Tanked 3 First Blood 2

Tanked 3 First Blood 2: Slot Overview

Nolimit City infamously refuses to play by the rules, and their latest release proves it once again. If you're scratching your head trying to remember Tanked 2, don't worry, you didn't miss it. The studio has completely skipped the logical sequel to the 2024 release Tanked, and has rolled out the heavy artillery for Tanked 3 First Blood 2. Borrowing a page from ELK Studios' highly popular Pirots series, Nolimit City adds firepower to its version of the eater mechanic by letting four war mongering characters lose, who like nothing better than collecting goodies from the grid while dispatching adversaries with a host of dangerous weaponry. As part of the sequel's overhaul, Tanked 3 moves away from the traditional multiplier system to a new Coin collect system, along with a number of other shakeups.

Tanked 3 has a more open world, less restrictive feel than its predecessors did. The base game looks like a beach assault is taking place in a peaceful area of jungle, rock, and sea. Peaceful to start with, perhaps, but the four characters in the game aren't exactly best buds, and it won't be long till they are throwing explosive projectiles at each other, nuking parts of the grid, as they bring about each other's fiery demise. Free spins go on to take place in rocky, middle-of-a-volcano-type locations, as well as a treasure room covered in gold. Even more so than Pirots, Tanked 3 blurs the lines between online slot and video game while its rockin' tunes contribute to a neat 80s/90s coin-up experience.

The grid starts in a 4-5-6-5-6-5-4 pattern, and has four sections that can be expanded by explosions a total of 3 times up to 9-10-11-12-13-12-11-12-13-12-11-10-9. When the grid expands, it can reveal one or more feature symbols in the expanded section. The game uses an xLoot system, which awards payouts when a moving character picks up gem symbols that are the same colour as it is. All characters may collect wild symbols. When collections have ended, symbols avalanche down to refill the grid. Tanked 3's engine is a highly volatile math model, coughing up an RTP of 95.99%, and taking bets of $/€0.20 to $/€100.

There are 4 different coloured gems, each one linked to a character who can collect it. Values of gems range from 0.05x-0.15x at the lowest level up to 3x-10x at the highest level. Each gem has 7 payout levels. A gem increases a level when its linked character kills other character symbols. The level increases by +1 for each killed character.

Tanked 3 First Blood 2: Slot Features

Open up the arsenal, and here we find Coins, Coinburst, Tank Boosters, Bombs, Pickpocket, Booms, xGlitch, Kill Drop, three free spins rounds, ante bets, and feature buys.

Coin & Coinburst

Coins can appear with values of 1x to 5,000x. When a character picks up a coin, its value is awarded. If the character is killed, it drops any collected Coins onto the grid, though players still keep the winnings. When a character collects a Coinburst symbol, all positions traversed by characters are transformed into Coin symbols. Only empties, gems, and wilds can be transformed. If a wild is transformed into a Coin, it will not be available for collection by any other character symbols.

Tank Boosters

There are 5 different Tank Boosters which can be picked up by characters. When there is no more movement, a character carrying a Booster will use it.

• Rocket - The character shoots the wall close to an enemy character. This removes all enemy characters and pay symbols in the explosion area and increases the grid size by 1 step. Feature symbols remain on the grid.
• Loot Rocket - Acts like a Rocket but picks up all feature symbols dropped by any killed character, along with any new feature symbols except Bombs, that appear from the grid expansion.
• Grenade - The character throws the grenade at a random character, removing characters and pay symbols in the explosion pattern.
• Hatchet - Targets the character holding it and removes all characters and pay symbols in the explosion pattern. The character holding the Hatchet remains on the reel.
• Airstrike - The character hits 2 to 3 enemy characters, removing all characters and pay symbols in the explosion pattern.

Characters removed by a Tank Booster respawn on the reels when symbols avalanche in, keeping any Tank Boosters they collected before the explosion.

Bombs

There are two types of bombs. The regular Bomb expands in one direction; the Three Way Bomb expands in three directions. Bombs trigger when no character can move, and Tank Boosters have been activated. All pay symbols and characters in the explosion are removed, and the grid expands in the direction of the bomb impact. Removed characters drop in with the other symbols.

