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Videogame / Five Nights at Freddy's 4

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Ready or not, here. We. Come.

"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 Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria! 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 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.

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◊.

What tropes do you think you are reading?

  • The '80s:
    • Before the game's release, people theorised that it would be a prequel due to constant references to The Bite of '87 in the teasers, the offhand partial mention of Fredbear's Family Diner and the titular animatronic, and the source code of Scott's website featuring several references to "87" as well as the numbers "0871" and "2093" (take away or add 1 to each digit and you end up with 1982 both times). The house that the game takes place in doesn't look very modern at all. A screenshot from one of the between-night minigames shows a "Fredbear & Friends" show dated from 1983 playing on the TV in the kid's home.
    • Also, due to The Cameo of the Toy animatronics as dolls owned by a little girl that the protagonist can come across in the between-night minigames heavily implies that the game takes place at least after the opening of the Five Nights at Freddy's 2 pizzeria. The Fredbear & Friends programme on the TV from 1983 could have just been a rerun.
    • Nightmare BB's addition to the main game as well as the Halloween Edition seems to prove that Toy-generation BB was already around during the game's timeframe. Make of that what you will.
  • A Birthday, Not a Break: The player character 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.
  • Absentee Actor: Phone Guy is completely absent in this game — making this the one game in the series where he doesn't appear (er, well, not appear, per se). Though not completely: if one reverses the odd vocal radio-static that plays randomly, it's revealed to be a pitched down Phone Guy recording the first message in the first game.
    • With the exception of the Spring Bonnie (Springtrap) animatronic, a plushie-sized version of Springtrap, figurines of Toy Freddy and Toy Chica and Toy Bonnie, and a pile of Mangle's dismantled parts, all of which appear in the minigames, none of the animatronics from the second or third games appear in this one at all. Some appear in the Halloween Edition, but it is confirmed to be non-canon, so it doesn't even count.note 
    • Conversely, in the Halloween Edition, everyone except Nightmare Freddy and Nightmare Fredbear do not appear in any form. Plushtrap is replaced by Nightmare BB, Nightmare is replaced by Nightmarionne, and Foxy is replaced by Mangle. Nightmare Chica and Bonnie are replaced by Jack-O-Chica and Jack-O-Bonnie, respectively.
    • Incidently, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, and Freddy are themselves MIA from the minigames at the pizzeria. Only Fredbear and Spring Bonnie (Springtrap) appear, even as parts in the Parts and Service room.
  • Accidental Murder: Downplayed, but the teenagers' prank against the child was an accident, and it probably disabled (and ultimately killed) him.
  • Action Survivor: The child protagonist is this, both during the nights and in the mini-games. Even though he was lobotomized, he's alive. Night 6's ending subverts this, however, as the child is implied to die after... something... speaks to him in one last dream, promising to "put him back together."
  • Adult Fear:
    • This game plays with the idea of not being safe in your own home. On top of that, the trailer shows a child's room, meaning that a defenseless child is going up against several dangerous robots — and there's no indication that the child's parents are at home (or willing to help him out).
    • Having people you know either not listening or disbelieving you when it comes to serious, life-threatening problems. Parental Neglect, bullying, and supernatural metal monstrosities coming for you in the night.
    • The day of the party is rife with this, when a bunch of stupid cruel teens shove a child into an animatronics' mouth and leave him long enough for the bot to accidentally crush his skull. From the child's perspective, he got handed a death sentence due to being too small to fight back, and at best is a vegetable. From the brother's perspective, he's committed Accidental Murder with the Deadly Prank.
  • All Just a Dream: The events of the game are implied to either be a horrific nightmare or Adventures in Comaland. It's implied that the protagonist is either suffering from PTSD or is outright comatose thanks to his older brother unintentionally getting his head crushed in a Deadly Prank.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: The child is heavily implied to be hated by all the other children, up to and including his own brother. So much, in fact, that they're the direct cause of his coma, his nightmares, and possibly even his death.
  • Ambiguous Situation: The entire game, for multiple reasons. Especially the ending: does The Child die? Who's talking to him? What does it mean by "put you back together"?
  • Ambiguous Time Period: The entire game is set up to very clearly be the lead-up to the Bite of 87. Unfortunately for us, Scott Cawthon, Trolling Creator he is, put an in-universe copyright date reading "1983" in one of the cutscenes, just to ramp up the Wild Mass Guessing Up to Eleven, because Scott was very careful in removing any proof that it isn't not taking place in 1987.
