Warrior Ways

Warrior Ways: Slot Overview

Ever seen those movies or tv shows where the hero sticks to traditional means of warfare like bows and arrows but still manages to win out over baddies packing machine guns? If that sort of entertainment gets you going, then Warrior Ways from Hacksaw Gaming might just do so as well. This is a game set in an 'alternate Japan-inspired futuristic city' where four clans battle it for supremacy over the streets. The four clans literally defeat each other in a Duel feature, winning multipliers as well as glory, while continuing the squabble into two bonus games called Clash and Conquest.

Warrior Ways is a return trip to Asia for Hacksaw Gaming, having visited before in Toshi Video Club. This one is a lot different, though. Gone are the adorable sushi references, replaced with ninja-style warriors in a street scene lit by the pink and purple light of dawn or dusk. Alternatively, the 5x4, 1024 ways wins game grid might simply be bathed in the light pollution generated by a major metropolitan city. It's a cool scene, with a Warlords - Crystals of Power meets Bladerunner look and feel. An exotic soundtrack finishes things off by reinforcing the futuristic urban Asian culture approach Hacksaw has taken.

Players can get to clashing on any device, where stake options range from at 10 p/c to $/€100. Overall, Hacksaw has rated the volatility 4 out of 5; however, when buying bonuses, the two options have been rated 'high' and 'medium', so players have some influence. RTP is variable, maxing at 96.33%, before dropping to 94.42%, 92.30%, or 88.39%, depending on the configuration and market. The theoretical return does change too when buying a bonus game.

The current population of Tokyo, including all three prefectures, is around 35 million people, so there's no telling how many people populate the futuristic city in Warrior Ways. We know four of the inhabitants, though, as they appear on some of the symbols. The groups in Warrior Ways are the plainly named Red Clan, Blue Clan, Green Clan, and Orange Clan - each Clan has a high paying and low paying symbol. The four low pays are worth 0.5x the bet for five of a kind, doubling to 1x the bet for five high pays. There's a wild symbol, too, landing anywhere to replace all regular pays. The wild is also worth a hefty (compared to the others) 50x the bet for a five symbol winning way.

Warrior Ways: Slot Features

Four competing Clans are bound to clash eventually, and in Warrior Ways, they actually fight quite often via a Duel feature. Duels are central to Warrior Ways as they can be found in the base game and the two bonus rounds.

Duels

A Duel is activated when a VS symbol lands right between two premium warrior symbols from different Clans. VS symbols appear on reels 2, 3, or 4. When triggered, the two warriors are each given a random multiplier of x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, x15, x20, x25, x50, or x100. When the Duel ends, the winning Clan's premium symbol replaces all instances of the losing Clan's symbol. This could be the lows, the highs, or the low and high losing clan symbols. Also, the VS symbol transforms into the winning Clan's high symbol. If the winning Clan's symbols result in a win, its multiplier is applied to it.

Clash

This is triggered when 3 Clash symbols land anywhere on the grid. The first part of Clash is the Collect phase. During this phase, 3 spins are awarded, which are reset whenever a VS symbol or Clan Multiplier symbol lands. Reel 1, 2, 4, and 5 corresponds to a Clan and starts with an x1 multiplier above it. When a Clan multiplier symbol with a value of x2 to x100 hits, it is added to the reel multiplier. There is a chance an Epic Clan Multiplier lands on reel 3, which multiples all other reel values by x2 when it hits. When spins run out in the Collect phase, the bonus switches to the Clash phase. The number of VS symbols collected equals the number of spins awarded for the Clash, and a Duel is guaranteed on each spin. Battling Clan members take the multipliers achieved during the Collect phase.

Conquest

Lanbding 3 Conquest symbols in the base game awards 10 free spins. Whenever a Conquest symbol lands during the feature, an extra free spin is awarded. Four Clan banners sit beside the reels for Conquest, and whenever a Clan loses a Duel, the banner takes damage. When a Banner has been destroyed by damaging it twice, the respective high and low symbols of that Clan are removed from the reels for the rest of the feature. Moreover, +1 extra free spin is also awarded when this happens.

Buy Bonus

Hitting the Buy Bonus button, if it is there, let's players buy either bonus round. Clash costs 100x the bet, is highly volatile and has a maximum RTP of 96.44%. Conquest has a price tag of 400x the bet, is medium volatile and has a max RTP of 96.51%.

Warrior Ways: Slot Verdict

Hacksaw Gaming slots tend to be simpler than Warrior Ways, though still outrageously fiendish in their design. Often, there'll be a clever feature in the base game which gets amplified during a bonus round. Warrior Ways has a bit more depth than that, putting it on a par with games like Wanted Dead or a Wild or The Bowery Boys. The Duel feature is the central concept running through it all, tying everything together into one big Clan showdown.

Warrior Ways' pace can be quite placid much of the time, despite the fairly frequent Clan Duels taking place. They're fun enough, though the base game lacks a collection/progression element of a battle slot like Yggdrasil's Vikings Go range or the variety of modifiers available in Warlords – Crystals of Power. What made this noticeable was the amount of time it took to trigger the two bonus rounds.

So which bonus round to pick? Both were solid performers, starting with Clash and its Collect phase, which played out a bit like Chaos Crew, where the goal is to stack as many multipliers and VS spins as possible. Unlike Chaos Crew, you then have to put the acquired multipliers to work in the Clash phase, adding an extra layer of complexity. Conquest is the significantly more expensive buy option and generally resulted in 1 or 2 sets of Clan symbols being removed from the reels. Since Hacksaw armed the game with ways instead of paylines, symbol removals can be rather potent. Dominate these means streets, and players can walk away with wins of up to 10,000x their bet.

Warrior Ways is an imaginative game, with a gang warfare in the streets story, a level of atmosphere, and a set of features that have been neatly intertwined with each other. This being a Hacksaw production, Warrior Ways can be exasperating at times, but it's also got all the parts necessary to hack and slash with the best of them on its day.