's gone back to the first game, even down to the layout of your room mirroring the appearance of the first office.
    • The main animatronics are again the original four/five, again with Bonnie attacking from the left, Chica attacking from the right, and Foxy hiding behind something. Characters from the second game are not present in the actual gameplay, but have cameos in the minigames.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Nightmare appears to have a human brain as a part of his exoskeleton/suit. While this seems to make no sense aside from being creepy, it's actually a very unsubtle metaphor to the whole Ghost in the Machine situation going on with the animatronics: a human mind controlling a robot body.
  • Running Gag:
    • You can honk Freddy's nose again, this time with the plushie on your bed.
    • The fan returns once again. But this time, it's not working…
  • Sequel Hook:
    • Beating the special "Nightmare" night nets you a screen with a locked chest — shaped much like the heads of the crying children in the previous games' minigames, complete with "tears" — that hinted at more secrets yet to be revealed. This would end up staying closed, per Scott's decision.
    • Scottgames shows the text "The End. Thanks for playing!" Brightening the image (of course) reveals it actually says "The End?"
  • Series Fauxnale: The game was originally intended to be the final game in the series. However, Scott grew dissatisfied with the game's vague storytelling and decided to continue the series.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The Child dies a terribly cruel death at the hands of his older brother, who had done nothing but torment the boy day in and day out.
  • The So-Called Coward: The Crying Child, who is always crying and hates Fredbear's Diner. Still, anyone in his shoes would be terrified with a Big Brother Bully who scares him on a regular basis, to say nothing that he is Properly Paranoid about the diner given what happens to him on his birthday. He holds up pretty well with Fredbear's help, all things considered.
  • Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: We finally get to see a child who isn't on good terms with the infamous Friends to All Children and sees them to be just as uncanny as they are out-of-universe. Although he likes the plushies, the animatronics leave him absolutely fear-stricken.
  • Stealth Prequel: As with the second game, the cutscenes in between nights make it clear that you're in a time period from before the first game, particularly when Fredbear's Family Diner was still open.
  • Suck E. Cheese's: Freddy Fazbear's Pizza doesn't appear, but its progenitor, Fredbear's Family Diner, does in minigames. The protagonist hates being there, and is completely terrified of the animatronics. Worse yet, it's where his birthday party is being held.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The protagonist’s Big Brother Bully and his friends stick the child’s head in Fredbear's jaws during a song routine. Not only is Fredbear a spring-lock suit, with overly strong mechanisms that can tear a grown man to ribbons in seconds, but the skull of a child is only 1/8 as strong as that of an adult's. The Child's head is completely crushed by Fredbear's programmed jaw movements after little resistance.
  • Teens Are Monsters: After Night 5, the player character's Big Brother Bully and his friends shove him into the mouth of the Fredbear animatronic against his will.
  • Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: The Nightmares are all grotesque versions of Fredbear and friends, who explicitly hide in the dark areas of the player character’s home—most notably under the bed and in his closet.
  • Trauma Conga Line: The game is one big one for the Crying Child. He is consistently abused by his family — his brother locks him in his room, while his parents leave him at the diner which he hates and later force him to go there for his birthday. All of this culminates in the kid being pranked by his brother and some of his friends when they put his head inside Fredbear's mouth — a prank that ends with his head crushed. That might not even be the end; if the voice in the final cutscene was able to do as promised...
  • Troubled Fetal Position: The poor kid is often in this position at both the beginnings and endings of the minigames.
  • True Final Boss: A Palette Swap of Nightmare Fredbear, called "Nightmare", replaces him for Nightmare Mode. He's much more aggressive than Fredbear.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The protagonist's Big Brother Bully. His Deadly Prank was just another horrific event in Fazbear Entertainment's downward spiral.
  • Villains Out Shopping: The Purple Guy's cameo seems to be him helping another employee put on a Bonnie suit.
  • Westminster Chimes: As per the series, this tune returns once more in the trailer. Averted in the gameplay, as an alarm clock sounds when you make it through a night.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The Crying Child HATES the diner and the animatronics. Guess what's a short walk away from his house.

Tomorrow is another day.

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