Vikings Unleashed Megaways Slot Review
The longship’s deck is crowded with carved wood and iron, the grid slung from ropes inside a plank frame with runic strips along its rails, a red-and-white sail billowing behind the upper reels. Blueprint Gaming built this one around a single round, and they didn’t pretend otherwise: the base game is the crossing, and everything that matters happens once four scatters let you off the boat.
It runs at 96.5% RTP on a six-reel Megaways grid where each reel can show up to seven symbols, giving as many as 117,649 ways to win, with no stated volatility figure. Blueprint returned to this exact formula for Vikings Unleashed Reloaded in 2023, and the same bones run through Buffalo Rising Megaways. The older ship is still the one carrying the bigger prize.
Ways, Cascades and the Paytable
A win is two to six matching symbols on adjacent reels from the left, regardless of how tall the symbols are, and every winning combination is paid and then removed. New symbols cascade in from above, and the reactions keep going until no new win forms. Payouts are multiplied by the total bet, and all winning combinations on a spin are added together.
Because every reel can show between two and seven symbols, the way count changes on every single spin, and the swing is wide. A spin can arrive with a couple of thousand ways or a fraction of that, and the counter above the reels tells you which. It’s the Megaways engine under licence from Big Time Gaming, doing what it always does.
There’s a second feed into the grid. Symbol positions sit above reels two, three, four and five, and they help form wins by pushing replacements in from the right of the top symbols rather than only from above. Those positions matter for another reason too: they’re the only places on the whole grid where a wild can appear.
The paying cast runs from four Norse characters down through the royals, with the red-haired Viking warrior on top:
- Viking Warrior (red hair, axe): 2x, 3x, 10x, 50x for three to six
- Troll: 1x, 2x, 2.5x, 7.5x
- Female Viking: 0.25x, 1x, 1.5x, 2x
- Wizard: 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x, 2x
- A and K: 0.2x, 0.4x, 0.6x, 1.75x
- Q: 0.2x, 0.25x, 0.6x, 1x
- J: 0.15x, 0.25x, 0.5x, 1x
- 10: 0.15x, 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.9x
- 9: 0.1x, 0.2x, 0.4x, 0.8x
The drop from the characters to the royals is steep, and it shapes how the base game plays. The character symbols carry the paying power, and the royals mostly keep the cascade counter ticking between the wins that matter.
The wild substitutes for every symbol except the scatter, and it only ever appears in those positions above reels two to five. That’s its whole job. Those top positions exist to help form wins in the first place, and the wild is the bonus they occasionally deliver.
Mystery Symbol
The mystery symbol transforms into any symbol except the free spins scatter. It’s a way of converting dead positions into paying ones mid-cascade, and on a tall grid a cluster of them can turn a modest reaction into something worth watching. It doesn’t pick the scatter, so it can’t start the bonus for you.
Hammer Symbol
Hammer symbols work on the same idea but with a twist: every hammer in view reveals the same random symbol. One symbol type across multiple positions means multiple simultaneous ways, which is where the bigger base game wins come from. If the reveal lands on a premium character, a screen full of hammers can do real damage.
Free Spins and the Unlimited Multiplier
Four scatters award 12 free spins, and every scatter beyond the fourth adds five more. Land five and you start on 17; land six and you begin with 22. The round those scatters open is the reason to be here at all.
Once inside, an unlimited win multiplier is active from the first spin. Every reaction bumps it up by one, and there’s no ceiling on it, so a long cascade chain builds value spin after spin. Cascades and multipliers feeding each other is the whole engine of the round.
The spins themselves are ordinary, and the runs between them are where a session’s result gets decided. A spin that produces three consecutive reactions pays its first win at the base value, its second at double and its third at triple.
Now stretch that across a dozen spins, with hammer and mystery reveals dropping new fuel into the gaps, and you have the shape of the round’s best-case run. The multiplier doesn’t reset between spins, which is the detail that separates this round from an ordinary free spins grid.
Retriggers are handled differently from the base game. Free spins scatters appear only at the top of the reels during the round, and they pay in a fixed currency: three of them add five extra spins, four add ten. It keeps the round alive without re-running the original four-scatter requirement.
The Feature Gamble and Freespins Unleashed
When the bonus lands there’s a gamble option. You can gamble your starting spin count or your starting multiplier, and each gamble offers a better opening value if it comes off.
Win the gamble and the round begins stronger. Lose it and you take the lesser value into the free spins anyway, and there’s no option to collect as-is without making the choice. For a player who’d rather have 17 guaranteed spins than gamble 12 against 22, declining isn’t available.
There’s also a Freespins Unleashed buy button sitting under the reels, which skips the scatter hunt entirely and puts you straight into the free spins round. The stakes on offer depend on the operator’s configuration and currency equivalent, so the button does the same job everywhere but at the price your casino sets.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.7/10
Most of a session here is rowing. Steady little cascade wins, hammers and mystery reveals keeping the deck busy, scatters drifting in two or three at a time. The reason anybody stays aboard is the round those fourth and final scatter opens – the one moment this game has saved everything up for.
Its strength is that the bonus round is built better than it needs to be. The multiplier never resets between spins, so a single long run of reactions can outearn the spin count several times over, and retriggers from the top of the reels keep the door open. Its weakness is the fare you pay to get there: four scatters is a long wait, and the base game pays like it knows it.
So it comes down to patience. Players who like regular hits and a base game that pulls its own weight will find the crossing dull; players who bankroll for one decisive round will find this the best-built longship in Blueprint’s Norse fleet.
Vikings Unleashed Megaways FAQs
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What does the hammer symbol do in Vikings Unleashed Megaways?
Every hammer symbol in view reveals the same random symbol, converting multiple positions into one symbol type at once and opening up extra ways to win in a single reaction. -
How do you trigger free spins in Vikings Unleashed Megaways?
Four scatters award 12 free spins, and each additional scatter beyond four adds another five spins to your starting total. -
Can free spins retrigger in Vikings Unleashed Megaways?
Yes. During the round, free spins scatters appear only at the top of the reels: three of them add five extra spins and four add ten extra spins. -
How does the win multiplier work during free spins?
An unlimited win multiplier is active throughout the round, and it increases by one after every reaction. It doesn’t reset between spins, so long cascade chains build value across the whole bonus. -
Where do wild symbols appear in Vikings Unleashed Megaways?
Wilds substitute every symbol except the scatter, and they can only appear in the symbol positions above reels 2, 3, 4 and 5, which also help form wins during cascades. -
What is the RTP of Vikings Unleashed Megaways?
The RTP is 96.5%, based on long-term payback and gameplay. -
What is the maximum win on Vikings Unleashed Megaways?
The maximum win from a single game is 250,000x the total bet. -
When is Vikings Unleashed Megaways released?
Vikings Unleashed Megaways’ release date is 6 December 2018.