    • And if it is 1987, we have no way of knowing if it's during Jeremy Fitzgerald's brief tenure, or several months beforehand.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • If Fredbear and the other animatronics are sentient during the Child's birthday party, it just adds another layer of horror and sadness. Imagine being 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 the Child 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 Child'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 turns to screaming.
    • The (apparently initial) fate of the protagonist after an unfortunate accident involving his brain. The brother even says "I don't know if you can hear me."
  • And Now For Something Completely Different: In terms of both gameplay and story, Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is radically different from previous titles. You don't have any cameras, you don't have to manage any type of resource, you can now move around freely, and there's no Phone Guy (you get tutorial messages instead). Additionally, this game isn't as frenetic as the others, since it allows a bit more time for making a decision, but instantly punishes you if you make the wrong choice. On the story side, it no longer takes place at a pizzeria (or haunted house based off of it), and you are now a scared child instead of a working adult. And the Purple Man seemingly has next to no involvement with the plot, only making a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in a cutscene.
  • 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, although it could also be referencing the Bite of '87. There are 8s and 7s spread throughout the site's source code and an "87" can be found in Nightmare Foxy's right eye if his teaser image is darkened.
    • "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 hospitalized and close to death.
  • Arc Number: 87, as it's in the Nightmare Foxy teaser and the site's source code.
    • 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.
  • 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 simply a house that the Nightmare Animatronics are haunting. There is a pizzeria close to the protagonist's house, though, and plays a very important part of the between-night minigames.
  • Artificial Stupidity: Oh, we have a mixed bag this time! Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy are back to square one, with Bonnie and Chica always coming from the left and right respectively, and Foxy's back to hiding behind a parted barrier, though this time he has to sneak past you to get there. Sometimes it's him you're shining your light on down the hallway, so you're heading him off at the pass. Fredbear — and later, Nightmare — on the other hand, will come at you from all sides, and Freddy himself will actually wait for your stupidity if you don't look behind you often enough. Justified as it's a nightmare.
  • Ascended Extra: Remember that cupcake Chica always holds in her hand? It can jumpscare you now.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: The child protagonist is dying. Their skull crushed from a prank gone horribly wrong. Brain damaged, their worse fears threaten to consume them. They're now having five nights, or rather, five nightmares of Freddys.
  • 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. However, only Nightmare Balloon Boy is canon.
  • Big Bad: Nightmare Freddy, if the pre-release material is of any indication. And then Nightmare Foxy comes in, as he represents the actual Big Bad: the kid's absolute douchebag of a brother. And then Nightmare Fredbear shows up. And then Nightmare.
  • Big Brother Bully: The Child's older brother 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 and the dialogue after Night 6 makes it clear that he never meant for his brother to get hurt like that. He even hoped that his brother would wake up so that he could be a better brother. It never happened and the kid passed away.
  • Bittersweet Ending/Downer Ending: Has the most depressing ending by far of the Freddy series. The Child gets his frontal lobe smashed in (due to his OWN BROTHER no less) and gets put into a comatose state, where the game takes place. The last minigame-cutscene then ends with a flatline. The only thing that saves it from being a total downer ending that that the Child is promised that he'll be "put back together"... though even this could just be a hallucination.
  • Bloodier and Gorier: Instead of the static of the other games, blood takes its place.
  • Bloodless Carnage: Averted. However, when the child is bitten, there's no blood at all.
  • Body Horror: The Nightmare animatronics qualify as this, but special shout-outs go to Nightmare Freddy (due to the Mini-Freddies on his body) and Fredbear and Nightmare, since they both have teeth in their stomachs (and two holes in their stomachs that resemble eyes).
  • 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 two hours on the next night. Fail, and you get the typical punishment.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: 20/20/20/20 mode only nets you another star on the main menu.
  • Butt Monkey: The kid. The poor, poor kid. Not only is he constantly tormented by his brother, he's also being chased by the most terrifying versions of the Fazbear gang to date, and he winds up being the victim of the Bite of '87. Or a precursor to it. Oh yeah, and he gets bit on his birthday. And is implied to DIE afterwards. Damn.
  • Call Back: Possibly:
    • The Nightmare Freddy teaser is extremely similar to the Withered Freddy◊ teaser for Freddy's 2.
    • The scream heard in the game sounds like a hybrid of ALL of the screams from the previous games,note  as unnerving as it is.
