Santa vs Rudolf

Santa vs Rudolf Slot Review

A snowy village sits behind rough timber posts at dusk, cottages under white roofs on a pink-lavender hillside, pine trees sagging with frost on either side and a paper-chain garland strung across the rafters. Santa vs Rudolf takes that scene and turns the feud in it into the pay structure: every bonus in the game exists only because these two walk towards each other and collide.

NetEnt built this one around two walking Wilds marching towards each other, and when they collide the whole bonus structure kicks off. It’s a 5×3 grid with 20 fixed bet lines that pay both ways, 96.35% RTP, a 500x win ceiling and stakes from 0.2 to 100.

For more Christmas chaos from the same studio, Jingle Spin and Jingle Bells Bonanza are the obvious cousins, with Dazzle Me Christmas nearby. The question is whether the feud pays as well as it looks.

The Village Reels and Two Walking Wilds

The base game runs on 20 fixed bet lines that pay from left to right and right to left, with only the highest win per line counting and simultaneous line wins added together. The hit frequency is 29%, so roughly 3 spins in 10 produce a win, and the reels tick over regularly even when the amounts are small.

The Wild symbols do the heavy lifting. Both Santa and Rudolf Wilds substitute for every symbol, and they only appear on reels 1 and 5 in the main game, Rudolf entering from the left and Santa from the right. The rest of the paytable is made up of standard paying symbols, with payout values that scale against the selected bet value.

After a Wild lands and its spin’s wins are paid, each one shifts one place sideways and a Re-Spin is awarded. Rudolf marches right, Santa marches left, and the re-spins keep coming until both have walked off the reels.

Bets are set through the coin value, and the game can be played in cash or coins, switchable in the settings. A win in cash is simply the coin win multiplied by the coin value, so the two displays always describe the same result.

Each individual spin of the base game breaks down like this:

• Bet lines pay when symbols run in succession from leftmost to right and rightmost to left
• Only the highest win per bet line is paid
• Simultaneous wins on different bet lines are added together
• All wins pay on bet lines only, except wins during Santa’s Gifts
• Bonus feature wins are added to any initial bet line wins

When the Rivals Collide: Free Spins

If a Santa Wild and a Rudolf Wild end up in the same position, they lock together and merge, and that collision is the trigger for the Free Spins round. A merge in the main game awards 10 free spins, with a maximum of 30 active at once.

During the round, both Wild types can appear anywhere on the reels rather than being pinned to the outer reels. Each merge inside Free Spins adds 4 more spins, and the Wilds that made the merge then disappear.

Any Wilds left on the reels when the round ends stick around and keep triggering re-spins until they walk off. It’s a tidy chain: one collision feeds the next.

The Meters: Santa’s Gifts vs Rudolf Spins

Two meters sit above the reels during Free Spins, one for each rival. Every time a Santa or Rudolf Wild walks off the reels it fills one space on its meter, and each meter holds 8 spaces.

Fill a meter before the free spins run out and its bonus feature starts when the session ends. One restriction keeps it honest: once either meter is full, the other can’t fill, so you’re always racing towards one feature, never both.

The meters track only Wilds, and only Wilds that leave the reels. A Wild that lingers through merge after merge does nothing for the meters until it finally exits.

Rudolf Spins

Fill the Rudolf meter and you get 3 spins with 5 Reindeer Wilds scattered across the reels in fresh random positions on every spin. The base reel set is cleared of Wilds before each drop, so every spin is a new arrangement.

Bet lines pay both ways here as everywhere else, and with 5 roaming Wilds across a 5×3 grid, the combinations stack up quickly. The feature runs on the same bet value as the round that filled the meter. Its numbers, in coin terms:

• 3 spins in total
• 5 Reindeer Wilds placed at random on each spin
• Maximum win per spin: 90,000 coins
• Maximum across all 3 spins: 270,000 coins

Santa’s Gifts

The Santa side of the feud is a picking game played over 3 stages. In each stage you click 1 of 5 items, and those 5 items are always the same mix:

• 3 coin wins of various amounts
• 1 multiplier increase
• 1 end of stage item

Coin wins build a running total, and the multiplier starts at 1x, climbing by 1 each time you pick it up to a maximum of 4x. At the end, everything you collected is multiplied by the final figure.

Picking a coin win or the multiplier leaves the remaining items in the set available for another pick, so a lucky stage can be worked through almost completely. End-of-stage items move you to the next set, and hitting one in stage 3 closes the feature out.

There’s one mercy built in: your first pick in stage 1 can’t be an end-of-stage item, so you’re guaranteed at least one prize before the gamble begins. The maximum win in Santa’s Gifts is 37,600 coins.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

This is a slow-burn game wearing a Christmas jumper. Almost every spin is small, and you play for one reason: the moment the two rivals finally meet in the middle and the free spins fire. Santa and Rudolf really do spend the whole game walking towards each other, and that waiting is what a session here feels like.

The best thing about it is that nothing is wasted: every Wild that walks off a reel during the free spins fills a meter, so even the bonuses you don’t trigger are quietly earning you a shot at one of them. The payout doesn’t reward the patience, though. A 500x ceiling is small for a game built on this much build-up, and Santa’s Gifts can end on a handful of coins if the multiplier never shows up.

It’s a cosy pick for players who like a long build and don’t measure a slot by its top prize. Anyone hunting four and five-figure multipliers will find this particular snow globe too gentle. Everyone else can settle in by the fire and enjoy the argument.

Santa vs Rudolf FAQs

• How do you trigger Free Spins in Santa vs Rudolf?

  Free Spins are triggered when a Santa Wild and a Rudolf Wild merge together on the reels in the main game, awarding 10 free spins. Up to 30 free spins can be active at once.
• What do the meters above the reels do?

  During Free Spins, two meters appear, one for Santa and one for Rudolf. Each time a Wild walks off the reels it fills one of 8 spaces on its meter, and filling a meter before Free Spins end awards the corresponding bonus feature: Santa’s Gifts or Rudolf Spins. Once one meter is full, the other can’t fill.
• Can Free Spins retrigger in Santa vs Rudolf?

  Yes. If Santa and Rudolf Wilds merge during Free Spins, an additional 4 free spins are added, and the Wilds that made the merge disappear from the reels.
• What is the maximum multiplier in Santa’s Gifts?

  The multiplier in Santa’s Gifts starts at 1x and increases by 1 each time you pick the multiplier item, up to a maximum of 4x. All collected coin wins are multiplied by the final multiplier at the end.
• What happens to leftover Wilds after Free Spins end?

  Any Wilds not part of the interaction that activated the Free Spins remain on the reels and keep triggering re-spins until they walk off. The Wilds that activated the Free Spins disappear on the next spin.
• What is the RTP of Santa vs Rudolf?

  The RTP is 96.35%.
• What is the maximum win on Santa vs Rudolf?

  The maximum win is 500x your bet.
• Who makes Santa vs Rudolf?

  Santa vs Rudolf is made by NetEnt. The game’s release date is 28 November 2019.