Pickpocket & Booms

When two characters are next to each other and neither can move, there is a chance one character is awarded a Tank Booster, Coinburst, or scatter symbol. If 3 Characters are next to each other and they can't move, Small Boom activates, meaning the character that can remove the most symbols explodes and removes all characters and pay symbols in the explosion. Gems matching the exploded character's colour gain +1 payout level. When 4 characters are adjacent, and none can move, Big Boom causes the characters to explode, removing pay symbols on the reels and increasing the grid by +1 step. All gems get a +1 payout level.

xGlitch

An xGlitch may occur when a character can only pick up one symbol, causing only feature symbols to fall from avalanches. This can repeat 4 to 50 times in a row.

Kill Drop

When a character is killed, it drops a Coin symbol and any Coins it collected before being killed onto adjacent grid positions. It may also drop a Tank Booster, Bomb, Three Way Bomb, scatter, or Coinburst symbol on its position.

Free Spins

When a character collects 3, 4, or 5 scatters, players win 7 Thresher Spins, 7 Reaper Spins, or 7 The Dead Pay Well Spins.

• Thresher Spins - Gem level and grid size are carried over from the base game and are persistent. Each landed scatter awards +1 free spin.
• Reaper Spins - Operates like Thresher Spins except Coins on the reels are sticky between spins until collected. Any Coins present on the triggering spin are brought over to the bonus as well.
• The Dead Pay Well - Operates like Reaper Spins, plus any Coins collected by characters are paid, and then carried by them across spins as well, including those collected on the trigger. Killed characters drop their Coins which payout if picked up again.

Buys

At the end of a game round, players may be offered an extra spin if the calculated cost is less than or equal to the win, with available Tank Booster options to choose from. The extra spin retains the grid size and symbol positions of the previous spin. Players are able to activate the Bonus Blitz for 2x to guarantee 1 landed scatter symbol, or Guaranteed Coinburst to land a Coinburst symbol for 50x. The Maxed Out feature costs 200x and guarantees the max grid size and gems at their highest level. The buy options are Thresher Spins, Reaper Spins, The Dead Pay Well, or Lucky Dip for 100x, 300x, 800x, or 325x the bet, respectively. It is also possible to buy a God Mode spin for a chance to win the max payout for 4,000x the bet.

Tanked 3 First Blood 2: Slot Verdict

First of all, just to reiterate, if you were running around wondering how you might have missed it, there is no Tanked 2. Nolimit City has skipped that one and gone right for part 3, giving Tanked 3 First Blood 2 more of a Rambo effect. Apt, really, since both art forms, if this slot and the latter Rambo sequels can be accused of being art, are deeply concerned with guns, bombs, and blowing things sky high. There's also a slight Worms feel to the game too, though, the biggest influence has got to be ELK Studios' Pirots range since a symbol eating mechanic also forms the backbone of Tanked 3. What's interesting is that rather than being simply a cheeky copy, Tanked was at least in part brought about by an ex-ELK member bringing their expertise to the studio. Add in Nolimit City's natural tendency to fill a slot to the absolute brim with features, then deepening the experience with its particular mathematical bent, and boom, Tanked spawned, now followed by Tanked 3.

The problem is that the original version never really became the breakout hit Nolimit City probably hoped for. Pirots already occupied a huge chunk of the symbol-eater conversation in players' minds, and despite Tanked introducing its own ideas, the gameplay often felt overly dragged out, with endless chains of explosions and movement that looked exciting without always delivering satisfying payouts. Over time, the hype around the series cooled off considerably, and Tanked 3 feels a bit like a second attempt at pushing the concept back into relevance.

To be fair, there are improvements here. The switch away from the original game's multiplier-heavy progression into a Coin collect structure gives Tanked 3 a different rhythm, the grid expansion is less rigid, and the amount of destruction happening on screen can be genuinely entertaining when everything starts spiraling out of control. At its best, the slot creates that classic "one more cascade" feeling eater fans enjoy, where Coins are constantly being dropped, recollected, blown apart, and recycled back into the action.

At the same time, Tanked 3 still suffers from some of the same issues as its predecessor. There is almost too much happening at once, and a lot of the chaos can end up feeling superficial when long sequences resolve into fairly average results. The feature set borders on exhausting, the pacing can become bloated, and despite the audiovisual spectacle, it never quite reaches the level of excitement or elegance that made Pirots stick so strongly with players in the first place. Complexity alone does not automatically make a slot more fun.

That leaves Tanked 3 First Blood 2 in an awkward position. It's definitely not a bad slot, and fans of highly volatile, feature-heavy Nolimit City games will probably find plenty to enjoy digging through all the madness. However, it also doesn't feel like the studio's next great modern classic. More like a solid, occasionally entertaining rework of an idea that still struggles to fully escape the shadow of the game that inspired it.