Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is an indie survival horror video game developed and published by Scott Cawthon. It is the fourth installment of the Five Nights at Freddy's series. The game takes place in the bedroom of a child, where the player must avoid attack by nightmarish versions of the animatronics from the first game.

 

In this last chapter of the Five Nights at Freddy's original story, you must once again defend yourself against Freddy Fazbear, Chica, Bonnie, Foxy, and even worse things that lurk in the shadows. Playing as a child whose role is yet unknown, you must safeguard yourself until 6 am by watching the doors, as well as warding off unwanted creatures that may venture into your closet or onto the bed behind you.

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is a departure from the conventional series format in many ways. Most notably, rather than playing as a security guard in an office defending against roaming animatronics, the main protagonist is a child in their bedroom warding off twisted monster versions of the well-known Freddy characters.

 

■ You have only a flashlight to protect yourself. It will scare away things that may be creeping at the far end of the hallways, but be careful, and listen. If something has crept too close, then shining lights in its eyes will be your end.

 

■ Security cameras are not present so the player must rely on environmental noises to tell if something is approaching or about to attack.

 

■ Also, where the previous games could be played by frantically clicking between screens and defenses, the pace at which the game is played must be slowed down considerably, as making a move without waiting for cues can easily result in a Game Over.

 

■ Most of the gameplay centers around checking four positions in the bedroom: a set of doors on each side of the bedroom, a closet in front of the player, and a bed behind them.

 

■ After beating each night, the player may play a timed minigame titled "Fun with Plushtrap" in which a plush edition of Springtrap, the central animatronic in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, must be lured to the top of an "X" marked on the ground within a specific amount of time.

 

■ As in most of the previous entries of the series, the story of the game is revealed in interactive Atari-style minigames playable between nights. Each of the minigames is set in a time frame corresponding to the five nights, beginning with "5 days until the party", up to "0 days until the party."

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 ©Copyright by Gamdise Do not Reproduce. By JoJo

 

The fundamentals of FNAF 4 remain familiar, and its setup intentionally replicates the design of the first game. The original cast is back, and their avenues of attack directly mimic their first outing: a familiar symmetrical room; a reprise of Bonnie, Chica, Freddy, and Foxy as the main antagonists; and the use of doors as the primary defense mechanism. But this time, instead of haunting a creepy cottage Chuck E. Cheese's, they're haunting your home. Its differences offer a refreshingly new presentation of its predecessor's risk-reward seesaw.

 

As before, being alive requires familiarity with the behavior of each electronic animation. But this time, panic is achieved in a slightly different way from what fans are used to. The first three Freddy games lock you in a safe room with cameras that need to be monitored. They were a very visual experience; desperately scanning the TV screen for the sight of the killer Muppet to rip your face off. And FNAF 4 throws it into a different light: sound. Audio cues - the sound of muffled footsteps, the metallic clink of a moving kitchen pan, the sound of something breathing around you - indicate when to use a flashlight or seal a doorway. Being proactive is essential; a mistake will always cause intense fear.

 

Between midnight and 6 a.m. (which lasts about 8 minutes), you need to be constantly diving around your room to ward off any intruders. There are four places to monitor: the two exits of your room, the closet, and your bed. Click on each one to approach them, and then you need to listen well. If you hear a noise, it's time to close the door. If it sounds clear, you turn on your flashlight to check further down the hallway. But if you screw up - ignore a door for too long, or turn on your flashlight instead of closing the door when an enemy approaches - a ravenous, toothy teddy bear will dive in and rip you to shreds. The game is over, and it's time to start the night over again.

 

I admit that Five Nights at Freddy's 4 gave me the most intense and frightening feeling of subtle unease and self-doubt compared to all the previous games in the series. If this was my first time playing this, maybe it would be fine. The problem is that you have to do this over and over again. Over two or three hours, you check the same three doors and react in the same way. Things change slightly as the night goes on - different types of enemies are introduced - but the key to fending off each one is the same. With the rich storyline incorporated in the previous series, each night required the application of a different strategy to complete, and achieving this in Freddy's 4's five nights was difficult. The monotonous repetition of the same sequences over and over again - door, listen, flashlight, repeat - was too cumbersome to fully engage me.

 

The change in attention to audio is welcome, but it suffers from being less successful than the visual cues. While the game succeeds in creating the sounds of the house at night: clocks ringing, crickets chirping, and rustling in the kitchen, it's often difficult to figure out what sounds you should be paying attention to. Throughout Freddy 4's five nights, I felt a lack of control. The logic of electronic animations was never clear enough for me to come up with a solid strategy to stop them. Things became more haphazard, with more guesswork and chance incorporated into the experience. When I die, I often don't know what I've done wrong. And to be honest, when I succeed, I'm not always sure why.

 

I think this may be intentional, a way to always keep experienced players on their toes, but the frustrating deaths and unearned victories are equally unsatisfying. There's no real pattern to observe in the way characters attack your bedroom. You just have to pray that you're listening to the right things and reacting appropriately. When the audio feels confusing, getting killed feels a bit like getting cheated. So far, compared to any other Freddy game, I've just been annoyed and irritated while playing Five Nights at 4. The low price means that buying Five Nights at Freddy's 4 isn't a big gamble, but if you've played the first three games, you may be disappointed.