Wild Expedition

Wild Expedition: Slot Overview

Following in the footsteps of fantasy couple crossovers like Belle and Chewbacca or Daenerys and Kratos, online slot Wild Expedition from Red Tiger mashes two personalities you might not have envisaged hooking up. Red Tiger has pulled together two characters that look a lot like Lara Croft and Indiana Jones - Indy 'after a hard day of archealogying', we might add. In another plot twist, Red Tiger has brought these two explorers together in what is basically a copy of a previous game, a Tarzan themed slot titled Lord of the Wilds.

We meet them in jungle so lush you start to subconsciously swipe at mosquitos while playing in a game where the action takes place on a 5x4 sized game grid, providing 30 fixed paylines to land winning combinations across. Red Tiger can paint a nice picture, which they have done so for Wild Expedition, crafting a dark, dank, foreboding environment full of bush and Aztec style statues. The reels are much brighter, though, and the soundtrack injects a shot of adventure.

Wild Expedition is playable on any device where bets from 10 p/c to $/€40 per spin may be set. As it's more or less a clone of Lord of the Wilds, the same features have been used, and the two games stats are super close but slightly different; we are talking very slight. RTP is up a titch, generating a return value of 95.67%, while volatility hovers around high.

Winning combinations are formed when three or more matching symbols land adjacently from the left-hand side of the game panel. There are 9 pay symbols to line up, 4 low-value card suits, then medium backpacks, magnifying glasses, and sun symbols, topped by 2 premium character symbols. Red Tiger has even named them, possibly in an attempt to put distance between their celebrity lookalikes. The lady is called Cara, the man Nick; each is worth 5-6 times the stake for five of a kind respectively. Nick also appears on the wild symbol, partly because he may be transformed into this state from a regular pay symbol. A line of five wild Nicks is worth 10x the bet, and he also substitutes for all paying symbols.

Wild Expedition: Slot Features

Wild Expedition uses a lot of back and forth between the Nick and Cara symbols to enact various modifiers. On top of these is a triggered round of free spins, pulling everything together. First is Jungle Treasure, where Nick randomly shows up to add Nick symbols to the reels for a guaranteed win. Alternatively, when Nick shows up, he may add scatter symbols to the grid instead, potentially triggering the bonus round.

Cara isn't left out of the action. She also appears at random to blow a Wild Kiss, turning all Nick symbols wild and locking them in place for the following spin. Any previously locked wilds also remain locked. When a Cara symbol lands next to a Nick symbol, Nick turns into a wild and locks for the next spin. If Cara lands next to previously locked wilds, she locks them for one more spin.

The final feature is 10 free spins, awarded when 3 scatter symbols land in view. If more than 3 land at once, the extra symbols add +5 additional spins each. During free spins, wilds remain locked for the duration of the feature.

Wild Expedition: Slot Verdict

Not so sure about this one; the two lead characters just don't have the history Tarzan and Jane had, so it's harder to root for them. It helps that they both look familiar, but who the heck are Nick and Cara? If Red Tiger went to the bother of naming them, they could have fleshed out the story to build a stronger empathetic connection with them. As it is, you basically want 'Nick' to show up in his wild form, helped by 'Cara' who turns him sticky to string together wins. It sounds almost indecent when you put it like that.

Moving on, Wilds Expedition certainly lives up to its name, and there are masses of wilds, landing, sticking, or transforming. It's fun for a bit, in a way, though also surprisingly ineffectual. A case in point was at the end of a round of free spins when all but two positions were filled with sticky Nick wilds. Two of the same symbols landed in the empty spaces, yet the result was wildly disappointing. The most you can hope for here is a grid of wild Nicks for 300x the bet, which isn't a pipe dream since he locks for the duration of free spins. However, don't expect a fortune since Wild Expedition's max win is 2,101x the bet, which might be better than spending a night with a thuggee cult at Pankot Palace, yet only just.

In the end, Wild Expedition is another nice looking Red Tiger game, with a bit of atmosphere that falls short when it comes to potential – hampered by a low number of paylines and mediocre symbol values. Its exterior is sparkly enough to entice players who only care about looks, especially if they're into celebrities. Others who want something entertaining beneath the surface as well will labour to extract anything other than lightweight gaming from Wild Expedition.