Buried By Night

Buried by Night: Slot Overview

It is too much of an exaggeration to say that just about every casino game maker takes a trip to the Wild West sooner or later? Perhaps, but some studios are drawn to the theme like flies on a dead black-tailed jackrabbit. One of those studios is Hacksaw Gaming, which first dipped its Stetson out west in Wanted Dead or a Wild back in 2021, and has darkened those parts on several occasions since. The current shoot-out is Buried by Night, a deadly serious, quick-or-dead type game, built around the studio's VS concept, but where the twist sees these wild multipliers expand horizontally rather than vertically.

Optically, Buried by Night belongs on the family tree that contains slots like Bullets and Bounty, and Duel at Dawn. A cigar-smoking hombre, with a belt of bullets slung along his chest, points his pistol right at players as if bringing them to justice, or just shooting them down in the dirt. The Wild West is famous for its shootouts, desperadoes, and a life lived on the edge, all of which are themes encapsulated by Buried by Night. The background art uses that oil painting style, which Hacksaw Gaming does well, and here, brushstrokes mark out a vibrantly desolate frontier scene. It's the sort of place that makes no friendly gestures; either you stand on your own two feet, revolver in hand, or you're going to be eaten up by buzzards, rattlesnakes, or something even worse.

Players can load up a wager of $/€0.10 to $/€50 before starting the duel, and hitting spin sees a 5x4 grid set into motion. There are 14 paylines, creating winning combinations left to right from the leftmost reel. The game is powered by a highly volatile math model (rated 4 out of 5), while the most preferable RTP is the 96.32% variant.

Buried by Night's symbol hierarchy includes clubs, diamonds, spades, hearts, wagon wheels, skulls, hats, pistols, and sheriff badges. A line of five card suits is worth 1x the bet, and a line of 5 matching premium symbols pays 5x to 12x the bet. Wilds substitute all paying symbols and are worth 15x when five wilds create a winning line.

Buried by Night: Slot Features

Buried by Night's ammo belt of features contains DuelRows, three bonus rounds - Trigger Warning, Shoot to Kill and Six Feet Under, as well as feature buys.

DuelRows

When a VS symbol hits on reels 2, 3, or 4, it expands horizontally and turns into a DuelRows symbol if part of a winning combination once expanded. Expanded DuelRows act as wilds, so they substitute for all symbols on the pay table. VS symbols on reel 2 expand to cover reels 1-3, VS symbols on reel 3 expand to cover reels 1-5, and VS symbols on reel 4 expand to cover reels 3-5. Once expanded, a duel takes place on the symbol. The winner applies its multiplier of x2 to x100 to the whole symbol. Wins connected to the DuelRow are multiplied by its value, and if there is more than one DuelRow in the same win, the multipliers are added before being applied. DuelRows cannot overlap each other.

Trigger Warning

Landing 3 scatters triggers 10 free spins in Trigger Warning. This feature keeps the base game mechanics but has an increased chance of landing VS symbols. Hitting 2 scatters awards +2 free spins, or 4 scatters award +4 free spins.

Shoot to Kill

Four landed scatters in the base game awards 8 free spins in Shoot to Kill. This feature also keeps the base game mechanics. In addition, a DuelSpin Bar appears above the reels and is progressive. Each scatter that lands fills the Bar by one step. Filling 3 steps increases the DuelSpin Bar by one tier: Tier 1 awards a DuelSpin with at least 1 VS symbol, 3 Nudges and 2 free spins; Tier 2 with at least 2 VS symbols, 4 Nudges and 2 free spins; Tier 3 with at least 3 VS symbols, 5 Nudges and 2 free spins; and Tier 4 with at least 4 VS symbols, 6 Nudges and 2 free spins.

When a Nudge is awarded during a DuelSpin, all reels move down one row. After each Nudge, any wins are awarded before the next Nudge occurs. DuelSpins are awarded immediately after the free spin which unlocked them and do not count towards the free spins count. Scatters cannot land on DuelSpins.

Hot 100 Bonus - Six Feet Under

Landing 3 Hot 100 scatter symbols awards 1 free spin. During that free spin, Nudges are triggered until 100 wins are awarded. Scatters do not land during this feature.

Feature Buys

Activating BonusHunt FeatureSpins costs 2x to make triggering a bonus 3 times more likely to occur. Fast Hands FeatureSpins cost 60x to guarantee at least 1 VS symbol on each spin. Trigger Warning can be bought for 80x or 200x buys Shoot to Kill.

Buried by Night: Slot Verdict

Buried by Night is another swaggering trip into the Wild West from Hacksaw Gaming, that sees the team pull together a number of new and old elements. The VS concept is one of the studio's flagship mechanics, having seen duty in previous slots like Gladiator Legends and Undead Fortune, so it was no big surprise to see it rolled out here. And yet, like a surprise pistol blast, upon reading the paytable rules, instead of vertically expanding DuelReels, Buried by Night stands out from the pack by knocking the symbol ninety degrees and turning them into a DuelRows feature instead. Okay, same in some ways, yet in others, it's something new to have a turn with.

Quite a good alteration is it, too, completely changing the dynamic of the original feature. Making the three VS symbols expand in different ways, depending on which reel they land on, provides an interesting twist as well. Obviously, third reel symbols are best since they cover their entire row, arguably followed by those on reel two, thereby connecting across the leftmost three reels. Sure, it would have been nicer if all of them just filled the entire row, but this way adds suspense of its own. The Trigger Warning round is okay, since you get the standard special symbol hit frequency increase, but Shoot to Kill seriously ups the ante with its tier system, making Nudges and their repeat win possibilities during DuelSpins one of the main goals. Nudging in a Hacksaw game is nothing especially new; the developer previously engaged in a bit of nudging in Danny Dollar or Nitro Nights, for example, yet the idea works well as DuelRow wild multipliers are able to traverse the reels. This is especially so in the Hot 100 Bonus, if you can get that.

Another draw for high volatile favouring gunslingers is the game's 15,000x max win, which is achievable in any of the game's modes. Overall, Buried by Night feels like both a natural and exciting evolution of Hacksaw Gaming's VS mechanic. It successfully makes the transition from vertical expansion to horizontal, with DuelRows giving the concept a sideways twist, while escalating bonus features add enough extra ammunition to keep the experience interesting.