Wanted Wildz

Wanted Wildz: Slot Overview

There are certain situations in life that encourage people to step up their game. For instance, imagine a competitive person at the gym, warming up on the bench press when their nemesis happens to walk in. Are they going to go through the regular motions or whack a few extra plates on the bar and grunt a bit louder than usual? A similar sort of thing is going on in Wanted Wildz, an online slot from Red Tiger partner Max Win Gaming which sees the studio twist the dials up a notch or two. Wanted Wildz is a Wild West-themed slot packed with sticky wilds in free spins and a wild multiplier element, capable of reaching x100 at full blast.

To play on the spookier side of things, Wanted Wildz isn't a Western game full of cowboys, cowgirls, sheriffs, or outlaws. No, the character populating this frontier town looks like they passed onto the spirit realm a long time ago. What's left is a skeleton in a Stetson, camped out above the game's 5-reel game matrix and appearing on the wild symbols. Buildings and sky peek around the edges of the screen, though most of the view is obscured by the reel-set and a Wild Multiplier Ladder displaying an x100 value at its very top.

Being a slot with a sizable max win means Max Win Gaming has tightened the betting range, from a low of 10 p/c to a maximum stake of £/€6 per spin. As you might have guessed, with all that sticky wild multiplier action on tap, Wanted Wildz possesses a highly volatile math model to match, firing off a theoretical return of 96.05%.

Wanted Wildz is played on a 5-reel, 3-row game panel, supplying 20 fixed paylines to land wins of three to five of a kind across. Pay symbols start out with 9 to A card royals, worth 1.3-3 times the stake for a five-of-a-kind hit, rising to 5-25x the bet for five of the boots, hats, bags, and star symbols. Even bigger rewards are possible when landing five wilds, at 50x the bet, while wilds can also be used to substitute any normal pay symbol.

Wanted Wildz: Slot Features

There aren't a huge number of features to be found in Wanted Wildz, but what's here can reach impressive proportions when pushed to their limit. In the base game, the Random Wilds Multiplier can randomly trigger. When it does, wilds used in a win on that spin come with a multiplier of x2, x5, x25, or x100. If more than one wild is used in a win, the values do not accumulate.

Free Spins

Landing at least 3 scatter symbols wins you 5 free spins with a starting x2 multiplier wild value. Whenever wild symbols land during the feature, they turn sticky and remain on the reels until the feature ends. Any scatter that hits during free spins is collected on the Wild Multiplier Ladder. Whenever collected scatters move the bonus round to a new level, +5 extra free spins are awarded. In addition, landing 3 or more scatters also awards +5 spins.

What can really get the party shaking is advancing the Wild Multiplier Ladder.

• Collecting 2 scatters increases the value of Multiplier Wilds to x5.
• 4 more scatters moves the value to x25.
• Getting another 6 scatters maxes the Wild Multiplier Ladder out at x100.

The bonus round ends when free spins run out, or the win cap is struck.

Wanted Wildz: Slot Verdict

If there's one theme that can encourage developers to step up; it seems it's the good 'ole Wild West. To meet the challenge, Red Tiger and Max Win Gaming have combined two highly popular online slot concepts. We're talking about sticky multiplier wilds made infamous in games like Dead or Alive plus the multiplier progression feature seen in the NextGen classic 300 Shields, or its Extreme follow-up. Sure, some may accuse the developer of being a tad unoriginal, but when you see Wanted Wildz rev up and do its thing, it's easy to let criticism fall to the wayside.

It won't be overly easy to get Wanted Wildz to rev up, though. Like the other similarly related slots, this is a highly volatile machine that isn't interested in sauntering into town to make buddies. Heck, the main character is a skeleton who might even be impervious to bullets if it came to a one-on-one shootout. Should things go your way, though, Wanted Wildz theoretically has the goods to deliver chunky wins in both free spins and the base game. Aside from all the Ladder and collection shenanigans, it can do so in a devastatingly straightforward way. Case in point is a five-line wild win with the x100 value on the ladder, which would be worth a cool 5,000x the bet right here. Even the top premium symbol in the same sitch would dole out a win worth 2,500x the bet. At most, Wanted Wildz is capped at 15,000x the bet. A solid total, but it's hard not to wonder how much higher this thing could have gone before the breaks were applied.

All up, Wanted Wildz is an exciting Western-themed slot pairing two proven features - sticky multiplier wilds and progressive multiplier values, in a maelstrom of dust, bullets, and skeletons. This sort of thing can make for a rocky ride, but those fortunate enough to push Wanted Wildz all the way are in for an experience that is sure to elicit a yeehaw or two, maybe even a golly-gee.