Himalayan Wild

Himalayan Wild: Slot Overview

If you're big on mountains, then the Himalayas are likely to be high on your travel bucket list. The mountain range is connected to a bunch of countries and has some of the highest peaks on the planet, including the highest in the form of Mount Everest. Despite the region's majesty, it's not an enormously popular online slot theme destination. Looking to rectify the imbalance, maybe, to an extent, is developer Pragmatic Play's Himalayan Wild, a slot that stalks the snowy realms with a batch of wild animals and an unusual Free Respins feature.

Not only are the Himalayas the roof of the world, they're also home to some extraordinary places such as the Kingdom of Bhutan, which has been called the happiest nation on Earth, and the Buddhist wonders of Tibet. Himalayan Wild, however, largely avoids cultural references and concentrates on the natural beauty instead. This means rolling mountains coated in snow, big open skies, a few trees, and that's about it for the background. Other than the game's name giving away a big clue, Himalayan Wild could be any old mountainous region, meaning it lacks a strong personal identity. Some of the animal symbols could be an exception, fair enough.

Himalayan Wild is surprisingly Spartan in terms of mechanical setup. Mainly because its 5x3 reelset is armed with just 5 paylines - creating winning combinations from the leftmost reel across adjacent reels. The number of paylines might be low, but the volatility is high, while the RTP on the most preferable return configuration is 96.51%. This return value applies when betting 25 c to $/€250 per spin, but it drops ever so slightly to 96.5% when buying either of the features.

Himalayan Wild drops 9 different paying symbols onto its reels. They are 10 to A playing card ranks, joined by birds, wolves, buffalo, and bears. Winning combinations consisting of 5 identical royals pay 5 to 15 times the stake, going up to 20 to 300 times the bet for 5 OAK premium symbol win. Wild symbols complete winning lines by replacing any regular pay symbols. Wilds hit on reels 3, 4, and the rightmost reel. Bonus symbols pay a cash reward of up to 4 times the bet when making a 5 OAK winning line of itself.

Himalayan Wild: Slot Features

Himalayan Wild's main feature is its Free Respins round. Hitting any winning pay symbol combination (not made up of Bonus symbols) that includes at least 1 wild symbol triggers the Free Respins round. If multiple winning pay symbol combinations (not Bonus symbol wins) hit on the same spin, 1 Free Respins round is awarded for each and is played separately, one after the other.

For the Free Respins rounds, the mountain Bonus symbol is the Money symbol. The Money symbol has a value equal to the payout value of the winning combination that triggered the feature. The round starts with 3 respins. Each time a Money symbol hits, its value is awarded, and the number of respins is set back to 3.

The 30x Minor, 100x Major, and 1,000x symbols can appear only during the Free Respins round. If a Jackpot symbol lands on the leftmost reel at the same time as the Mega, Major, or Minor symbols on the rightmost reel, the relevant prize is won. The Free Respins round ends when no more respins are remaining.

Feature Buy

The Free Respins round can be triggered from the base game by buying it. For 100x the bet, the Free Respins feature is triggered by a random paying symbol. For 300x, the feature is triggered by a random pay symbol taken from the 4 highest-paying pay symbols.

Himalayan Wild: Slot Verdict

Different, yeah, okay, Himalayan Wild is that. The game doesn't do a huge amount with the Himalayas angle, which was a teeny bit disappointing. But, due to the mountainous background artwork, it's not hard to imagine you're trudging towards Mt Everest for a heroic ascent. Or scooting through a European mounting range, or an American one, or anywhere, so generic are the graphics. With a bit of mental work, it's not hard to pretend you're playing a physical machine either, Himalayan Wild having a vaguely old-school, physical box vibe to it.

A lot of potential pretending, then, and a sizable amount of potential winnings, as well. There is no need for masses of ways to win around here, as the 5 paylines Himalayan Wild makes do with can knock out wins up to a cap 10,000x. Line wins are arguably not how players are going to get there in the long run, but a chunky winning combination forged with the help of one or more wild symbols to launch the Free Respin feature is, if not essential, hugely helpful. So it happened during our test sessions that a 5 OAK bear win launched a Free Respins round, which turned out to be not too shabby at all, reinforcing the feeling Himalayan Wild is more than capable of stepping up. It's also more than well equipped at triggering a Free Respins feature off the back of a much more modest winning combination amount. Don't you worry about that.

When the snow settled, Himalayan Wild felt like one of those slots Pragmatic Play excels at turning out in great numbers. Namely, a game with an interesting though perhaps not outstanding core idea, stand-up stats, and solid winning potential; one which might not go on to shake the online gambling industry to its knees but one which provides enough intrigue to make it nevertheless worthy enough of an inquisitive demo spin or two.