Book of Vikings Slot Review
A longship sits on still black water beneath a violet cliff, the reels hanging in a pewter frame engraved with Norse knotwork. Book of Vikings is the standard book-slot build wearing a fjord instead of a pyramid, and its low volatility makes it a rarer thing than the theme does. Most slots in this format chase big swings; this one is built to pay out steadily and let the feature do the spectacular work.
Pragmatic Play runs a 5×3 grid, 10 paylines, 96.5% RTP and a 6,600x ceiling here, and the studio’s book-style catalogue already covers Book of Fallen, Return of the Dead and John Hunter and the Book of Tut Respin. If you know any of those, you know exactly how this plays. The Vikings are the difference, and the 6,600x top prize is comfortably the most interesting number on the sheet.
How Book of Vikings Pays
Wins pay left to right on adjacent reels from the leftmost, across 10 fixed paylines. Only the highest win counts per line, and wins on multiple lines add together. Everything is multiplied by the bet per line. Stakes run from 0.10 to 250 per spin, which is a wider ladder than most low-volatility games offer.
The Book symbol does double duty as both wild and scatter: it substitutes for every other symbol, and landing three or more anywhere triggers the free spins. Five Books on a line pay 200x the total bet. It’s the classic book setup, unchanged.
The paytable, as multiples of the total bet:
- Viking Man – 2: 1x, 3: 10x, 4: 100x, 5: 500x
- Viking Woman – 2: 0.5x, 3: 4x, 4: 40x, 5: 200x
- Helmet – 2: 0.5x, 3: 3x, 4: 10x, 5: 75x
- Horn – 2: 0.5x, 3: 3x, 4: 10x, 5: 75x
- A / K – 3: 0.5x, 4: 4x, 5: 15x
- Q / J / 10 – 3: 0.5x, 4: 2.5x, 5: 10x
- Book (wild/scatter) – 3: 2x, 4: 20x, 5: 200x
Two symbols pay from just two of a kind, which softens the base game’s edges a little. The top award of 500x for five Viking Men is respectable rather than remarkable, and it sets the tone: steady, modest, no drama in the paytable itself. The royals cluster at the bottom, with the Q, J and 10 paying just 10x for a full line.
Low volatility promises smaller, more frequent payouts, and the numbers here back that promise up. It also shapes what the game expects of a bankroll: a long session of small returns, punctuated by whatever the feature produces. Between spins, there’s a full set of controls – normal, quick and turbo spin speeds, autoplay with a chosen number of automatic spins, and a skip option that jumps past the feature introduction and end screens.
Free Spins
Three or more Book symbols anywhere on the reels award 10 free spins. Before the round begins, one symbol is chosen at random to be the special expanding symbol for the whole feature. The choice matters more than anything else in the round: a low card as the expander makes for a quiet ten spins, while the Viking Man filling reels is where the money lives.
The round, step by step:
- Land three or more Books anywhere on the reels in the base game.
- A special expanding symbol is selected at random before the first spin.
- Regular symbol payouts are made as normal.
- After those payouts, every instance of the special symbol expands to cover all three positions on its reel.
- The expanded symbol pays on all reels, even where the positions aren’t adjacent.
- Three or more Books during the round award 10 more spins with the same special symbol, with no limit on retriggers.
The Expanding Symbol
The expansion only happens when enough symbols for a win are present, so a lone expander on a reel does nothing. When it does trigger, an expanded symbol doesn’t need to sit on neighbouring reels to connect. That’s where the format’s biggest rounds come from: five reels’ worth of a single symbol, paid as one combination.
Free spins wins are added to payline wins, and the round plays out on the same 5×3 grid as the base game. Nothing else changes: no multiplier grows, no extra mechanic switches on. The expander is the entire feature, and on its own it carries the round.
Retriggers
Landing three or more Books during the round awards 10 more free spins, keeping the currently selected special symbol. There’s no limit on how many times this can happen, so a lucky round can run long and stack expanded symbols across the grid.
Every retrigger carries the same expander forward, which is what turns a modest round into a memorable one. A retrigger on a strong symbol compounds; on a weak one it simply extends. The difference between those two outcomes is the difference between the game’s best and most forgettable sessions.
Bonus Buy
The feature can be bought straight from the base game for 100x the current total bet, with the same 10 starting spins and the same random expanding symbol selection as a natural trigger. At the minimum stake that’s 10 for the round; at 250 per spin it’s 25,000.
The buy button sits alongside the reels rather than buried in a menu, and the round it delivers is identical to a natural one: the same 10 spins, the same random expander, the same unlimited retrigger path. The price sits at the standard rate for the format. What the buy delivers is variance in a game that otherwise keeps things level, which is a reasonable use of it in a low-volatility build where natural triggers can take their time.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.4/10
Playing this is mostly a matter of patience under a very pretty purple sky: you spin, small wins trickle in, and you wait for the Books to line up. The one reason to choose it over any other book slot is that it pays steadily while you wait, which is rarer in this format than the theme is.
Its best quality is the free spins round. The expanding symbol pays wherever it lands, retriggers are unlimited, and a 6,600x ceiling on a game this gentle is genuinely generous. Its worst is everything either side of that round. There is no modifier, no multiplier, nothing in the base game but the Book wild, so long stretches pass with nothing to do but watch the fjord.
It suits players who like book slots but not the brutal dry spells that usually come with them. If it’s base game action or big swings you’re after, both live elsewhere in the studio’s catalogue. For everyone in between, this is a calm, well-made cruise through familiar waters, and the view is lovely.
Book of Vikings FAQs
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How do you trigger free spins in Book of Vikings?
Land three or more Book symbols anywhere on the reels. It doesn’t matter which paylines they sit on, because the Book is a scatter as well as a wild, so three anywhere award 10 free spins. -
What does the expanding symbol do in Book of Vikings?
Before the free spins round starts, one symbol is chosen at random. After regular payouts, every instance of that symbol expands to cover all three positions on its reel, and it pays on all reels even where the positions aren’t adjacent. The expansion only happens when enough symbols for a win are present. -
Can free spins be retriggered in Book of Vikings?
Yes. Landing three or more Book symbols during the free spins round awards 10 more spins with the same expanding symbol, and there’s no limit to the number of retriggers. -
What is the RTP of Book of Vikings?
The RTP is 96.5%. -
Is Book of Vikings high volatility?
No. Book of Vikings is a low volatility slot, so it pays out more often in smaller amounts while still offering the chance of a bigger win. -
How many paylines does Book of Vikings have?
Book of Vikings has 10 fixed paylines, with all wins paying left to right on adjacent reels from the leftmost reel. -
Can you buy the bonus on Book of Vikings?
Yes. The feature costs 100x your total bet and starts with 10 free spins, plus a randomly chosen expanding symbol, exactly as a natural trigger would. -
What is the maximum win on Book of Vikings?
The maximum win is 6,600x your bet.
