Volatile Vikings

Volatile Vikings: Slot Overview

Viking themed slots are one type of game you know you've never seen the last of. The subject is a recurrent favourite amongst designers, who return time and again to inject some muscle into their game. The good news is there are developers like Relax Gaming who can take a common theme like Vikings and come up with something enjoyably unique. Here we have Volatile Vikings, which mixes a recognisably Relax look with a pay-in-all-position win system and collectable multipliers, culminating in a round of free spins.

Volatile Viking is split into two phases, base and bonus, one played out in the blue icy north, the other in a red-lit screen dominated by fire. It's a bit Song of Ice & Fire in this regard, plus an epic Game of Thrones-style soundtrack reinforces the allusion. Interestingly, there aren't any actual Viking people in the game, but the high pay symbols add life because they chant a tune when they form winning combinations. This might sound a bit weird, but it's kind of cool in action. Add it all up, and Volatile Vikings presents quite a unique, almost mystical vibe, enhanced by the clever features Relax has mixed in.

One of Volatile Vikings' slightly unusual aspects is its pay system. Instead of lining up symbols from the left-hand side of the grid, symbols pay from any position. The game area is arranged in a 6-reel, 5-row layout, and as long as 8 or more matching symbols hit, they trigger the cascade pay mechanic. As you might have guessed from the name, Volatile Vikings is a highly volatile slot, producing a solid RTP of 96.23%, whilst offering bets from 10 p/c to $/€100 per spin.

Moving on to the paytable, nine regular symbols appear, divided into four low-value rune symbols and five premiums. These higher paying symbols are made up of five wood carved faces which are actually quite personable when they animate and sing their songs when used in a win. The total number of winning symbols at the end of a cascade sequence determines the value of the win. In the case of premium symbols, 12+ are worth payouts of 10 to 50 times the stake.

Volatile Vikings: Slot Features

Players benefit from a multiplier reveal feature and cascades throughout all phases of the game, helping increase wins while spinning for the chance to unlock a round of free spins – or buy them if possible.

The cascade feature triggers after every win, removing the respective symbols from the grid. The remaining symbols cascade into the gaps, potentially leading to consecutive wins on the same spin. Cascades end when no new win hits.

Each spin starts with 2 multiplier reveal symbols on reels 3 and 4. Each one of these special symbols displays a counter and a multiplier value on it. The counter decreases by one for each winning cascade on the same spin. When the counter reaches zero, the multiplier is activated, then it blows up any adjacent symbols, up to 8, to make room for new symbols to cascade in. At the end of the spin, triggered multiplier values are added and applied to the total win.

The locked chests are scatter symbols, and 3 in view awards 6 free spins. Every additional bonus symbol awards +1 additional spin. During free spins, the multiplier reveal symbols function in the same way as described above, except the win multiplier is persistent for the full feature, applying at the end of each spin. Bonus symbols landing during the round award an additional spin to draw out the action.

If buying the feature is a possibility in your jurisdiction, then players can do so at a cost of 100x the total bet. Once bought, a game round commences with a guaranteed free spins trigger.

Volatile Vikings: Slot Verdict

True to its slightly cheesy name, Volatile Vikings is indeed a volatile beast. It's not just a volatile math model providing excitement, though. Relax has done a top job with just about everything in the game. Volatile Vikings looks great, having a classic Relax Gaming feel to it - the sort of cute, sprite thing that pops in games such as Snake Arena or Hellcatraz. Adding personality is the fire and ice imagery, as well as a superb Game of Thrones-esque soundtrack. It strikes a nice balance, being not too cartoonish, nor too bleak either – the lack of actual Vikings is a puzzle, but no biggie.

The gameplay runs as smooth as you like it, providing stacks of highly entertaining moments as well. The pay anywhere concept isn't exactly new, showing up in games like Pragmatic Play's Sweet Bonanza, but it's far from a commonly used mechanic, lending the game an extra dash of novelty. It might look like a typo seeing 8-12 symbol combinations on the paytable at first. In practice, this combination of numbers works perfectly with the cascade feature as well as the multiplier reveal. Win multipliers in the base game are a boost when they start to trigger and mount up, but it's their persistent nature in free spins where their ability to thrill expands exponentially. Here's where Volatile Vikings turns into one of those games that is hard to stop when it gets on one of its high inertia rolls, and where wins of up to 20,000 times the bet become a possibility.

One of the only annoying things is the way snowballs continually hit the feature buy button when the reels aren't spinning. It's nothing really, just a minor disturbance which vanishes when the reels are spinning anyway. Otherwise, Volatile Viking puts everything at its disposal to good use, making it easy to sink back into its fire & ice world to get lost for a while. As the title suggests, the game is volatile, so it can feel like an unwieldy war hammer at times, but it is a genuinely unique Viking themed slot that was a load of fun to play through.

Don't Miss

If you enjoyed this game, then the sequel Volatile Vikings 2 Dream Drop might also float your boat. It comes bundled with Relax Gaming's Dream Drop jackpot feature, making it slot with massive win potential.