Shark Squad

Shark Squad Slot Review

Most 20-line slots punish you for scattering your best symbols across the reels; Shark Squad pays you for it. That’s the argument of the game, really: the Dagger, Shark Emblem and Captain award their full values in any position, which turns what would be near misses on a classic line slot into results. It’s a small rule with a large effect on how every spin reads.

The setting is a sunken wreck on the seabed: shafts of light through teal water, kelp drifting up a reel cabinet built like a ship’s hull, brass lamps still glowing in their cages. Underneath the artwork, High 5 Games keep it old-school: a 5×3 grid, 20 fixed paylines, high volatility and a 96.2% RTP. It’s a leaner build than sisters like Dangerous Beauty Jackpot or Shadow Of The Panther Infinity, closer in spirit to Nordic Kings than to the studio’s flashier output.

Reels, Lines and Symbols

All 20 lines are always in play, and wins follow the classic format: symbols must land on adjacent reels from the left, and only the highest combination counts per line.

Each line win is multiplied by the bet per line. It’s a layout anyone who’s played a hundred line-based slots will navigate without thinking.

Wins during the base game are shown in credits, and every value in the paytable is quoted before any bet modifier, so what you see when you check the numbers is what the game actually pays per line bet. Scatter wins, where they apply, are awarded on top of line wins rather than instead of them.

There’s no wild symbol in Shark Squad. Nothing substitutes for anything; what you see on the paytable is what pays. The one symbol doing unusual work is the BONUS tile, which appears only on reels one, two and three and carries the game’s entire feature load.

One small quality-of-life touch: holding down the spin button activates Speed Spin, where games play faster until you release it, and stopping the spin animation early has no effect on the outcome of any spin. It’s a minor thing, but it’s the kind of detail that makes long sessions on a high-volatility grid easier to sit through.

Paytable

Values are per line bet:

• Shark – 200 for three, 1,000 for four, 10,000 for five
• Dagger – 80 for three, 200 for four, 6,000 for five
• Shark Emblem – 60 for three, 160 for four, 5,000 for five
• Captain – 40 for three, 100 for four, 4,000 for five
• A – 10 for three, 50 for four, 1,000 for five
• K – 10 for three, 40 for four, 800 for five
• Q – 10 for three, 30 for four, 600 for five
• 5 – 10 for three, 20 for four, 400 for five

The ladder is steep. Five Sharks at the top of the table is a serious hit, while five of the lowest royal still returns a respectable sum.

What the raw numbers don’t show is the gap between the four premiums and everything below them: the royals cluster tightly together, and the Shark, Dagger, Shark Emblem and Captain sit in a different weight class entirely.

The Scatter-Paying Trio

Here’s the twist: the Dagger, Shark Emblem and Captain pay a second way. A winning combination of any of them appearing in any position on the reels awards the credit values in that list, entirely outside the line-pay system. They don’t need adjacent reels, the leftmost reel, or a played line. They just need to show up.

Those three symbols do double duty – premium line-pay symbols and scatter-style payers at once. It also changes how you read the reels. On most 20-line games, a cluster of premiums scattered across the middle rows is a near miss; here it’s a paying result, because position is the one thing these three don’t care about.

On a game with a drop this steep from the Shark down to the royals, that second route is where a lot of the mid-tier value hides.

Free Games Bonus

Three BONUS symbols appearing on a played line awards the Free Games Bonus: six free games to start with. The BONUS symbol only lands on the first three reels, so the trigger is compact by design – it can’t stretch across the full grid, which keeps line-pay triggers rare enough to mean something.

There’s a second way in, and it’s the more interesting one. At the end of any base game spin where three BONUS didn’t appear on a played line, the Free Games Bonus may be randomly awarded instead. Nothing visible builds towards it; a spin that looked like a dud can simply turn into six free games.

On a high-volatility game, that possibility does a lot of quiet work keeping the base game alive, because no spin is ever fully dead until it’s finished resolving.

Inside the Round

The free games run on different reels from the base game, and they play automatically on maximum lines at the same bet per line as the spin that triggered them. Your stake structure carries over exactly; you just get more of it in play. There’s nothing to click, pick or collect during the round – it resolves on its own from the moment it triggers.

Retriggers are generous. Three or more BONUS appearing anywhere during the round adds extra games:

• 3 BONUS – 2 to 4 additional free games
• 4 BONUS – 4 to 10 additional free games

Note the wording: anywhere, not on a played line. The retrigger condition inside the round is looser than the entry condition outside it. That’s why a round that starts with six games can keep growing well past its starting point.

Four BONUS in view during free games is worth as many new spins as the original trigger itself.

That’s the whole feature. No multipliers, no picker, no second screen – just free spins on alternate reels with a retrigger table that can keep extending the round.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

Playing Shark Squad is a lot of watching the reels for scattered premiums and waiting on a bonus that might arrive the conventional way or might simply be handed to you at the end of a dead spin. That second possibility is the reason to pick it: on a high-volatility 20-liner, no spin ever feels truly finished until it’s finished, and the wreck-of-the-hull artwork gives you something worth looking at while you wait.

Its strength is that scatter-paying trio. Position-independent payouts on the three mid-tier premiums give the base game a second win condition most classic line slots simply don’t have, and it changes how every spin reads. Its weakness is the round itself: six free games with no multiplier and nothing else in the tank is thin, and apart from retriggers, the bonus never builds into anything more than it started as.

It suits players who like a classical build – fixed lines, left-to-right pays, one clean bonus – dressed in artwork that clearly had effort spent on it. Anyone after layered features or a stated win ceiling is swimming past this wreck. For the rest, the water’s warm enough.

Shark Squad FAQs

• What is the RTP of Shark Squad?

  96.2%. That’s the total theoretical return, and it’s a solid figure for a high-volatility line-based game.
• Is Shark Squad high volatility?

  Yes. Shark Squad is a high-volatility game, so wins are likely to arrive less often but with more size variation when they do.
• How do you trigger the Free Games Bonus?

  Three BONUS symbols appearing on a played line awards six free games. The BONUS symbol only appears on reels one, two and three.
• Can the Free Games Bonus trigger randomly?

  Yes. Even when three BONUS symbols don’t land on a played line, the round can still be awarded at random once the spin finishes – including on spins that paid nothing.
• Does the free games round retrigger?

  Yes. Three or more BONUS symbols appearing anywhere during the free games awards extra spins: three BONUS adds 2 to 4 games, and four BONUS adds 4 to 10.
• Which symbols pay in any position?

  The Dagger, Shark Emblem and Captain award their paytable values when a winning combination appears in any position on the reels, in addition to their line-pay behaviour. They’re the only symbols with this scatter-style payout.
• How many paylines does Shark Squad have?

  20 paylines on a 5×3 grid. All lines are always in play, and line wins must appear on adjacent reels from the left.
• Who makes Shark Squad?

  Shark Squad was created by High 5 Games. Shark Squad’s release date is 16 February 2022.