Chapter 4: Institute is the last chapter of Little Nightmares 3 and thus will conclude the journey of Low and Alone, at least until the DLC launches. As usual, there are several doll collectibles to find, but Chapter 4 will also feature a new collectible, ghosts.
In total, Low and Alone will need to track down five dolls and six ghosts throughout the chapter to complete it. This chapter will also feature the final boss, who is presumed to be a psychiatrist at the institute, whom Low and Alone must avoid if they hope to escape the Spiral.
Ghost Collectible — Number One
When you first start the chapter, Low and Alone will be on the shore of a beach. There’s a hole in the side of the wall of the building, which is where you’re supposed to go, but before that, move down towards the camera and to the far left.
You’ll pass by a large staircase with a small space to the right of it. Shine your flashlight in that area to discover the first ghost of this chapter, drawing a face in the sand.
There will be six ghosts in total for you to find, and while they’re not required, they are necessary to unlock one of the chapter’s achievements.
Doll Collectible — Number One
Once you enter the building, pass through the entryway and the room with party hats to find a long hallway. Move towards the camera until you reach the end of the hallway closest to you. There will be a door with planks on it to the right and doors that can be pushed open on the left.
Push through the doors on the left to find a small office with a doll sitting in the middle of the floor. Then head back to the hall to pull the plank off the other door and proceed through there.
How To Kill The Plant
As you continue on the intended path, you’ll eventually reach a plant that comes to life. It will kill you if you attempt to pass by while it’s still alive. To proceed, Low needs to shoot the plant and kill it while it's open. If you’re not playing as Low, walk near the plant and call Low to have him shoot it.
Ghost Collectible — Number Two
When you reach the area where you need to cross a large gap shortly after killing the first plant, Low will need to shoot another plant so Alone can use a pipe on the right to cross to the other side.
Keep in mind that Low will have to wait to shoot it until it opens, which won’t happen until Alone begins crossing the gap. Once you make it across, head to the back right corner of the area to find the second ghost drawing a sun on the wall.
How To Avoid The Blind Doctor
After you leave the area with the ghost and pass through a small hatch, you’ll find yourself in a medical room with an exam chair. There will be a doctor in the corner, sort of twitching, but not moving. You can’t tell initially, but he’s blind, and your goal is to make it to the other side of the room.
Your first assumption might be to sneak past him, but he’s going to hear you when you attempt to leave the room on the left side, and because he’s standing right there, he’ll catch you. So, you’ll need to lure him to the right side of the room first and then sneak over to the left and continue. This way, he won’t have enough time to react and reach you before you’re gone.
Ghost Collectible — Number Three
After you get past the doctor, you’ll find yourself in a hallway with a gong. Alone must smack the gong with a wrench to trigger what will end up being a large leg to move out of your way. Once it’s gone, head into the hole in the wall it made to find a room with luggage. In this room, you’ll find another ghost kicking their feet while sitting on a table by the luggage.
How To Use The Special Doll
Head back out into the hall and go to the far end to find an elevator and a lever. Pull the lever to call the elevator and then take it up to a new floor. When you reach the next floor, walk to the closer end of the hall to find a dead battery sitting on the floor, an empty power socket, and a movable cart.
Pull the cart to the left wall so you can reach the open window there, then go left until you enter a room with a locked cell door in it. In this room, climb up on the boxes along the back wall to reach a small vent leading into the cell. Immediately, you should recognize this cell as the one you keep seeing Low in.
Walk to the left of the cell and pull down the compartment that Low is often seen throwing things into. A doll will fall out that looks oddly familiar. Unlike the collectible dolls, this doll is special. When carrying it, the doll will give you the ability to see the institute as it was in the past, but only in the small range the doll can cover.
Even if you aren’t carrying the doll, it will affect the surrounding area while sitting on the floor.
The main thing to know about this doll is that, since it changes the state of the surrounding area, this includes doors. Therefore, while a door might be closed and locked in the present time, it may not have been in the past. This means you can pass through an otherwise closed door while holding the doll.
