Arctic Duel

Arctic Duel: Slot Overview

Snowballs to the ready, players, we're travelling to the far north courtesy of Bullshark's online slot Arctic Duel. Instead of aggressive nation-states fighting for oil or territory or whatever it is they want up in that part of the world, this duel sees a feisty snowman and rabbit going at it. Sort of. There isn't a lot of duelling taking place in this game, but there is some walking wild action tied into a progressive win multiplier, sizable winning potential, and a cold, frigid location to let it all come together.

Arctic Duel takes place in a frosty spot of snowy ground, snowy trees, falling snow, just a lot of snow. It's even got a snowman. He's one of the game's protagonists, doing battle against a mischievous rabbit, so there's plenty of snowballs and carrots to go around. However, there's a lot less battling going on than you might expect. Mostly the snowman stands in the foreground, lobbing the occasional ball, while the rabbit appears on the scatter, and the two adversaries don't really seem to face off much, if at all. Maybe they're secretly friends. Maybe the rabbit's plan is to wait out the winter and let his pal form a sad carrot-nosed puddle when summer arrives. Who knows. It's cute and all, but the theme landed as lightly as a delicate flake of snow.

Played on a 5x3 matrix, Arctic Duel has 243 ways to evaluate winning combinations of matching symbols and a cascade mechanic to snowball them into runs of consecutive wins. It does this by removing winning symbols after they have paid out, then dropping new and existing symbols downwards to fill the reels. If a new win appears after a cascade, the process repeats itself. Hidden in the snow is a 4 out of 5 rated medium-high volatile math model, producing at best an RTP of 96.3%, and a stake range of $/€0.10 to $/€100 is provided.

The pay symbols begin with icy 10-A royals, followed by shovels, mittens, carrots, grenades, and boxes of TNT. Landing a combination of 5 matching royals is worth 0.5x the bet, rising to 1.5x to 8x when hitting a combination of 5 matching premium symbols. Landing 5 wilds in a winning way pays 10x the stake.

Arctic Duel: Slot Features

Arctic Duel features a global multiplier, walking wild symbol, a global multiplier, two bonus rounds, and several feature buy options.

Global Multiplier

The global multiplier has a default value of x1. It applies to all wins and resets with each new base game spin.

Walking Wild Symbol

Walking wild symbols appear in all game phases, where they substitute for all paytable symbols. Wilds may have a multiplier which is added to the global multiplier when they are part of a win. The increased value applies to the next win onwards, not the current win that triggered it. Additive values range from x1 to x100, while multiplicative values range from x2 to x10. After a wild participates in a win, it picks left or right, then moves one reel in that direction on the same row. The wild moves one reel each time it is part of a win during cascades. Wilds move off the grid on their next step when on the edge reel. Wilds step after the win yet before the next cascade, and all are removed at the end of spins.

If two wilds move into the same position, they count as a single wild. They also add a multiplier from the values above to the global multiplier immediately, and the new value is already applied to the subsequent win. Merged wilds separate again after participating in a win. Walking wilds cannot land on the same spin as scatter symbols.

Carrot Heist

Landing 3 scatters in the base game triggers 8 free Carrot Heist spins. During the round, the global multiplier is progressive until it ends. Every two wilds that step off the grid award +1 free spin.

Arctic Showdown

Hitting 4 scatters in the main game awards 10 free spins in the Arctic Showdown feature. It is the same as Carrot Heist except the global multiplier starts at x5, and one wild symbol is guaranteed on the first spin.

Feature Buys

Players may activate BonusHunt FeatureSpins for 3x to make triggering a bonus 5 times more likely, or for 50x Sneaky Snatch FeatureSpins guarantee at least 2 wilds land. Carrot Heist costs 100x to buy, or Arctic Showdown can be bought for 250x the bet.

Arctic Duel: Slot Verdict

Arctic Duel was an okay slot to demo, but not one that produced a snowball smack to the face like response. It's got the right ingredients to power out a decent result, no arguments there, yet it often struggled to rise to anything approaching noteworthy. The game world is pleasant, but feels a little underdone as well, and more obvious duelling wouldn't have gone amiss. It also wouldn't have hurt Arctic Duel's appeal if Bullshark Games had squeezed more slapstick entertainment out of the topic, maybe pushed for more confrontation between snowman and bunny, rather than leaving things seeming quite so bare on the thematic side of things.

To give Arctic Duel credit where it is due, the walking wild to global multiplier combo is a strong duo, capable of both connecting wins and blasting them with the power of a multiplier. Not all walking wilds come with a multiplier value, but still, wilds roaming a ways-to-win grid rather than a paylines-infused one can be a thrill in their own right. Minor suspense is produced by the unknown direction a wild will walk; left possibly means more chance of wins, right could mean longer winning combinations. Either way, it's the wilds with multis you really want to see, and the way bonus rounds make the global multiplier persistent throughout might be a predictable progression, it's a strong one all the same.

All told, Arctic Duel put up an okay fight, and it's definitely got the firepower to lob a few chunky projectiles lucky players' way. A 10,000x win cap achievable in all game modes is testament to that. But it wasn't a hugely memorable slot. The theme is a bit thin, the characters are cute yet lack fiery interaction, so while on a technical level and, to a lesser extent, a sensorial one, Arctic Duel is alright, it just wasn't a game that demanded a round two.