    • 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 designs from Five Nights At Freddy's 2, especially noticeable with Chica and Foxy.
  • Canon Discontinuity: Word of God has stated that, due to changing his mind about revealing the contents of the box, the Halloween update's contents are officially non-canon.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The game itself primarily uses dark blues, like the first game, but is a lot darker. Game menus and promotional material, however, uses red like the second game, though this game uses it much more so.
  • Creepy Changing Painting: The "Thank You!" image on Scott's website. At first, the changes were subtle, like the colors becoming duller, but animatronics started appearing and being outright replaced, with many of them now looking very cartoonish, and a surprise appearance from the "hallucination" Balloon Boy.
  • Creepy Doll:
    • Plushtrap and the Mini-Freddies definitely have this vibe. The former really gives it off due to looking like a doll sitting in a chair... who is staring at the door.
    • A girl the protagonist can encounter on his journey home from the restaurant asks him if he is crying because he doesn't like her collection of the Toy animatronic figurines.
    • Otherwise averted: the protagonist loves his other dolls of the Freddy's characters, though he's terrified of the actual animatronics. He considers them his only friends.
  • 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: The animatronics may be the scariest yet, and you're a little kid instead of a grown man.
    • This is also reflected in the death screens — from 1, a shot of the parts room with your character's eyes hanging out of the suit, from 2, a shot of Freddy staring at you through the eye-holes in the mask, from 3, static, and from 4, blood everywhere.
    • The plot is also far darker than any of the other games and deals with some very heavy themes, like parental and sibling abuse, abandonment, being unable to be safe in your own home, and life-changing (or ending) injuries.
  • Deadly Prank: This is the cause of the child's nightmares (and possibly his eventual death). The victim's brother tried to scare him by putting him in Fredbear's mouth, only for the animatronic to bite down a lot harder than expected.
  • Demoted to Extra: The Purple Man'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 Child's asshole brother.
  • Didn't Think This Through: The teens, including the 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 (fitting!), 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: All we hear is a flatline at the end. Or rather, a flat electroencephalogram, the child's injured brain is showing no electrical activity. Brain death has occurred.
  • Dying Dream: The entire game (and, depending on your interpretations, the entire franchise) is the traumatic dream/hallucination of the dying child having suffered a brain injury at the hands of his complete asshole of a brother.
  • Easter Egg: Yep, you can honk Freddy's nose again (this time a plush toy version of him). Doing so 20+ times in a row will summon Nightmare Foxy, regardless of the night, for an instant game over.
  • Everything's Better with Plushies: The plushies of Foxy and Freddy are undeniably adorable. Plushtrap, however...
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Even the cupcake is a threat this time around.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Nightmare animatronics are a nightmare the Child is having.
  • Final Boss: 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. His role, however, is ultimately given to Nightmare.
  • First-Episode Spoiler: Even if you haven't already read through most of the page, you'll more than likely probably have correctly guessed from the information above that the game is another prequel due to the player character's many trips to either Fredbear's Family Diner or the 1987 iteration of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. In the game itself, it's not until the first night's post-night minigame that you'll actually get a heavy hint as to what the aforementioned spoiler is, and get outright shown after the end of the second night.
  • Foreshadowing: The emphasized sharp teeth in the animatronics' designs in this game are likely due to the protagonist being the victim of an accident involving an animatronic chomping down on his head. Fredbear's teeth are particularly large and sharp, and appear to be coated with blood.
    • If you hold Foxy behind his closet for long enough, he'll transform into a plushie, referencing the fact that the Nightmare animatronics are actually nightmares.
    • Throughout the minigames, Fredbear constantly tries to help you, but just manages to make things worse somehow. This culminates in him accidentally causing severe brain damage when the kid's jammed into his mouth.
    • If you brighten a screenshot of the illuminated bed, an IV drip can be seen to the left, foreshadowing the fact that you play as the victim of an unfortunate injury.
    • Another hint is the fact that the kid's bedroom in the mini-games looks nothing like the bedroom in the main game.
    • Sometimes flowers, an I.V. drip, or a bottle of pills appear on the bed stand, heavily hinting that the protagonist is in the hospital.
    • When you shine the light and shut the door on Foxy enough, he turns into a plushie, and unlike in the minigames, it still has a head. Seemingly minor, until you learn what happens to the kid.
