Night at the Gates of Hell

***Night at the Gates of Hell*** is a 2022 survival zombie horror game developed by Jordan King and Henry Hoare, and published by Torture Star Video. The full game was released on Steam on midnight of September 15, 2022, and is available on Itchio. The game was released on Playstation and Nintendo consoles on September 8th, 2023. On December 8th, 2023 the game was released on Xbox consoles.

The game is also bundled with *The Booty Creek Cheek Freak*.

The game's development was first announced around 2021 by Jordan King, and the first trailer was later shown in Puppet Combo's direct show livestream, confirmed as the official Torture Star Video game. On the same night, the teaser demo became available for download on Puppet Combo's Patreon.

## Synopsis

> **"The dead will rise for revenge in NIGHT AT THE GATES OF HELL"**
>
>

David's attempt at having a quiet, normal life is interrupted by the zombie apocalypse. To survive the apocalypse, he has to gather his thoughts, collect weapons, find other survivors, and fight his way through hordes of undead.

## Plot

### St Mary's Cemetery

The game starts with someone hanging himself above the grave. A voice is then heard *"the first gate is opened. Let the feast begin"*. The game then cuts to a character Liam arriving at the spot where his girlfriend Razor told him to meet her. He doesn't find her, so he searches the cemetery and is jumpscared by Razor. Two decide to have sex, but because Liam doesn't have a condom, Razor rejects him and tells him to get a condom. Liam returns to his car and gets one condom. He returns back and to his horror, finds Razor being held and devoured by a group of zombies. Suddenly, more zombies emerge from the bushes and attack Liam, but he manages to run away. Since the path to his car is blocked by more zombies, Liam runs to the church and takes refuge there. Liam explores church, finds a key in the confession booth and uses it to unlock a back door. Liam searches the corridors and reaches the end where he is attacked by the zombie Nun.

### Woodside Apartment

The game then switches to character David, who is stuck in his apartment building while the city outside is overrun by zombies. He gathers his thoughts and decides to escape. He searches the building and each apartment room while avoiding the apartment inhabitants who all became zombies. David collects some ammo, items, and manages to get the elevator going that he uses to get to the lobby and escape. Having heard from news to head towards the coast, he sets his sights there.

### Coastal Village

David arrives at the village near the coast and rescues Captain, Skeeter, Stan, Belinda and her son Charles from zombies. Captain thanks David for rescuing them and asks him to find 3 items so that he could fix the ship. David searches the village while avoiding more zombies and zombie dogs, and finds all 3 necessary items. Captain fixes the ship and the group sails off.

### Cap's Boat

While the clueless Captain is trying to figure out where they are on the map, the ship is suddenly attacked by the zombie shark and Belinda is killed. David manages to fight the shark off, but the ship has suffered damage, forcing them to evacuate the ship. Stan decides to stay on the ship to keep the shark's attention and tells the others to escape. As David, Captain, Skeeter and Charles row away, Stan faces the zombie shark and is seemingly killed.

### The Island

Survivors reach the island and while Skeeter, Captain and Charles stay on the beach, David goes to search the island. While exploring he comes across some old cemetery and catacombs where he finds a woman named Suzi trapped in the chained coffin. He tries to help her but she turns into a zombie and gets out of her coffin, forcing David to kill her. David further searches the area and finds some information. As David leaves the cottage, he is knocked out by a zombie.

### Imprisoned

Hours later, David wakes up in a prison cell next to Captain who tells him that they've all been captured. David escapes from his prison cell and searches the heavily monitored facility that is being guarded by zombies with shotguns. David searches whole place, gathers more information behind the apocalypse, rescues Skeeter, Captain, Charles, and other naked prisoner who all tell him to meet up with them at the exit. David looks for more clues and finds a room made of flesh where he is attacked by a monster but he manages to kill it. David reaches the area and finds Father Friedstein sitting on a pew next to a portal. Before Father Friedstein sets himself on fire, he reveals that he is responsible for the apocalypse and that there is nothing David can do to stop it because the gates are opened all around the world. David takes the book from his hands, escapes the facility and meets up with other survivors.

### Prepare

The survivors take refuge in the church where they arm themselves and fight off a horde of zombies. Captain, Skeeter, Charles, and a naked prisoner are killed, forcing David to retreat back into the church. Just when he though he's going to die, Stan appears from the portal and saves David. Stan and David enter the portal and appear in a place that looks like hell. Stan asks David if he could read that book and find some useful information about getting back home, because where they are looks nothing like Kansas. As the camera pans over to a castle, a large skull appears and looks down at them.

## Gameplay

**“***I was also inspired by the early Resident Evil titles, but wanted to challenge myself to make it feel like a first person styled early RE title. What I mean by that is to require headshots on the zombies to kill them (which can be difficult to do without any fixed aiming!), and to keep the zombies slow and menacing. Most games seem to go with fast zombies in hordes but I wanted to keep this a tense, deliberate combat experience.***”**
— **Jordan King**

The game plays from the first person perspective. Players in order to survive and progress further have to explore areas, gather weapons, ammo, supplies, and fight off hordes of zombies. Shooting zombies in the head will kill them instantly, some zombies are harder to kill than the others. Players can also collect knives that they can use to defend themselves when a zombie gets a hold of them.

## Characters

* David
* Stan
* Captain
* Belinda
* Charles
* Skeeter
* Prisoner
* Suzi
* Father Friedstein
* Liam

### Modes

After completing *Night at the Gates of Hell*, two short games are unlocked as bonus modes, including *The Booty Creek Cheek Freak* and *Evil in the House of Dr. Fleshenstein*.

## Trivia

* The game is inspired by Italian zombie flicks from Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei.[*citation needed*]
* The teaser demo contains a slight amount of pre-changed differences when comparing to its full version. The pause menu is deeply simple, no music were heard, and Razor's death was more different, and additionally, Liam would react upon seeing her corpse.
* According to Jordan King, the game takes place after *Bloodwash*.
* Stan, a character from *Bloodwash*, returns in this game.
	+ Creepy Guy from Bloodwash also appears as a zombie, and Liam, Sara's ex-boyfriend, appears as a playable character in the prologue.
* Character Suzi was voiced by TheSphereHunter.
* The game has over 80 unique zombies.
* Some death animations in the game are an homage to Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979).
* The name Woodside Apartment is taken as a reference from Silent Hill.
* Night at the Gates of hell wasn't approved by Xbox, and as a result, the game was only ported to Playstation and Nintendo consoles. The game was eventually released on Xbox consoles.

## Videos

Night At The Gates of Hell DEMO - Italian Zombie EpicDemo trailerNight At the Gates Of Hell - Gameplay TrailerGameplay trailerNight At the Gates of Hell - 80s Zombie Survival Horror TrailerLaunch trailer
## References

1. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2026870/Night\_At\_the\_Gates\_of\_Hell/
2. ↑ https://torturestar.itch.io/night-at-the-gates-of-hell
3. ↑ https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1694698353869656344
4. ↑ https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1733127388882477062
5. ↑ https://www.patreon.com/puppetcombo
6. ↑ https://twitter.com/LeggoMyGiallo/status/1541722675596369921?cxt=HHwWgoCx0dympuUqAAAA
7. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/c/TheSphereHunter
8. ↑ https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1694449311851954567/photo/1
9. ↑ https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1694702301510783468