Sherwood Gold

Sherwood Gold: Slot Overview

Tights and feathered hats at the ready, folks, we're heading to the Middle Ages with developer Play'n GO for the online slot Sherwood Gold. If those clues got you picturing a certain outlaw who robbed the rich and gave the proceeds to the poor, going by the name of Robin Hood, you would appear to be correct. Though it doesn't really say so, Sherwood Gold is a game full of imagery from the Robin Hood legend dressing up features that largely focus on hitting as many scatter symbols as possible to collect a corresponding instant prize win.

Being an outlaw in those days must have been hard, right? Living rough off the land, dodging the law, ripping off rich people, distributing the spoils, and trying to keep everyone's spirits up while your own are floundering. Anyway, there's none of that stuff in Sherwood Gold, which is about as bright a slot as they get. The setting for the base game is a sun-drenched mediaeval scene with a castle perched up on a hill, though it is hard to see much of the background a lot of the time as the screen is taken up by the gaming grid and a list of instant prizes. When triggering free spins, play moves to a room overflowing with treasure, which would surely be an outlaw's wet dream, all that loot lying around just waiting to be transferred from the haves to the have-nots.

Sherwood Gold is a highly volatile slot (rated 9 out of 10), played on a 5-reel, 3-row gaming grid in combination with 20 paylines. Winning combinations of 3 to 5 of a kind are possible, paying left to right, starting from the leftmost reel. As always with PnG, the game is available in several RTP configurations, defaulting at 96.2%, and players are able to place wagers of 20 p/c to $/€80 per spin.

Playing card royals 10-A make up Sherwood Gold's low pays, then as highs, it has got what looks to be Friar Tuck, Little John, Marid Marian, and Robin as the most valuable. As for values, hitting 5 matching royals pays 0.2 to 0.65 times the bet, while 5 matching premiums pay 1 to 7.5 times the bet. Wilds are worth more, at 25x the bet for five, and they can also be used to substitute anything except scatters.

Sherwood Gold: Slot Features

Bows at the ready? Cos there'll be quite a few arrows flying about the place as Sherwood Gold progresses through features such as Cash Bag scatter instant prizes, free spins and an Archery Game.

Cash Bag Scatters

Landing at least 3 Cash Bag scatters anywhere on the grid awards an instant prize. The highest prize is paid for the applicable number of scatters in view. In the base game, when 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 Cash Bags are in view, the payout equates to 1x, 5x, 20x, 80x, 200x, 800x, or 2,000x the bet.

Arrow Scatters

When 3 arrow scatters land, the free spins round is awarded. Each Arrow scatter has 1 to 3 arrows on each symbol. The number of arrows adds up to the number of shots players get in the Archery Game.

Archery Game

Players are presented with 9 targets laid out in a 3x3 formation in the Archery Game, which they click or tap on. The chosen target reveals free spins, a multiplier, or a Cash Bag Booster. Once all shots have been used, the free spins, multipliers, and Cash Bag values are added up, and free spins begin.

Free Spins

In free spins, the Cash Bag prize values may be increased by a minimum of 0.2x up to a maximum of 3x, and the multiplier is applied to any regular line wins. The same rules for winning Cash Bag prizes apply as in the base game. Each Arrow scatter that lands in the feature awards +1 free spin up to a maximum amount of 110.

Sherwood Gold: Slot Verdict

Play'n GO does have a thing for ye olde England. The studio has pumped out copious Arthurian-themed slots; now it's had a stab at a Robin Hood-style one (though not for the first time. See Riches of Robin for an earlier example). Not a bad stab either if these scatter symbol instant prize win games appeal. Sherwood Gold has a lot of competition out there, too. The Games Global family of studios has nigh on saturated the market with them, and other developers like Push Gaming, with its contribution 10 Swords, are getting in on the act as well.

Sherwood Gold sits somewhere in the middle of the scale between the classic benchmark 9 Masks of Fire and something higher end like 10 Swords. Sherwood Gold is not super innovative, but it's got extras that you don't find every day in these slots - the Archery Game, for example, and the goodies it supplies, such as the two multipliers. Regular symbol values are quite low in general, so any help boosting them is a welcome one. Not that hitting line wins is really the main objective in a game like this, taking a back seat to the accumulation of Cash Bag scatters. What's pretty neat is how the gaming features have been tied in with the theme, and there are loads of arrows flying about the place. A fair load of winning potential can fly about as well, and the 6,500x the bet top prize cements Sherwood Gold's place around the middle, maybe upper middle section of the scatter prize spectrum.

All in all, Sherwood Gold isn't a bad example of this category of gambling. While some may have expected a bit more from a studio of Play'n GO's standing, Sherwood Gold ticks most of the right boxes while proffering a few newish things for scatter prize pundits to explore. Players' choice as to how much of the spoils go to the townsfolk.