The Sword and The Grail Slot Review
A castle hall lit by twin braziers, the reels set into a glowing Celtic knotwork mosaic in the flagstones: Camelot, done properly. Strip away the pageantry, though, and The Sword and The Grail is really a game about one number. Everything it pays, up to the 10,000x ceiling, is pegged to a ladder of eighteen swords, and most of what happens on the reels is either progress towards that count or time spent waiting for it.
Play’n GO built it on a 5×3 grid with 20 fixed paylines, running at 96.53% RTP and high volatility, with bets from 0.10 to 100 per spin and a 10,000x ceiling. The studio’s Arthurian instincts also produced Clash of Camelot and Rise Of Merlin, but this is where legend and maths line up most neatly. Whether the four-stage bonus justifies the wait is the whole question of the game.
How the Base Game Pays
Wins pay left to right across the 20 fixed lines, and only the highest combination on each line counts. Symbol values are multiples of the total bet, and they’re a steep ladder: the premium characters pay ten times what the low royals do at the top of the table.
- King – 2.5x, 5x, 25x for three, four, five
- Red-haired Woman – 1.2x, 2.5x, 12.5x
- Knight and Wizard – 1x, 1.5x, 7.5x each
- A – 0.4x, 0.8x, 4x
- K and Q – 0.3x, 0.6x, 3x each
- J and T – 0.2x, 0.4x, 2x each
- Grail Wild – 2.5x, 5x, 50x, making it the richest symbol on the reels
When several lines win in the same round, all of them are added together, and feature winnings are added on top of payline wins at the end of the round. Symbol wins pay for any winning combination without gaps, starting from the leftmost reel. It’s a conventional payline structure, played straight.
The Grail substitutes for everything except the Sword, and it can land as a Multiplier Wild on any spin, multiplying any win it’s part of by the value printed on it. A plain Grail already pays more than the King; a multiplied one pays far more again.
- X2 Grail – 5x, 10x, 100x for three, four, five
- X5 Grail – 12.5x, 25x, 250x
- X10 Grail – 25x, 50x, 500x
- X100 Grail – 250x, 500x, 5,000x
Those top-tier values mostly matter during free spins, when every Grail lands with a multiplier attached. In the base game they’re rarer, and there are no other modifiers to fill the gaps. It’s spins, an occasional boosted Grail win, and the wait for swords.
Session controls are the standard Play’n GO set. Auto Play runs consecutive rounds at your current settings and switches itself off if the balance runs too low, Fast Play speeds the reels up, and holding the spin button for a second and a half activates Hyper Spin, which speeds spins up immensely and slows back down whenever a feature hits.
The Sword is the trigger symbol, and it can land on any reel. Three of them on a single spin is all it takes, though the count you trigger with matters more than you’d expect.
The Progressive Free Spins
Three or more Swords trigger the feature, and the swords that triggered it already count towards your collection. Trigger with four or five and you start at four or five collected respectively, which shaves a meaningful chunk off the road ahead.
The round then runs as four stages, each awarding five free spins, and each stage’s Grails carry a fixed multiplier that climbs as you advance.
- Stage 1 – 5 free spins, every Grail is an X2 Multiplier Wild
- Stage 2 – collect 6 Swords, 5 more spins, Grails at X5
- Stage 3 – collect 11 Swords, 5 more spins, Grails at X10
- Stage 4 – collect 18 Swords, 5 more spins, Grails at X100
Each stage begins when the previous one ends, so the spins run as one continuous sequence rather than separate rounds. The collection totals are cumulative, including the triggering swords. The arithmetic is deliberately demanding: 18 Swords across roughly fifteen spins, when the trigger itself needed three on a single spin.
The gaps between stages tell the story of how the round is weighted. Stage one to two needs just three more Swords on top of a three-sword trigger, so the first upgrade is within reach of most rounds. Stage three needs eleven, and stage four eighteen, so the top multiplier sits behind two increasingly steep climbs. A five-sword trigger starts you a third of the way to the final stage before the first spin even lands.
The payoff for getting there is substantial. A X100 Grail pays 250x for three, 500x for four and 5,000x for five on its own, before the multiplier even applies to another symbol’s line. Once you reach the final stage, Swords stop appearing: there’s no fifth stage, no retrigger, and nothing beyond the spins you’ve already banked.
Bets and paylines during the feature match the triggering spin, so the round plays at whatever stake opened it. The bet can’t be changed while a round is running. If a round is disrupted, the game stores it and resumes from the point of interruption; collected Swords survive the interruption, though progress is cleared after 180 days without logging into a Play’n GO game.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
This is patience in a suit of armour. The base game meanders between triggers, and the reason to sit through it is the ladder: reach a new stage and the same wild is suddenly worth five times more, which gives the bonus a shape most free spins rounds don’t have.
That escalation is the strength, and it’s a real one, because a run that gathers swords keeps re-pricing its own wilds instead of repeating itself flat. The weakness is the arithmetic at the top: eighteen swords inside roughly fifteen spins leaves the X100 stage a distant promise, and most rounds cash out two stages short of it.
It suits the patient kind of high-volatility player, the ones who enjoy watching a meter fill more than they need the base game to entertain them. Players who want constant action will find this hall a cold one. For the right bankroll and the right temperament, though, Camelot rewards those who see the quest through.
The Sword and The Grail FAQs
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What is the RTP of The Sword and The Grail?
The RTP is 96.53%, comfortably above the typical benchmark for a high-volatility slot. -
Is The Sword and The Grail high volatility?
Yes. It’s a high-volatility game, so wins are spaced out and the feature carries most of the payout potential. -
How do you trigger the free spins in The Sword and The Grail?
Landing three or more Sword symbols on a single spin triggers the progressive free spins feature. The triggering swords count towards your collection, and triggering with four or five starts the collection at four or five. -
How do the free spins stages advance?
Collecting Swords during the round advances you through four stages: 6 Swords unlocks stage two with X5 wilds, 11 unlocks stage three with X10, and 18 unlocks the final stage with X100 wilds. Each stage awards five additional free spins, and Swords don’t appear in the final stage. -
Can the free spins retrigger?
No. Once you reach the final stage, Swords stop appearing on the reels, so there’s no fifth stage and no way to extend the round beyond the spins already awarded. -
What does the Grail wild do?
The Grail substitutes for all other symbols except the Sword, and it can land as a Multiplier Wild on any spin. Any win it’s part of is multiplied by the value shown on the Grail – X2, X5, X10 or X100. -
What is the maximum win on The Sword and The Grail?
The maximum win is 10,000x your bet. -
Is there a way to speed up spins in The Sword and The Grail?
Yes. Fast Play can be toggled on for faster spins, and holding the spin button down for 1.5 seconds activates Hyper Spin mode, which speeds spins up immensely. Both slow back down when a feature is activated. -
What is the minimum and maximum bet on The Sword and The Grail?
Bets run from 0.10 to 100 per spin, and the bet can’t be changed while a round is running. -
Who makes The Sword and The Grail?
Play’n GO. It sits alongside their other Arthurian and fantasy titles such as Clash of Camelot and Rise Of Merlin.
