Blood & Shadow 2

Blood & Shadow 2 : Slot Overview

As well as helping make the toilet humour sector of the gambling market shine, Nolimit City is just as accomplished at taking on dark, ominous, 'should not be' subject matter. This exploration of the arcane arguably began with the 'book of' slot on roids release Book of Shadows (2020), then carried on in games such as Mental, Serial, and Disturbed. Another slot that let the studio flex its ritualistic tendencies was Blood & Shadow, a game capable of delivering a seesaw ride between tease and reward via a collection bar levelling up mechanic. The blood and the shadows have returned for a sequel titled Blood & Shadow 2, which also returns many of the same features that teased and/or rewarded them in the past, alongside some tweaks.

Blood & Shadow 2 reuses the same graphical style the original release brought, which links back even further in time to Book of Shadows. That's a lot of shadows. It's also a lot of candles, as they glow and drip wax over a desolate church-like location. There are goats, serpents, and sigils all around the place, a faint Edgar Allan Poe spirit, hints at the French Revolution, and ritualistic connotations; basically, a dark, ominous atmosphere has been draped over Blood & Shadow 2 like a heavy black trench coat.

Taking up a significant chunk of space is Blood & Shadow 2's gaming grid. Its default dimensions are 5 reels, packing 4 rows of symbols on each, where 1,024 ways to win are provided. This number blows out to 3,125 ways when the grid has expanded to its full 5x5 size. An 'extreme' 10 out of 10 volatility might be a daunting prospect in a game of such a cyclical nature. Blood & Shadow 2's max RTP comes in at 96.09% and gamblers can wager 20 c to $/€100 per spin, with 2 xBets and three bonus buy options mere clicks away.

Have to say Blood & Shadow 2 is loaded with pay symbols. There are 5 squiggly designs as the low pay symbols, 5 character/animal symbols as the mediums, and 5 angry versions of the mediums for the high pays. Winning combinations of 5 OAK lows are worth 0.15x to 0.4x, mediums pay up to 0.6x to 1.2x, while 5 matching highs are worth 2x to 5x the bet. Wilds may appear on any reel to replace any regular paying symbols. A 5 wild win pays 5x the bet. Winning combinations are destroyed, and symbols tumble down to fill the holes.

Blood & Shadow 2 : Slot Features

Like the original Blood & Shadow, the sequel resurrects the Ritual Bar. The Ritual Bar has 5 progression levels, and it resets for each level up, though any extra points collected are carried over. The bottom row is full of looked wild symbols, and each level progression unlocks a wild from the left: Level 1 - 20 points, Level 2 - 30 points, Level 3 - 40 points, Level 4 - 60 points, and Level 5 - 80 points.

Landing scatter symbols and winning combinations of medium or high pay symbols progress the Ritual Bar. A medium pay symbol equates to +1 per winning symbol, high pays equate to +2 per winning symbol, and each scatter equates to +10 per scatter symbol. Levelling up removes the lowest paying symbols and converts medium symbols to high pay symbols. The Ritual Bar resets for each new spin.

Candle Spins & Sticky Wild

Reaching a new level on the Ritual Bar awards +2 Candle Spins. This is until level 4, then +6 free spins are awarded when moving to Reign of Terror Spins. During Candle spins, the Ritual Bar functions the same as in the main game. During Candle Spin/Reign of Terror Spins, wild symbols drop down to the bottom of the reel and become sticky wilds until part of a winning combination or a new bet is made.

xSplit

Two types of xSplit symbols may land. The Dagger xSplit splits its row, while the Guillotine xSplit splits all symbols on its reel. xSplit symbols always appear with an x2 multiplier on them. Symbols split by an xSplit get the respective multiplier. Both Dagger and Guillotine turn wild after a split. The multiplier value reflects the count of the symbol on that reel. The maximum symbol size can be x32.

Free Spins

• Halifax Gibbet Spins - Buying Halifax Gibbet Spins progresses the Ritual Bar to level 3 and awards 6 Candle Spins. In this feature, 3 of the low and medium pay symbols are replaced by 3 high pay symbols.
• Reign of Terror Spins - A total of 6 free spins are awarded when entering the Reign of Terror Spins - after any wins have been completed. The Ritual Bar is removed, and the grid becomes 5x5 in size, landing only high pay symbols. Landing a scatter awards +1 free spin. Buying Reign of Terror grants 10 free spins.

Nolimit Booster & Bonus Buy

The Nolimit Booster is where players can activate xBet 1, which costs 2.5x the bet and is 3 times more likely to trigger Reign of Terror Spins. It starts at level 1. xBet 2 costs 66x the bet, guaranteeing a spin at level 5 with Dagger and Guillotine Spins. From the Nolimit Bonus, players may buy Halifax Gibbet Spins for 100x, Reign of Terror Spins for 500x, or Lucky Draw for 240x.

Blood & Shadow 2 : Slot Verdict

Cast your mind back to Blood & Shadow (or reread the review), and it soon becomes apparent that the features in Blood & Shadow 2 haven't drastically changed. The Ritual Bar has been restored, so collecting points from certain symbols to level up remains the order of the day. The results for doing so have largely remained unchanged as well, such as getting Candle Spins, sticky wilds, and symbol removals. In addition, the theme treatment and accompanying audiovisuals are as gripping as ever, so there's a definite ease when slipping into Blood & Shadow 2's occult world.

What has changed are things like having dedicated xSplit symbols splitting rows and reels, plus the locked row getting unlocked as levels progress. These might not be what some people would consider epoch-defining shifts. But, they are the sort of shifts that have pushed Blood & Shadow 2's max win out to 16,161x the stake, called Enlightenment, and the chance of this occurring plummeting to 1 in 3.3 million spins. Within this theoretical boundary, shoot, anything might happen. Due to Blood & Shadow 2's extremely volatile engine, Ritual Bar's progress may well be stunted, or it might turn out to be a breeze (relatively speaking). Natural level 2s or 3s weren't obscenely difficult to achieve in the review, but buying latter levels or tripping the xBets might be a better option for some. Cutting to the chase by activating xBet 2 could be particularly exciting.

In some ways, Blood & Shadow 2 is more of an update than a full-blown sequel, but the changes become more apparent the deeper one looks, so its mathematical adjustments and a new feature or two help separate the two games. On the whole, it's not an enormously different game than its predecessor, so it feels safe to say that if Blood & Shadow got the adrenal gland pumping, Blood & Shadow 2 should as well. Or vice versa.