Gladiator Ways

Gladiator Ways: Slot Overview

Just the other day, we'd oiled up and grabbed a trident to tangle with Yggdrasil Gaming's slot 3 Gladiators vs Caesar; now here we are for round two. This time, the slot is Gladiator Ways and comes from software provider Red Tiger. The game has a progressively unlockable set of features, a collection system which Red Tiger (for better or worse) likes to use, which become available in the base game as well as in bonus rounds where two wilds are guaranteed on each free spin.

Make a gladiator game, and there aren't a huge number of different settings to locate the action in. Coliseum-type arenas are about it, and Red Tiger has made a good-looking one to host Gladiator Ways. There is something a bit strange about the audience, though. Sonically, the crowd gets a bit rowdy at times, but visually, they stay stock still. Sure, Gladiator Ways is no EA Sports Triple-A video game production, so no one is expecting a dynamic crowd, yet there is something unsettling about how realistic they've been drawn yet how unmoving they are.

The title is certainly no misnomer since, as well as gladiators, Gladiator Ways is a ways to win slot. Winning combinations are paid left to right, starting from the leftmost reel, and there are 4,096 ways to win. Players get just one approach, with no bonus buy option in sight, which is picking a stake of 10 c to $/€40 and thrashing the spin button. At its highest setting, the default RTP in Gladiator Ways is 95.72%, while the volatility is medium-high.

SPQR style ten to ace card ranks make up Gladiator Ways' lower value symbols, while its higher paying group are spears, spiked balls, swords, and tigers. A winning way consisting of 6 identical royals pays 0.4-0.5 times the bet or a 6 OAK premium win awards 1 to 5 times the bet.

Gladiator Ways: Slot Features

Gladiator Ways possesses one of those progress collection mechanics that Red Tiger likes to use. At the start of a session, only one gladiator is unlocked. The other 3 gladiators are unlocked by collecting golden shields when they land. After collecting 10 shields, the second gladiator is unlocked. A further 10 collected shields unlocks the third gladiator, while the fourth gladiator is unlocked another 10 collected shields after that. Once the last gladiator is unlocked, shields are removed from the game. All gladiators are wild, so they count for any regular pay symbol.

• Gladiator 1 - a wild of 1x2 in size that is present on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. May land fully or partially in view.
• Gladiator 2 - a wild of 1x4 in size that may land on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. Always lands fully in view.
• Gladiator 3 - a wild of size 2x2 that is present on reels 2 and 3, 3 and 4, as well as 4 and 5. May land fully or partially in view.
• Gladiator 4 - a wild of size 2x4, present on reels 2 and 3, 3 and 4, as well as 4 and 5. Always lands fully in view.

Free Spins

Scatter symbols hit on all but the leftmost reel. Landing 3 or 4 scatter symbols triggers 7 or 14 free spins, respectively. On each free spin, 2 wild gladiators are guaranteed to land. A random gladiator is guaranteed to land on reels 2 and/or 3, and a random gladiator on reels 4 and/or 5. Additional gladiators may also land, though only unlocked gladiators are available in free spins. Each landed scatter awards +1 free spin.

Gladiator Ways: Slot Verdict

It seems as though the Red Tiger team might be gearing up for a collection mechanic binge since the last game of theirs we reviewed, The Good, The Bad, and The Rich, had a similar unlocking of features mechanic. That one was a Western, where the features it unlocked had more variety, such as a royal symbol removal effect and a winning combination formation method flip from paylines to ways. Gladiator Ways by comparison, unlocks only wild symbols of various dimensions, so the game does suffer to a degree from a lack of variety.

However, Gladiator Ways does have a ways to win pay system from start to finish, which works well when adding wild symbols to the reels. Why players don't just get all of the different symbols from start to finish can feel like a mystery, but that's Red Tiger's prerogative, and it's totally up to players whether they want to embark upon a journey of unlocking things or not. On an eyeball, non-official stat level, these sorts of games from Red Tiger in the past have not tended to take masses of time to get through everything, though there are no timing guarantees either.

Maybe don't be expecting the riches of Rome's 12 Caesars to come raining down on you if you manage to unlock everything and use it all to full capacity. Gladiator Ways' max multiplier is 2,176.2x the bet, which is dunno; some may have thought it would have been higher considering all those ways and wilds the game tosses about the place. And that's Gladiator Ways. It's no Gladiator Legends, and a reliance on wild symbols means the action is somewhat one-dimensional, but it's got a certain battling in an arena atmosphere, so gamblers without massive hopes or expectations might possibly enjoy the action it is able to throw together.