Unfortunately, as you start walking back to the hall, the doll won’t be able to pass through the door of the room with the seesaw since it was closed in the past. So, to get past this obstacle, you’ll need to climb the seesaw and throw it through the window. Then you can walk through the door yourself and pick up the doll in the hall.
Doll Collectible — Number Two
Before you go anywhere else, carry the doll to the end of the hall closest to you, the player, until you reach an open doorway on the right. Head inside the room on the right to find a room with a TV and some toys.
As long as you’re holding the doll, you should be able to see a doll collectible sitting on the floor. Put the special doll down to collect the collectible one.
Where To Find The Battery
With the doll in hand, you now need to find the battery you need for the other hallway. Use the doll to cross over the broken section at the end of the hallway. Here, the door on the left should be open as long as you’re holding the doll. Use the doll to reach a room with a lever that you can pull. Be sure the doll is placed close enough to the lever so you’re still able to pull it.
Now, pick up the doll and continue left into the room that otherwise doesn’t have a floor. With the doll in hand, you’ll be able to navigate the room and reach another lever that will drop a battery for you to pick up. Have Player Two pick up the battery. If you don’t have a Player Two, then the AI companion will do it automatically.
Be sure not to wander too far ahead while carrying the doll; otherwise, you could lock your companion out or accidentally kill them.
Now that you have the battery, flip the switch in the first room again to open the door back up. Then proceed back to the hall. At this point, you’ll have to leave the doll behind. Drop the doll so it’s not casting over the door directly across the hall, then throw the battery through the broken window of the door on the right side.
Once that’s done, crawl back through and take the battery to the area with the empty socket and movable cart. Place the battery in the socket and then move the cart to the right side of the hall so you can reach the lever, which will open the door.
Doll Collectible — Number Three
Upon entering the room, you will find a vending machine and several cabinets along the back wall. If you look up at the vending machine, there’s actually a doll resting up there on top of it. To reach it, grab the cart from the hall and push it up against the cabinets so you can climb and collect the doll.
How To Escape The Hand
As you keep going, you’ll reach an area with a small gap between chain-link doors. When you pass through, the final boss’ hand will reach down the hall in an attempt to grab you. Grab the plank on the door on the right to rush into a room with a desk. Your first instinct will be to keep running, but don’t, or the hand will smash you. Instead, immediately go to hide under the desk in the middle of the room.
While hiding under the desk, the hand will search for you before resting on the floor. So, you'll need to sneak to avoid alerting it before you reach the lever.
Head to the right side of the room and pull the lever. After you pull the lever, the hand will be alerted to you and begin chasing again. Run through the door and down the hallway until you reach a hole in the wall on the back left.
This will put you in a room with a glass floor. To break through the glass, Alone will need to swing her wrench three times, which will drop them into a pile of leaves.
Ghost Collectible — Number Four
After escaping the hand, you’ll eventually reach a room with a large staircase. Before you head up the stairs, go to the left corner where the hat rack is. There, you will find another ghost standing near the hat rack.
How To Get The Key For The Locked Door
Once you get to the top of the stairs, you’ll find a locked door on the left. To find the key, head to the right, where there will be a woman messing with things on a table. You won’t be able to reach her because there is also a plant in the top left corner near her.
So what you need to do first is pull the lever on the vending machine to drop a soda can. Pick up a soda and throw it near the woman, which will cause her to walk over to it. When she does, the plant will attack her. Now that the plant and the woman are out of the way, you can go and pick up the key she dropped and unlock the door.
How To Sneak Past The Crowd
Behind the locked door, climb up on the cabinet to reach a lever in the hall. This will open the doors in the hall so you can proceed. Since there’s a large gap in the floor, you’ll need the special doll again to progress. Luckily, the door that opened behind you in this hall, towards the camera, is where you left the doll earlier.
If the doll isn’t sitting in this hall, go into the left room with the projector and then through a small gap in what will almost look like a closed door. Here, you should find the doll in the room with the lever you had to pull earlier when retrieving the battery. Pull the lever in this room so you can carry the doll through, and then take the doll with you to the end of the hall, which is now open.
