Oil paint, gunsmoke and a pistol aimed at you
A cigar-chewing outlaw in a bullet belt aims his pistol straight out of the screen, which sets the mood before the first spin. Behind him, an oil-painted frontier looks vibrant and entirely deserted. The premium symbols fit the theme: wagon wheels, skulls, hats, pistols and sheriff badges. The low pays are plain card suits.
How does the Buried By Night Slot Demo play?
Buried By Night is a 5x4 slot with 14 paylines that pay left to right from the leftmost reel. Bets run from $/€0.10 to $/€50 a spin. RTP is 96.32% and volatility is high. The top prize is 15,000x the stake, and you can reach it in any of the game’s modes.
Line pays are lean. Five card suits return 1x the bet, five premiums pay 5x to 12x, and five wilds pay 15x. The duel multipliers carry everything, so a demo session without a VS in the right spot feels thin.
⚠️ Worth Knowing: 96.32% is presented as the preferred version of the maths, which suggests other settings may exist. Open the game’s info panel at your casino and confirm the RTP before playing for real money.
What do DuelRows and the bonus rounds actually do?
DuelRows is the engine. A VS symbol that lands on reel 2, 3 or 4 expands horizontally. If it forms part of a win, it becomes a wild that substitutes for every paying symbol. A duel then plays out and attaches a multiplier from x2 to x100 to the connected wins.
How far the VS reaches depends on where it lands. A VS on reel 2 covers reels 1 to 3, one on reel 3 covers the whole row, and one on reel 4 covers reels 3 to 5. DuelRows never overlap. When two or more feed the same win, their multipliers are added together before they apply.
The uneven reach is the main gripe. Only a VS on the middle reel fills its row. Because lines pay from the left, a reel-4 DuelRow still needs matching symbols on reels 1 and 2, and in the demo a reel-4 VS quickly becomes the one you dread.
Trigger Warning comes from three scatters and awards 10 free spins. Two scatters add 2 more spins, and four add 4. VS symbols land more often, and that’s the whole trick, so this is the weakest of the three rounds.
Shoot to Kill is where the game earns its keep. Four scatters in the base game award 8 free spins and add a DuelSpin Bar above the reels. Every scatter fills one step of the bar, and three steps unlock a tier. Each tier fires a DuelSpin immediately after the spin that unlocked it. A DuelSpin comes with a set number of Nudges and 2 extra free spins:
- Tier 1: at least 1 VS symbol, 3 Nudges
- Tier 2: at least 2 VS symbols, 4 Nudges
- Tier 3: at least 3 VS symbols, 5 Nudges
- Tier 4: at least 4 VS symbols, 6 Nudges
Each Nudge drops all reels one row. Wins are counted after every Nudge, before the next one, so a single DuelSpin can pay several times. DuelSpins don’t use up the free spin count, but scatters can’t land during them.
Six Feet Under, the Hot 100 bonus, comes from three Hot 100 scatters and gives one free spin. On that spin, Nudges keep firing until 100 wins have been paid, and no scatters land. With DuelRow multipliers sliding down the reels, it’s the most dramatic spin in the game.
Four buys are on offer. BonusHunt FeatureSpins cost 2x the stake and make a bonus three times more likely. Fast Hands FeatureSpins cost 60x and guarantee at least one VS on every spin. The rounds themselves cost 80x for Trigger Warning or 200x for Shoot to Kill, and given the gap in quality, the 200x buy is better value.
How does Buried By Night compare?
Here is how it lines up against three other Wild West slots from our catalogue.
| Buried By Night | Wanted Dead or Wild Slot | Epic Bullets and Bounty Slot | Dead by Noon Slot |
|---|
| Why it’s here | The game reviewed here | Hacksaw Gaming’s other fixed paylines game | Fixed Paylines, Wild West theme, noticeably swingier | Fixed Paylines, noticeably swingier |
| Mechanic | Fixed Paylines, Expanding symbols, Ante Bet / Bet Boost | Fixed Paylines, Expanding symbols, Collection meter | Fixed Paylines, Expanding symbols, Bonus buy | Fixed Paylines, Ante Bet / Bet Boost, Cascades |
| Theme | Wild West | Wild West | Wild West | Wild West |
| Format | 14 paylines, 5x4 | 15 paylines, 5x5 | 19 paylines, 5x5 | 14 paylines |
| RTP | 96.32% | 96.3% | 96.24% | 96.27% |
| Max win | 15,000x | 12,500x | 20,000x | 10,000x |
| Volatility | 8/10 | 8/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 |
| Our score | 7.0 | 9.0 | 7.0 | 8.5 |
What are the best casinos for Buried By Night?
Casinos that stock the Hacksaw catalogue are the natural home for Buried By Night. Our Hacksaw Gaming casinos page is the place to start. Check which RTP version each casino runs before you deposit.
With volatility this high, a bonus with sensible wagering stretches a bankroll further than a flashy headline offer. Current deals are collected in our casino bonuses hub.
Play the Buried By Night Slot Demo for free
Play credits power the Buried By Night Slot Demo on this page, so nothing real is at stake. Use the session to see how often a VS hits reel 3 rather than the edges, and how long the base game goes quiet between scatters. After that, our free demo slots library has plenty more to spin.
💡 Tip: Try the 80x and 200x buys back to back in the demo. Seeing Trigger Warning and Shoot to Kill side by side shows whether either is worth real money.
Pros and cons
| ✅ Pros | ❌ Cons |
|---|
| Horizontal VS expansion | Reel 2 and 4 VS cover only three reels |
| Tiered Shoot to Kill DuelSpins | Trigger Warning adds little |
| Hot 100 spin running to 100 wins | Lean base-game line pays |
| 15,000x max win in every mode | 200x Shoot to Kill buy |
Verdict
Buried By Night is a genuine rework, not a reskin. Sending the VS sideways changes where wins come from, and Shoot to Kill gives the idea room to escalate.
- Reel-3 landings are the moments the game is built around
- Stacked DuelRows adding their multipliers together are the real target
- BonusHunt at 2x is the cheapest way to see more features
- Expect long quiet stretches between features
Best for: players who like Hacksaw’s VS games and want a fresh angle on them.
Skip if: you need steady base-game wins to stay interested.
Gambling should stay entertainment, so set a budget before you play and stop when it’s gone.
Summary
In summary, Buried By Night is a high-volatility Hacksaw Gaming slot on a 5x4 grid with 14 paylines, a default RTP of 96.32% and a 15,000x max win. Its DuelRows mechanic expands VS symbols horizontally into wilds carrying x2 to x100 multipliers. It has three bonus rounds (Trigger Warning, Shoot to Kill and Six Feet Under) and four feature buys from 2x to 200x the stake, and the Buried By Night Slot Demo is free to play on this page.
