What’s that in the closet?

Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 is the last, and scariest part of this terror-filled story. This time the horrific Freddy Fazbear, Chica, Bonnie, Foxy, and others have invaded your home. You play as a child who only has a flashlight to fight against the monsters that lurk in the dark. Can you survive until morning?

Fright Night

For the uninitiated, Five Nights at Freddy’s is a series of jump-filled, point-and-click horror games. You have to survive nights alone in the dark. Alone, that is, except for a crew of murderous terrors out to get you… It’s the kind of game anyone can pick up and play, making it an incredibly accessible way of scaring yourself witless.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 plays in a similar way to the earlier games, but there are changes. No more cameras to monitor, no pizza, and no security gates to manage. So what’s left? Playing as this unnamed child trying to survive in their bedroom, you have to make sure no monsters get to you by monitoring the two doors, the closet, and the bed.

Sound is probably the most essential part of Five Nights at Freddy’s 4. You have to listen carefully for breathing and movement, closing doors and using your flashlight carefully. Unlike the previous games, where the security cameras distanced you a bit from the terrors in the dark, in this chapter they are so close you can almost feel their breath. That makes it the most chilling FNaF so far.

Scarier than ever

The story is set in 1987, and the boy you play as is trying to survive the five nights leading up to his birthday, which of course will be celebrated at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza! You’ll probably survive the first two nights in your room fairly easily, as the game lets you learn how to manage the monsters in the dark and how to play.

By night three, Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 is a tense, horrific experience and the difficulty is much greater. If you love horror, Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 delivers on its promise of jump scares and delicious nail-biting tension.

One of the criticisms of the series overall is the repeated use of similar jump-scares. In this fourth chapter, developer Scott Cawthon has broadened the variety of scares on offer, so each monster in the game will terrify you in its own uniquely horrible way. While it’s scarier than ever, it’s a shame that all of the five nights are just spent in your bedroom. A little more variety would have been welcome – there’s more to a home than your bedroom, after all…

Is this really the end?

This is described as the ‘last chapter of the Five Nights at Freddy’s original story’, which is a subtle way of saying this probably isn’t the end of the series overall. But perhaps the developer will look for new stories to tell in the future, though I’d be surprised if his next game isn’t a point and click horror of some sort. So don’t worry if you want more chills like Five Nights at Freddy’s 4.

In conclusion, Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 is the scariest of the series so far, and the most polished, thanks to improved animation throughout. The game clears up a few of the mysteries from the previous installments, but also creates a few new ones. Is this another clue that we haven’t really seen the end of Freddy and co?