Beasts of Fire Inferno

Beasts of Fire Inferno: Slot Overview

Rewind time a few million years or more, and if another species had risen up from the plains and tamed fire, would it be us being farmed and barbecued by our bovine masters? Something to ponder as we take on developer Play'n GO's online slot Beasts of Fire Inferno. Eagle-eyed PnG fans will no doubt be spotting the concatenation going on here between the studio's Beasts of Fire range and its Colt Lightning line. Hate to drop a spoiler this early on, but Beasts of Fire Inferno is essentially Colt Lightning Inferno, with a new buffalo pelt thrown over the top. This means a second dose of the Inferno Core and Coins, a Hold N' Load, Fire Frames and so on, while dodging stampeding bison rather than free, wild horses.

Beasts of Fire Inferno has a focus on fire and heat, which makes sense when you see the landscape the base game inhabits. It's a snowy, mountainous country, the skies greyly overcast, as trees cling precariously to craggy cliffs. That all changes when free spins are active, and Beasts of Fire Inferno starts flying through dimensions at great speed, then flips yet again to a realm of flowing lava for the Hold N' Load round. It's a slot of multiple personalities, even if the gameplay and features have been copy-and-pasted, before being blanketed in the Beasts of Fire herd of wild animals.

The base game is held on a 5x4 grid, with 1,024 ways to win, increasing by one row during free spins to push the number of ways to win to 3,125. With a stake range of $/€0.10 to $/€100, the highest of the RTP models is 96.2%, while the volatility is set to high (7 out of 10 rated).

The pay symbols come in two forms - royals and Beasts. The royals are the usual 10-A card ranks, while the Beasts are raccoons, eagles, cougars, bears, buffalo (in the base game), and Fire Beasts (in free spins). Five matching royals in a win pays 1.2x-1.6x, while the base game Beasts are worth 2x -8x for 5 OAK. The Fire Beast pays double the buffalo at 16x when 5 land in a line. Wilds help make winning combinations by substituting for all regular paying symbols.

Beasts of Fire Inferno: Slot Features

On the features side, Beasts of Fire Inferno brings back the Inferno Core collecting, a Hold N' Load bonus round, Inferno Storm, and free spins.

Inferno Core & Bonus Inferno Coins

Bonus Inferno Coins appear in Reward Boost, Power Boost, or Mystery Boost forms. They are collected by the Inferno Core. Reward Boost Coins have values of 1x to 5x, which are awarded during the Hold N' Load feature. Power Boost symbols only appear in the Hold N' Load round, as the Mini (10x), Minor (25x), Major (250x), or the Grand (1,000x). When Mystery Boost symbols are collected by the Inferno Core, they reveal a Power Boost or a Reward Boost during the Hold N' Load.

Hold N' Load

This feature may randomly trigger in the base game when a Bonus Inferno Coin is collected. During the feature, only Bonus Inferno Coins may land, and they stick to the reels. Three respins are awarded, and each time a Bonus Inferno Coin lands in active rows, the count is reset to 3. Landing a Grand on the reels or filling all 40 positions guarantees the Grand is awarded. Once all respins have been used, the round ends. The top 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th rows start the feature locked, but become unlocked when collecting 3, 10, 15, and 20 Bonus Inferno Coins, respectively. Bonus Inferno Coins that land in locked rows, or are activated when rows get unlocked, do not reset the spin count and do not contribute to unlocking rows. Three to five x2 multipliers can randomly appear and stick to any position - one per position only. These multipliers apply to Reward Boost or Power Boost values when they appear in those positions.

Inferno Storm

The Inferno Storm is triggered when a Buffalo Relic lands on the middle reel. This adds 3 to 20 Fire Frames to the reels, transforming symbols into one of the Beast symbols.

Free Spins

Fire Ball scatters appear on the middle three reels. Hitting 3 scatters triggers 8 free spins. During free spins, buffalo symbols are replaced by Fire Beasts, and an extra row is added to the grid. Landing a scatter during the round awards an extra spin, up to a maximum of 47. Buffalo Relics may land, and when they do, they create 1 to 4 sticky Fire Frames. At the end of the round, all Fire Frames transform into a Beast symbol.

Beasts of Fire Inferno: Slot Verdict

Beasts of Fire Inferno was an okay slot to review, but it was a repeat of the performance put in by Colt Lightning Inferno only a few months ago. The studio has chosen to keep the mechanics as they were, without adding any sort of upgrade or new side feature, so don't be expecting to find anything innovative going on here. In fact, it's a small puzzle as to why the studio chose to clone the original in the first place. Time-saving, quota meeting, maybe someone at PnG just really wanted to see Colt's features dressed up in bison. However we ended up in this situation, the result is a fairly unexciting game; it looks quite attractive, but that's about it.

On the optimistic side, Beasts of Fire Inferno has the same monstrous, maybe overly optimistic (an understatement), max win figure of 50,000x the stake. There are a lot of ways during free spins, and Fire Frames do fill with Beast symbols at the end of the round, so… maybe? Witnessing the game hit full capacity someday somewhere would certainly improve Beasts of Fire Inferno's appeal. More realistic perhaps is aiming for the Grand, or lining reels with Boost Coins, which aren't worth a lot, during the Hold N' Load. Anyway, a decent number of gamblers must be lapping this stuff up to persuade Play'n GO to reskin the original, in which case, Beasts of Fire Inferno might find itself falling into the hands of an appreciative audience.

Beasts of Fire Inferno occupies a peculiar space in the provider's catalogue, functional and visually appealing, yet also uninspired. Dedicated fans of the underlying engine get new territory to explore it in, but outside this group it is hard to shake the feeling that this slot is simply filling a place on a release schedule, and by the end of the review, the session wrapped up wanting something more than recycled code wrapped in a different fluffy pelt.