At the end of the hall, you’ll find an open door on the right that you can pass through. In this room, there will also be a vent you can crawl through. At the end of it, you won’t be able to leave the room unless you put the doll down. So drop the doll and continue into the next room.
Make sure the doll is close enough to the door without blocking it. The room doesn’t have a floor, so if it’s not close enough, then you’ll fall when trying to go through the door.
Keep going until you reach a room with a crowd of people in it. Here, you’ll need to sneak through the group until you reach a room with a single woman in it. In this room, sneak up to the vent along the back wall to jump down it.
How To Escape The Psychiatrist
At the bottom of the vent, keep going right until you reach an outdoor area with a tree. There will be a section here with a river of water you need to pass over. Wait for the hand in the background to cause a small wave, which will cause a little cushion to float to the surface of the river that you can use to jump across.
Keep going beyond that, and you will eventually reach a hallway with the hand again. Take off running, and it will chase you into an area where the face and the other hand will appear, too. The right hand will attempt to grab you, but Low will have a chance to perform a quick time event and shoot it in the eye. Once Low does this, the giant psychiatrist monster will leave.
Doll Collectible — Number Four
Once the monster leaves, keep going along the intended path until you reach another hallway with a lever in it. In this hall, there will be a doll sitting on the floor at the far end of it.
Ghost Collectible — Number Five
After you collect the doll, Low will need to pull the lever in the hall. While Low is holding the lever, Alone must go through the now-open door. In this room, Alone needs to climb up on the shelf and break the wall at the top of it to let Low through.
Before you leave this room, go to the bench in the back right corner, where you will find a ghost sitting.
Doll Collectible — Number Five
After collecting the ghost, proceed into the elevator in the next room and take it down. Once you get to the bottom, head to the right and go through the small hole in the wall. In this room, you will find a small key and, further in, a small doll.
This is the last doll in the chapter and the last doll in the game. If you’ve collected them all up to this point, you should unlock two achievements when you collect this last doll.
Ghost Collectible — Number Six
After you collect the final doll and the key, go back out and cross the wooden plank. Here, you will find a locked door that you can use the key on. Inside the room, there will be a bed and the final ghost on the floor next to it. Once you watch it disappear, you should unlock the 'Institutionalized' achievement.
How To Defeat The Final Boss
After collecting the last ghost, continue until you reach a cutscene where the monster psychiatrist will appear again. After a few moments of him appearing, you’ll be able to move and will need to take off running. He will chase you throughout various halls you’ll need to navigate quickly before you eventually drop into a room with a gong.
In this room, Alone will need to run up and hit the gong to scare the boss away. When she does this, you need to run immediately to the right. If you don’t run, you’ll be crushed. Keep going until you eventually reach a mirror that Alone will refuse to go through.
After her refusal, the boss will grab the mirror and begin attacking again. Debris will fall, and you’ll need to avoid it to stay alive. Eventually, another gong will fall into the room that you can pull the planks off of and hit. This will cause the hand to attempt to crush you again, which means Low will need to shoot an arrow at the hand's eye.
This will happen once more, where a new gong will fall that Alone needs to hit, and Low will need to shoot the eye. If you’re not playing as Low, you will have to call Low when the eye appears to cue him to shoot it.
Once you ring the second gong, the head will fall and have cracked glasses on one side. Alone will need to run up and hit the glasses where they’re cracked with her wrench to break them. When she does, Low will need to fire one last arrow at the eye on the face this time.
This will trigger a cutscene where Low and Alone fall, and then you will see Low sitting in his cell. This will reveal, if you haven’t noticed already, that Alone is actually Low’s doll he’s been relying on. Once this scene concludes, Low and Alone will awaken near the final mirror.
Walk over to the mirror, and Low will try to take Alone’s hand to pass through. She will reject it, but Low will pull her through anyway. Unfortunately, the mirror will reject her and toss Alone back out before breaking, after which, Alone will disappear. This will be the end of Little Nightmares 3, but stick around after the credits for a quick bonus scene as well.