    • A series-wide example: in the first game, there was a hallucination that displayed three crying faces, ala the Childnote , on the wall. Taking who the Crying Child from 2 haunts and the ultimate fate of the Child in this game into account — alongside the fact that we still don't have a good reason for the Puppet to be as powerful as it is — it's not unlikely that Sharing a Body-esque shenanigans are going on.
  • Four Is Death: Not only is this the fourth (and final) installment in the series, but it also has the most disturbing variations of the animatronics that Scott has ever created.
  • 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." It's almost like the game's taunting you.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: All of the animatronics' eyes glow to some degree.
  • Grand Finale: The initial teaser image refers 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 until Scott changed his mind and announced a fifth game, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Even discounting that one guard, where the heck were the day shift guards? We've got four teenagers dragging a screaming smaller child through the restaurant and stuffing him into an onstage animatronic's mouth, that probably warrants the attention of a security guard. Especially since "stay near the animatronics" is the first thing a day shift guard is instructed to do. We can totally see you earned that day shift promotion, Jeremy (or Phone Guy or whoever the hell it was).
  • 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 Springtrap, Nightmare, and Foxy respectively.
  • Harder Than Hard: In the original game, there's Night 7, and Night 8. The updates take it to absolutely insane levels with the challenge menu. Blind Mode (Exactly What It Says on the Tin), Mad Freddy (Nightmare Freddy's faster), Insta-Foxy (Foxy's always in your closet), and All Nightmare (dealing with Nightmare for the entire night). Try activating the first and fourth challenges, and it would completely scream this trope.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: After stuffing the child into Fredbear's mouth and getting the latter hospitalized, the brother apologizes and wants him to wake up. You then hear a flatlining, implying that the child died in his coma.
  • He Knows Too Much: Averted; even though the 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.
  • Hell Is That Noise: As per usual, the animatronics' signature screech counts as this — but this time, it literally sounds like Hell because it combines elements from all three of the previous screeches (the sound of a child screaming, a mechanical reverb effect, and an animal-esque roar). In the latter's case, this is not a roar of pained agony, as is presumed with Springtrap, but one of pure hatred and anger.
    • The game makes this even worse by forcing you to listen for the animatronics rather than watch for them via cameras.
    • If you encounter Nightmare, his kill screen is accompanied by a sound that befits both his name and this trope's name — it sounds like the distorted moaning and wailing of spirits. Ditto for Nightmarionne in the Halloween Edition.
  • 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 mere hallucination 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 hallucination 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 the Disc One Final Boss known as Fredbear.
    • One of the between-night minigames shows what looks like Mangle's spare parts sitting disassembled in one of the rooms of the house.
  • How We Got Here: As it turns out, the mini-games reveal how the child protagonist ends up suffering each night.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: This seems to have become a running theme of the series by this point. Between the Purple Guy's actions revealed in the previous game to the cause of the child's nightmares, nearly everything awful that's happened in the series has been the result of the actions of very cruel humans.
  • Imaginary Friend: Golden Freddy in the form of a teddy bear. Surprise, he's apparently a Not-So-Imaginary Friend, too.
  • Infant Immortality: Averted big time now that the protagonist is a child. And... ultimately, completely and utterly averted. The Child is very, very heavily implied to not survive the game.
  • Infinite Flashlight: The only game in the series to have one.
  • Invisible Parents: It's not clear if the parents even exist. If so, they are criminally negligent to ignore what their kid is going through, and how his brother is facilitating it.
  • Jump Scare: As with tradition, with the animatronics really in your face this time.
    • The new scream, which is either a little kid's scream or an amalgamation of all previous games' screams. Even more startling when you open the closet and see Foxy accompanied by a brief yet still effective snippet of the scream.
    • The protagonist's older brother has a hobby of leaping out from various hiding places in a Foxy mask and screaming.
  • Kids Are Cruel: The protagonist's brother is, putting it lightly, a huge dick. He loves tormenting his younger sibling by locking him in frightenening 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 protagonist being forced into Fredbear's mouth by the other kids, including his own brother. Big mistake.
    • It's implied that the kid's brother is also one of the kids who tore apart Mangle, too.
  • Killer Teddy Bear: Plushtrap, being a little plush toy of Springtrap, kinda counts. The mini-Freddies are a more literal version.
  • Left Hanging: If this game is indeed the final one of the series, we may never know why the original Fredbear's Family Diner closed, leading to the grand opening of this version in 1987 — unless this is the original Fredbear's Family Diner, and the game doesn't take place in 1987.
