Are you ready to seek the truth?
Final Nights 4: Fates Entwined is the fourth and final game of the Final Nights series. It follows two characters. In the past, you play as Henry Stillwater as he is working as a security guard for the old Fredbear's Family Diner. In the present, you play as Max Donavan a paranormal investigator looking into the old the case of Freddy Fazbear's.
Tropes:
- The '70s: The main bulk of the game, where you play as Henry Stillwater, is set in 1973.
- Abandoned Hospital: The Hurricane Hospital has become this. Electricity is present, but the place is otherwise abandoned. According to the Puppet Master, this is because Martha Afton's spirit terrorized the patients to death and holds the Reapers hostage.
- Anti-Frustration Features: In Night 5, an exclamation mark appears in the room where Insane Fredbear spawns and a buzzer sounds if Insane Spring Bonnie arrives in your office. This is to prevent you from much guessing and hair-tearing rage, since they attack extremely frequently, and we mean frequently.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Max Donovan starts the Freddy's case because he wants to be the first to solve it. It becomes clear later on that he bites way more than he could chew.
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: As a homage to the first Five Nights at Freddy's, if you let Fredbear wander away, he will disable the electricity before proceeding to your room, all while his eyes flicker brightly.
- The Chessmaster: The Puppet Master is revealed to be the mastermind of the events of not only this game, but all previous ones. Ever since William Afton started his murder spree, it had made its goal to stop him and make the spirits pass in peace. It turned the animatronics into container of the dead children in an elaborate plan to kill Afton. Then it started to free them one by one; the events of Final Nights 3 happened because it sent Reapers to free Martha Afton's spirit, but that failed miserably. Thirty years later, however, the Puppet Master manages to do this task through Max Donovan.
- Closest Thing We Got: The reason why Henry, the owner is the one doing a night guard shifts. The old one didn't show up and someone has to watch the place at night.
- Deadly Gas: Proto Spring Bonnie has malfunctioned so he constantly releases this. You have to apply air refresher on him three times before it stops harming you by the time he reaches the office, so if you apply it twice, for example, you suffer a third of the poison. Suffer a full amount and he will kill you.
- Faking the Dead: The method to repel Spring Bonnie and Proto Spring Fredbear. In the latter case, you are allowed to move around, but not check the monitor. The former, however, requires you to remain perfectly still until she goes away.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Martha Afton turned from an ordinary wife and mother to an extremely powerful spirit responsible for driving what is implied to be dozens of hospital patients into madness and death, terrifying even the Reapers sent by the Puppet Master to release her that they resigned themselves to becoming her captives. She is the reason Hurricane Hospital is currently abandoned.
- Gender Flip: Spring Bonnie is female, whereas other Bonnie suits (including her direct predecessor, Proto Spring Bonnie) are male.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: The Proto animatronics can release gas which brings happiness, or at least contentment, in people. The one in Proto Spring Bonnie, however, has malfunctioned so that it releases deadly gas.
- Hand Puppet: The Puppet Master carries a hand puppet resembling Balloon Boy and JJ on each arm.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The game turns William's slow death and entrapment inside a Spring Bonnie suit into this. Twenty years ago, William engineered Henry's death and entrapment inside a Fredbear suit.
- Horrifying the Horror: Martha's spirit not only took on, but also holds the Reapers captive in Hurricane Hospital. Yes, the same Reapers who most likely scared the crap out of you in the previous game.
- Kill It with Fire: The Puppet Master's final task for Max Donovan is for him to burn Fazbear's Fright, which houses William Afton's spirit inside Springtrap.
- Knockout Gas: A variation: since Proto Spring Bonnie emits toxic gas wherever he goes, you have to spray refresher on him whenever he stops moving. Do it three times and when he eventually arrives in your office, you won't get incapacitated by the poison.
- Never Recycle a Building: Even after 25 years of being abandoned, William Afton's house, decrepit as it is, still stands without much damage. We do not know when Fredbear's Family Diner and Hurricane Hospital became abandoned, but they also fit this trope to an extent.
- The New '10s: The Investigation and Interrogation parts, where you play as Max Donovan, are set in 2017.
- Nostalgia Level: All locales from previous games return here. The main game, Investigation 1, and both Interrogations take place in Fredbear's Family Diner from 1. Investigation 2 takes place in William Afton's house from 2. Investigation 3 takes place in Hurricane Hospital from 3.
- Poltergeist: Whenever Insane Fredbear appears in a room, he will make objects around him float or move around.
- Retcon:
- Fredbear's Family Diner was clearly destroyed by Mike Schmidt in the first game; we were even shown the fiery aftermath in the opening of the second game. Yet the very first level of this game (and the only level playable in the earliest demo), Investigation 1, is set in the restaurant, abandoned but not destroyed in anyway. Either a retcon is happening, the scene shown in the second game didn't show everything and the building still stands all this time, or the management was somehow able to build another chain, even if it did not last long.
- The first three games were released more than a year before Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator reveals that the Puppet is possessed not by the Child from Five Nights at Freddy's 4, as commonly assumed by the fanbase (including Liam), but by the Casette Man's daughter. As a result, this game, which was released after it, distances itself from the established canon by having the Puppet Master act more on its own whim. The trivia in the Museum still acknowledges that the Puppet Master is haunted by a spirit, but doesn't elaborate more, implying that the Brother and the Puppet Master are separate beings.
- The Reveal:
- "P.M." stands for Puppet Master.
- Entwined Fredbear contains the remains of Henry Stillwater.
- Spot the Imposter: Reaper Toy Chica's game in Investigation 3 has you attempt to shine your flashlight at the real Chica among her two impostors. The real Chica can be easily spotted since she is the only one who opens their mouth after a while.
- Super Prototype: Proto Spring Fredbear and Proto Spring Bonnie are harder to repel than their successors, despite being in a worse state of disrepair.
- Undercrank: When Insane Fredbear and Insane Spring Bonnie appear to you, they will continuously contort their bodies, as if they are struggling to materialize.
- Whole Episode Flashback: The main portion of the game, as in the part where you play as a night guard watching the animatronics for six hours, is set in the distant past.
