Propaganda 2

Propaganda 2: Slot Overview

Given ELK Studios' love of a sequel, coupled with the excellent source material it had to work with, it should come as no surprise to find ourselves about to embark on a review of Propaganda 2, a follow-up to the original Propaganda, which was released in 2022. Right? Four years ago? Dang, time flies, but fortunately, while several years might have passed, ELK Studios has largely kept the core parts of the original that made it such a compelling cluster pays slot intact, before adding extra components to bring depth, expand the max win, and brighten up the game world.

Propaganda was a bleak-looking game, but underneath the drab oppression and the red jumpsuits was a society known as LA11-1 that was actually bursting with happiness and looking to fight for freedom using a revolution of love. In Propaganda 2, the society is still looking to bring about freedom, while raising their voices even higher. What that means on a visual level is a less bleak world. Surrounding the gaming grid is a city in the process of being run down or repaired, bursting with plant life, and populated with members of LA11-1, red jumpsuits, masks, and all. In short, ELK being ELK has designed another visually appealing game for players' optical enjoyment.

Propaganda 2 is played on a 6x6 gaming area, creating winning combinations when 5 or more matching symbols are connected. Winning symbols are removed, causing remaining symbols to drop downwards and new symbols to come in from above. Avalanches continue like this as long as new winning combinations appear. A highly volatile slot, the theoretical RTP is 96% on the highest return model, while the stake range varies from $/€0.20 to $/€100.

Making up the paytable are eight symbols - ribbons, gloves, flowers, winged hearts, walkie talkies, flower-plugged guns, helmets, and bombs. Clusters of 5 OAK pay 0.05x to 1x the bet or 20x to 100x at the highest end when landing a 36+ OAK cluster.

Propaganda 2: Slot Features

The propaganda is spread through a global multiplier, wild symbols, special symbols, bonus drops, the Super Bonus, the Drop Bonus, and X-iter feature buys.

Global Multiplier

The global multiplier is applied to all winning clusters. Each winning symbol increases the global multiplier by 1. The global multiplier resets between base game spins.

Wild Symbols

Each winning cluster generates a wild symbol in one of the empty spaces after winning symbols are removed. If several wilds contribute to a winning cluster, they merge into one generated wild, adding their multipliers. Multiplier wilds that connect multiple clusters are split into their respective clusters. Normal wilds are counted as having a multiplier of 1. Wilds substitute for all paying symbols. A cluster of wilds only pays the same as the highest paying symbol.

Special Symbols & Features

• Wild Strike - The Wild Strike feature symbol triggers when adjacent to a winning cluster. It adds 2-5 wilds to the grid and then becomes a wild itself.
• Heart Feature - Triggers when a Heart symbol is next to a winning cluster. When winning symbols are removed and positions are refilled, 1 or more pay symbol types are selected and transformed into one pay symbol type. Then the Heart symbol becomes the transformed symbol type.
• Mask Symbols - Activate when adjacent to a winning cluster. Activated Masks are collected by the Mask inventory at the end of the game round. Accumulating 6 of them triggers the Drop Bonus. Collected Masks are kept between game rounds, but do not land in bonus drops.
• Love Bomb - Can trigger one any base or bonus drop. Energy attached to feature symbols is added to the Love Bomb energy at the end of a round. Love Bomb energy is kept between game rounds, and when triggered, the Love Bomb activates all feature symbols during a game round or bonus drop.

Bonus Drops

Landing 3 scatter symbols triggers 7 free bonus drops. The global multiplier resets when entering the bonus game but remains active between free spins. In the bonus game, the Add Bonus Drop symbol awards +1 spin. If a Super Bonus symbol appears in the bonus round, it upgrades the round to the Super Bonus, and +2 spins are awarded. In addition, if the bonus round is triggered in the base game and at least 1 Super Bonus symbol is present, players are awarded the Super Bonus. In the Super Bonus, the Love Bomb feature is active during all bonus drops.

Drop Bonus

The Drop Bonus plays with pay symbols, wilds, Collect symbols, and Upgrade symbols. Three spins are awarded. Landing one or more symbols resets the spin counter to 3. All symbols remain on the grid between spins, and the total value of cluster wins is paid when the feature ends. The Upgrade symbol upgrades all pay symbols to a higher-paying symbol type on the grid, then it becomes the pay symbol type. The Collect symbol picks a symbol area on the grid, then gathers all symbols in the area into a single cluster, then becomes the pay symbol type. Wild symbols add their multiplier value to the respective cluster. If more than 1 wild contributes to the same cluster, the multiplier values are added together before being applied. After the Drop Bonus ends, there is a chance 1-3 Mask symbols are added to the Mask inventory.

X-iter Feature Buys

Players have access to five feature buys from the X-iter. They are the Bonus Hunt, costing 2.5x the bet to have more than 3 times the chance of triggering the bonus game, or the Mega Hunt for 10x for a greater than 10 times the average chance. The Love Bomb can be bought for 25x, or triggering the bonus game or super bonus game can be done for 100x to 500x the stake.

Propaganda 2: Slot Verdict

First off, Propaganda 2's theme came across as not only unique but also quite heartwarming. Messed-up dystopias are common in pop culture, including slots, but instead of wallowing in despair, the characters in Propaganda 2 are brimming with hope. Rather than fall back on selfish survival instincts, hoard resources, and fight for the scraps left over from their overlords, the LA11-1 crew are fighting back with good vibes rather than homemade weapons. It's not all doom and gloom, but optimism exists out there, in the world of Propaganda 2.

Any heartwarming effects are amplified when the game is firing, and Propaganda 2 has some extra hardware to deploy in this regard. ELK Studios has added a handful of extras to augment the flow in the form of Heart symbols, Mask symbols, and Love Bombs. They don't completely alter the experience, but no one's going to say no to actions that contribute to linking symbols in a cluster pays slot. Reassuringly, the core of Propaganda 2 remains the combination of cluster, avalanche, wild add, and the excellent way winning symbols increase the global multiplier. Cluster values are not monstrous, so the multiplier becomes indispensable for cranking out better results, and free spins are the most conducive place for this to occur, naturally.

The new Drop Bonus is also a nice way of potentially rewarding players who stick with it as Masks are collected between game rounds, culminating in an alternative version of the main features condensed into three retriggerable spins with exclusive symbols. For the final icing on the cake, ELK Studios has drastically pushed the win cap past what the original touted, to the current figure of 25,000x the bet. All in all, players who enjoyed the original have a stepped-up version to try, while cluster pay enthusiasts in general get a well-constructed vehicle to take for a spin.