  • Mass "Oh, Crap!": The kid's brother and his friends were laughing about their prank… then suddenly go utterly silent when the child's head gets crushed by Fredbear.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The entire game. Are the Nightmare Animatronics just the hallucinations/PTSD-induced flashbacks of a Deadly Prank victim, or actual entities that can kill him? Is Fredbear just a plush toy, or a Not-So-Imaginary Friend responsible for the Nightmares in the first place?
  • Meta Twist: Your enemies aren't haunted animatronics — they're horrific nightmares of a coma patient.
    • The Purple Man has nothing at all to do with the events of the game. He simply appears as a cameo.
  • Mini Mook:
    • The Mini-Freddies. 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 new versions of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy certainly qualify. Especially so with Chica, who has three rows of teeth in her mouth. Even the cupcake has teeth! (Considering her reputation for being a Toothy Bird, this comes as no surprise.)
    • Fredbear and Nightmare have goddamned mouths inside their stomachs.
  • Mundanger: Sort of? Maybe? Assuming that the theory that the child's hallucinating or suffering PTSD is true, there are no murderous animatronics, he's just hallucinating.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: When Fredbear bites down on the child's head, his brother and his friends instantly stop laughing. In the Night 6 Minigame, the brother's grey text plays, trying to get any signal his brother hears him, before finally saying "I'm sorry."
  • Mythology Gag:
    • As noted below, the subtitle is a reference to Friday the 13th. The second game definitely, and possibly the others as well, had the fifth night fall on a Friday the 13th.
    • There's a fan in the bedroom similar to the ones in the security offices in the previous games.
    • The large grandfather clock in the hall may be one to the use of "My Grandfather's Clock" in 2.
    • The jumpscare at the end of the teaser may be a gag in regards to the first game's first teaser, showing Bonnie pulling his mask off and leering towards the camera.
    • Likewise, Scott had mentioned that the animatronic he was most afraid of was Bonnie after having a waking nightmare of Bonnie standing outside his door and Scott trying to shut him out. In the teaser, the protagonist goes to check his bedroom door and is greeted by Nightmare Bonnie's huge mouth.
  • 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.
  • Nothing Is Scarier:
    • In the trailer, a light is repeatedly flashed, showing an empty and desolate hallway. After several flashes, there is prolonged darkness and the music cuts out. When the light is flashed again, something is at the end of the hall.
    • In the game itself, there are no sounds whatsoever, and what sounds are there are very quiet. The only mentionable sound is the terrifying jumpscare scream.
    • That moment of sheer tension when you open a door and stick your head out into the darkness, deciding whether or not you want to see what's down that hallway.
  • Not Me This Time: Unlike the other games, the Purple Man isn't responsible in any way for the killer animatronics causing our protagonist grief this time around.
  • Oddball in the Series: The gameplay takes place in a house instead of the titular pizzeria (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 the Bite of '87 (or a similar event). 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.
    • Every time the older brother jumpscares him.
    • When someone sees him at Freddy's Pizzeria and an adult in a yellow suit starts chasing him.
    • When he's locked in the Spare Parts room and banging to escape.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: A sobering one . . . the Crying Child after getting bitten is implied to get some medical help, at least enough medical help to get hooked up to a heart monitor. This means that this is the only time that someone at Freddy's pizzeria thought to call the paramedics and try to save a child. The Brother in the meantime gains enough guilt and humility to apologize, even though as far as he knows he doesn't know if his brother can hear him. The reason why this is sobering? He only says sorry when it's too late for his brother to survive the Deadly Prank.
  • P.O.V. Sequel: If this takes place during 1987, then the mini-games showcase the week leading up to the Bite of '87...from the victim's point of view.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: The child, while stuck in Freddy's Pizzeria, can catch a glimpse of the Purple Man, 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 protagonist.
  • Properly Paranoid: This child is the only person in the games scared of Freddy's Pizzeria and the animatronics. It's a place where a serial killer lures children to the back room, murders them, and stuffs them into suits and the bots will go after you if you're a security guard. Can anyone blame him for being so fearful? During the very same nights that the game seems to portray (and at the very least, the minigames do), in fact, a security guard is actively busting his chops to keep himself from being killed by the things.
  • Protect This House: Instead of the pizzeria, the animatronics have decided to terrorize a largely defenseless home. Too bad there are no fancy cameras to ward them off.
