The Gate Must Stand Review – Break Down the Walls

Normally, when writing a review - or almost anything - I would start with a little blurb or story. Maybe it's about the genre, maybe the developer, maybe it's just some random anecdote that the game has made me think of. With The Gate Must Stand, I've got nothing. Possibly something about the Matt Damon film The Great Wall. Why? Because there's a wall in it. That's about it. Anyway, after that random detour to a film I now want to watch again, let's talk about the game.

Let's start by saying The Gate Must Stand is the fifty-second game published by Gamersky on Steam in 2026. Before this, I had no clue what Gamersky was. Having read up about it, being one of the biggest sites and gaming communities in China, the trend I can see makes sense. Find a Chinese game, do a quick translation of said game, and dump it on Steam. Your quality may vary.

In terms of quality, The Gate Must Stand isn't bad by any sense of the word. It's polished and, for the most part, runs well. The translations aren't terrible, even if things are a little wordy at times, and I'm at the point where I have absolutely no clue what some of the boosts do, are or even if they are real and not some mushroom-induced fever dream.

There are times when the game starts to chug if there are too many enemies on screen, and your defenders are firing off more effects than bonfire night. I won't hold it against the game too much, as it was few and far between. There are other things I have niggles about, though. Most of all, the game doesn't make it easy to remotely understand what in the blue hell is happening when it comes to levelling up one of your followers, or even your character.

I should explain first, this is a tower defence game, but the towers are characters like an ice mage, fire mage, guardian - essentially some specialist class from an RPG. You can level these up by buying more and stacking them, up to a maximum level of ten. This also isn't like general tower defence titles, where there are specific paths. Here, there's one wider path, and you can filter the monsters by putting down barricades.

Back to levelling. Every time you level one of your towers, or you level yourself by collecting experience dropped by dead enemies, you can pick between one of three random upgrades. What I'm finding irritating is that while an upgrade results in a large number of sub-upgrades, some of them can be levelled up, and some seem useless to me. Maybe they're not, and just didn't suit my focus, or maybe I got bored of trying to figure out what some of them do with their absurdly long descriptions.

The same issue also applies to relics, which can be obtained through quests that appear throughout a run and dropped from bosses that appear every five levels. I suppose what I'm really saying is that it feels like there's too much, and a fair amount feels superfluous and either added because this is a random roguelite, meaning not every upgrade can be useful, or the devs felt 'more is better' in The Gate Must Stand, when that isn't always the case.

What I will say is that the loop itself is satisfying. You start a run with three stages, and your aim is to reach the end and win the last stage. You do this by placing your towers, running around to attack monsters with your character, and using up to two activatable skills. You pick up the experience they drop and spend the money you get, which I haven't figured out if it is through killing or just dropped periodically, on the towers and upgrades from a merchant that periodically appears. So far, so active-tower-defence.

If you do manage to get to the end, a run will take you sixty minutes, though speeding the game up and just pausing to plop down or level up your tower is the best option to make it that bit quicker. Win or lose, you'll get some magical coins that can then be spent on permanent upgrades to make your later runs that bit easier. Once you win on a difficulty, you can move up to the next, where the enemies will be that bit harder to beat.

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All in all, I don't mind The Gate Must Stand. The gameplay loop and the replay value from increased difficulties, unlocked new followers, finding other relics, and fighting different bosses will give fans of this type of game enough to keep going. The replay value is there, with these new ways of defending yourself and different methods you can use to set up the routes.

However, there is something about this that doesn't let me outright say "this is a good game". I can't point to one thing and say "it's this", but it's just an overall feeling. The gameplay is fine, though the presentation is lacking. The UI could have been better, with text-dumps hurting it further. The enemies can get stuck on the map, your towers, or barricades. The less-than-bare-bones narrative hurts it, too, and the pacing is on the slow side, which is why I recommend setting it to 2x speed.

All in all, The Gate Must Stand is competent, but it's not special. It's not even as good as Senmu Studio's first title. Sometimes, competent is fine. In this case, with the game costing only £7.99 at full price, with a 30% discount at launch, that'll do. I've spent more on a sandwich meal deal and had a worse experience. It's fine, and I may play it a bit more. Take that as you will.

Copy provided by the publisher.

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5

WCCFTECH RATING

The Gate Must Stand

The Gate Must Stand is a passable tower defence game with reasonable gameplay and decent replay value, though it can be undermined by poor pacing, UI and item descriptions that need improvement. While not a bad game, it's also not great. Reasonably cheap on a launch offer, it will sufficiently pass time and be fine doing it.

Pros

• Replay value due to roguelite elements like progression
• Reasonable tactical options within the combat of the game...

Cons

• ... albeit undermined by poor pacing, and what feel like a variety of superfluous upgrades/elements
• No real narrative hook, or setting, to draw you in
• UI could be better, with text dumps making that worse

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