Age Of Olympus Apollo Slot Review
A marble frame hangs in the sky, clouds drifting past its edges, and behind it the blue deepens towards something brighter. Red Rake Gaming have built their Olympus on canvas rather than in chrome, and the painterly calm covers an odd design: the game’s most inventive mechanics answer losing spins, not winning ones.
Age Of Olympus Apollo runs on a 5×3 grid at 95.4% RTP, and its winning spins are mostly modest royal fare. The interesting work happens in the aftermath: stone locks, arrows fly and the board gets rebuilt, with the biggest prizes sitting behind a bonus trigger on Million Zeus 2 money rather than on any single drop. The studio has form in this classical corner, with Secrets Of The Temple 2 and Triple Fiesta elsewhere in the catalogue.
Symbols, Wilds and the Paytable
Wins pay left to right, and only the highest combination on a line counts. It’s a traditional setup, and the paytable follows suit, with wins expressed as multiples of the total bet rather than a line stake. The premium end is led by the Gold Lion Head, with the sword and bow sharing a tier and a harp behind them.
- Gold Lion Head – 0.1x for two, 2x for three, 5x for four, 25x for five
- Sword / Bow and Arrow – 1x, 4x and 15x for three, four and five
- Harp – 0.5x, 3x and 10x for three, four and five
- Purple Triangle (A) – 0.4x, 2x and 5x for three, four and five
- K – 1x for four, 5x for five
- Q / J – 0.2x, 0.5x and 2.5x for three, four and five
Read the list from the bottom up and the shape of the base game becomes clear: royal hits of a few times the stake are the bread and butter, and the premium symbols only start to matter when several land together or a wild helps them along. The Gold Lion Head is the only symbol that pays for a pair, which tells you where the small-win engine sits.
Apollo himself is the wild, substituting for everything except the bonus symbol, which lands only on reels two through five. The wild has no paytable row of its own; its work is done inside the random events, where it expands and gets fired onto the reels by arrow.
The Random Events: Sun Boost, Expanding Wilds and Arrow Wilds
Three events can fire at random on any spin, and they’re what keep the base game moving:
- Sun Boost – adds a random number of extra bonus symbols to the reels
- Apollo Expanding Wilds – every wild that lands during the spin expands to cover its entire reel
- Arrow Wilds – Apollo’s arrows strike reels two, three and four, converting the symbols they hit into wilds
Each event changes the board before wins are evaluated, which keeps a session moving even when the paytable’s top end stays out of reach. The Sun Boost is the one bonus hunters most want to see: three bonus symbols on different reels launch the feature round, so a well-timed boost can be the difference between a dead spin and the game’s main event.
The Expanding Wilds event is straightforward and effective. A full reel of Apollo substitutes for everything except the bonus symbol, so a couple of expanded reels in the same spin can turn the mid-tier symbols into a serious hit.
The Arrow Wilds event is a mid-reels mechanic, which means it can’t build a five-of-a-kind on its own. A converted run across those three reels pairs nicely with the left-to-right pay structure all the same, and because the conversion happens before evaluation, a spin that looked dead on the drop can pay anyway.
Petrified Symbols and Cascading Symbols
After a winless spin, one of two consolation events may launch. These are the mechanics that stop the base game from going quiet, and they’re where Age Of Olympus Apollo shows a bit of invention.
Petrified Symbols
Symbols of the same type can be turned to stone mid-spin, locking in place. Respins then fire until no more symbols of that type appear, and every new matching symbol that lands during the respins is petrified too. It’s a collection mechanic in mythic dress, and it can snowball: the longer the matching symbols keep arriving, the fuller the board gets.
Cascading Symbols
The other option is destruction. Apollo’s bow appears at the end of the spin and fires arrows that shatter symbols, with the survivors falling into the gaps and new ones dropping in from above. Standard cascade logic, and the more interesting of the two events, because a chain of falls can build wins the original board never suggested.
Neither event is guaranteed after a losing spin, and the odds on either aren’t published. What’s established is the structure: lose a spin, and the game may answer with stone or arrows before the next one lands.
Free Spins and Minigames
The feature round is launched by three or more bonus symbols in any position, provided they sit on different reels. The sun-icon bonus appears on reels two through five only, so the leftmost reel is out of play for triggering purposes.
From there, a selection screen presents a choice of named modes. The visible options are:
- Apollo Wilds
- Ancient Vessels
- Conquest (the full name runs off the edge of the selection screen)
- Apollo’s Treasure
- Arrow Wilds
Each mode pairs the base game’s mechanics with the bonus structure in its own configuration, which gives the round genuine variety rather than one fixed set of free spins. The individual awards aren’t spelled out on the selection screen, so part of the appeal is discovery.
What’s not in dispute is the round’s shape: pick a mode, play it out, and the random events continue doing their work inside it. The named modes are where the expanding wilds, arrow conversions and petrification mechanics all get their biggest stages.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.2/10
Playing Age Of Olympus Apollo feels like being kept busy on the way up the mountain. The reels answer their own losing spins with stone and arrows, the random events interrupt constantly, and you pick a named mode at the top rather than sitting through one fixed round. That selection screen is the best thing here: five modes built from the same mechanic set is real variety, and it’s the one reason to choose this over a plainer Olympus.
The paytable is the problem. Twenty-five times the bet for the premium five-of-a-kind is a low ceiling, so everything memorable depends on the bonus trigger landing, and most of the activity in between is consolation rather than payment.
It suits players who enjoy a grid that never sits still and don’t need a big number waiting at the summit. Chasers of serious top-end wins will want a steeper climb than Apollo’s.
Age Of Olympus Apollo FAQs
-
What is the RTP of Age Of Olympus Apollo?
Age Of Olympus Apollo runs at 95.4% RTP, which is slightly below the range most modern online slots occupy. -
What is the grid size of Age Of Olympus Apollo?
The game plays on a 5×3 grid with wins evaluated left to right across the reels. -
Who makes Age Of Olympus Apollo?
Age Of Olympus Apollo is made by Red Rake Gaming. -
When is Age Of Olympus Apollo released?
Age Of Olympus Apollo’s release date is 23 February 2023. -
How do you trigger the free spins in Age Of Olympus Apollo?
Three or more bonus symbols will launch the free spins feature or minigames. The bonus symbol is a sun icon and appears only on reels two through five, and the triggering symbols must sit on different reels. -
What does the Petrified Symbols event do?
After a winless spin, symbols of the same type may be turned to stone and locked in place. Respins run for as long as the same symbol type keeps landing, and each new arrival locks in place too, filling the board as it goes. -
What does the Sun Boost event do?
Sun Boost is a random event that adds a random number of extra bonus symbols to the reels. Because the feature round needs three bonus symbols on different reels, a Sun Boost can complete a trigger that the base drop started. -
What happens after a winless spin in Age Of Olympus Apollo?
Two events can launch after a spin pays nothing. Petrified Symbols locks one symbol type in place and respins until that type stops landing, while Cascading Symbols has Apollo’s bow destroy symbols so others fall into the gaps. Neither is guaranteed to fire.