  • Pumpkin Person: The Halloween update includes Jack-O Bonnie and Jack-O Chica, who may be examples of this as an Exaggerated Trope, as they are completely made of pumpkins.
  • Red Herring: The child's room has a purple fan and robot toy, as well as a toy phone. This would suggest a connection to the Purple Man and/or Phone Guy. Phone Guy is completely absent from the game, and the Purple Man only appears in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo.
    • As a plushie of Springtrap, one of the series' most wicked characters, one would be forgiven for thinking that Plushtrap has a huge role in the plot, such as somehow being the cause of the animatronics. Aside from one child having a Spring Bonnie plush in one of the Atari-esque minigames, he has no plot significance — instead being relegated to a between-nights minigame.
  • Remember the New Guy: Averted by the new golden animatronic. Just from hearing the word "golden", you should be able to tell he's the original form of Golden Freddy. And when we learn his real name, we learn he's Fredbear, from Fredbear's Family Diner, as namedropped in the second game.
  • The Reveal:
    • The kid you're controlling is the victim of an unfortunate (and seemingly 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 in Fredbear's jaw. Goodbye, functioning brain — hello, coma and nightmares.
    • Golden Freddy is Fredbear.
  • 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 Difficulty Spike: After a rather easy third game, this new installment cranks the difficulty back up to the hardest game in the series.
  • Sequel Escalation: In the first two games, you're a grown adult fending off varying numbers of animatronics. The third game has a Serial Killer Sealed in a Person-Shaped Can. Here, you're a young child fending off Animalistic Abominations.
  • Sequel Hook: Not so much for a sequel as it (likely) is for the upcoming DLC, but 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 hints at more secrets yet to be revealed.
    • Scottgames now shows the text "The End. Thanks for playing!" Brightening the image (of course) reveals it actually says "The End?"
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The whole damn game.
  • Shout-Out:
  • The So-Called Coward: The child character, who is always crying and hates Freddy's Pizzeria. 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 pizzeria 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.
  • Spiritual Sequel: A young protagonist is left to fend for themself in a nightmarish place against monsters with no real means of keeping safe besides basic defense, his talking teddy bear is his best friend, and, on top of all that, the Big Bad is a family member. The game is quickly shaping up to feel like a follow-up to Among the Sleep.
  • Start of Darkness: The events of this game mark the beginning of the end for Fazbear Entertainment... and the birth of the Puppet. Possibly.
  • 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: The game's minigames show that the player character visits the pizzeria at one point, and he hates it with a burning passion as the animatronics terrify him, even when a costumed staff member approaches him with friendly intentions. Later on, he's forced to have his birthday party there. His older brother ditched him at the pizzeria some time before and forced him to find his way home. The brother also locked the kid inside Parts & Services at one point. During the party, the kid is forcefully shoved inside of Fredbear's mouth by his brother and his friends as a prank — and then a Bite happens; whether or not it's the Bite of '87 is completely unclear. Either way, the Child ends up in a coma.
  • Take That, Audience!: In a post, Scott mentioned he was disappointed in the fanbase for not figuring out the hidden details of the story as they had in past entries — with special mention to Game Theory — and was never going to reveal the contents of the locked box at the end, which he said holds the pieces of lore that makes the games fit together.
  • Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: This seems to be part of the theme with this game, given how the animatronics are after a child this time and can be anywhere, such as in the shadows and just out of sight. Nightmare Foxy seems to be lurking in your closet. The gameplay adds to this trope by making the player listen for the animatronics rather than watch for them.
  • Trauma Conga Line: The game is one big one for the kid protagonist. Not only does he have to suffer through trying to survive against the Nightmare animatronics, but 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 the kid's head inside Fredbear's mouth — a prank that ends with his head crushed. That might not even be the end; if the gameplay sections take place after the bite, it means this kid either has PTSD or is trapped in a coma. And, either way, it's implied that he died after all of this.
  • 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 Fredbear, called "Nightmare", replaces Fredbear for Nightmare Mode. He's much more aggressive than Fredbear.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The player character'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.
  • Wham Episode:
  • Wham Shot: For those playing the main and canon version of the game after the Halloween update, "Fun with Balloon Boy", which highly suggests that the child is aware of the original BB's existence. It might mean that either BB existed before 1987, or that the incident at the end is indeed the Bite of '87.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The child character HATES the pizzeria and the animatronics. Guess what's a short walk away from his house.

Tomorrow is another day.

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