Through The Gates
- Members/Contributors
Through The Gates is a 2.1 former impossible Extreme Demon mega-collaboration level hosted by Maestro Illuminati and created by the members of TeamTheDashers. Originally hack-verified by Exen in 2018,[1] the level remained without a true verifier until Zoink verified it legitimately on 12 October 2023.[2] Through The Gates is seen by many as a spiritual successor to Thinking Space due to its insane difficulty spikes near the very end of the level, as well as being infamous for inconsistent transitions and being very rough around the edges.
The level remained unrated until 18 January 2026 in the same rate wave as Death Corridor Z, Denouement, Khorne, and Message to RobTop.
History
[edit | edit source]- WIP
Description
[edit | edit source]Through The Gates depicts a light-blue techno theme instead of the typical red-and-black 'hell' styled Extreme Demon. The level features relatively easy gameplay for the first 78%, then ramps up the difficulty dramatically from 75-90%, and then spikes incredibly hard at the very end.
Note: If a player's name is italicised, the player has created gameplay in the section featured. If a player's name is underlined, the player created the decoration in the section featured.
- 0-25% (Exen + Kentakiman): Through The Gates begins with a dark section with black fog surrounding the player, having slow gameplay and precise timings. When the intro to the song ends, a title card appears with the text "welcome to... THE GATES...", before transitioning into bright fast gameplay with many quick game-mode changes.
- 25-37% (Azuri + Alex200371): Azuri's part focuses purely on the ship game-mode, with the part having at least one icon being a ship, using a good amount of straight fly and orb timings, as well as dual-ship for a small portion. The decoration is light blue and white in the first section, then becomes black and green in the dual-ship and stays that way until the end of the part.
- 37-62% (Kentakiman): Kentakiman's part is the longest single part of the level, and features constantly moving detailed structures and extremely fast gameplay, with nearly the entire part being at quadruple speed, swapping between game-modes decently quickly. The second half of the part focuses heavily on the dual game-mode, with multiple asymmetrical sections, and the part ends with a straight fly closing in on you.
- 62-72% (Maestro Illuminati + Kentakiman): Maestro Illuminati's part brings back the black fog from Exen's part, and features a small corridor at normal- and half speed with very tight timings and straight fly, most likely inspired by Michigun's part in Bloodbath. The part features art of a sword and shield on the left and right sides of the screen, and then changes to a bow and arrow.
- 72-90% (BAARBAS): BAARBAS's part starts with a title card of the level and then transitions into a straight fly with core-styled, heavily detailed decoration. The part features an infamously inconsistent click at 79%, followed by a cube-and-wave dual. The transition out of the dual is also infamously inconsistent, sometimes killing you seemingly at random. The part features a high-CPS spider section, followed by a long straight fly.
- 90-100% (Tan1c + Kentakiman): Tan1c's part is the most well-known and infamous section of the level, featuring incredibly tight and difficult sections. It starts with a short mini-cube maze, then turns into a very precise mini-ship straight fly, into a very high-CPS and precise dual-ball, into a very awkward and inconsistent mini-UFO, and then into the infamous 96% mini-wave, which has multiple frame-perfects on even higher refresh rates like 120Hz. After the mini-wave, the level features one last triple spike at the very end. Despite the part saying that the decoration is made by 'kentaki-chan', it is the same person as Kentakiman.[3]
Gameplay
[edit | edit source]First 10 victors
[edit | edit source]| Victor # | Player | Date Completed | Total Attempts | Furthest Fail | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verifier | Zoink | 12 October 2023 | 4,313 | 96% x2 | YouTube |
| 1 | SeptaGon7 | 12 February 2024 | 112,652 | 96% x2 | YouTube |
| 2 | HipoSmokeWeed | 31 May 2024 | 36,776 | 97% | YouTube |
| 3 | Sneaky | 31 May 2025 | 33,326 | 98% | YouTube |
| 4 | Weiwot | 11 August 2025 | 57,688 | 96% | YouTube |
| 5 | zLevii | 28 January 2026 | 5,721 | 96% | YouTube |
| 6 | Cuatrocientos | 6 February 2026 | 9,284 | ? | YouTube |
| 7 | whfyre | 18 February 2026 | ? | 96% | YouTube |
| 8 | Abdieldevil | 4 March 2026 | ~9,000 | 96% x5 | YouTube |
| 9 | agonom | 3 April 2026 | ~9,300 | 96% | YouTube |
| 10 | donley | 8 April 2026 | ? | 93% | YouTube |
Trivia
[edit | edit source]- Through The Gates was rated on 18 January 2026 and placed at #30 on the Demonlist on 19 February 2026, above Firework and below KOSETSU.
- This addition pushed THE JET ENGINE into the Extended List and CORRODERE into the Legacy List.
- Through The Gates was accidentally placed at #100 on the Demonlist briefly before being corrected.
- TeamTheDashers did not want Zoink to be considered the verifier of the level.
- This is because they still believe that Exen was the legitimate verifier of the level, despite his cheating being known for years with tons of evidence to back it up.
- The old version of Through The Gates featured scrapped parts reminiscent of other levels, such as Luneth's Yatagarasu part and A Bizarre Phantasm.