Viking Forge
Viking Forge Stats
RTP & Maths
- RTP by Mode
- Base 96.05% · Ante Bet 96.00% · Buy Free Spins 96.06%
- RTP Versions
- 96.05% here · Other versions 95.00%, 94.00%
- Max Win Rule
- Applies in base and feature
- Jackpots
- None
Free Spins & Bonus
- Free Spins
- 4/5/6 scatters = 10/20/30 spins · Retrigger: 3+ scatters during the round = +5 free spins
- Bonus Buy
- Buy Free Spins 100x (96.06% RTP)
- Ante Bet
- 1.25x stake · Bet multiplier 25x instead of 20x — higher natural chance of the free spins round, more scatter symbols on the reels · Disables the buy
- Multipliers
- Coin overlay direct awards 0.1x/0.25x/0.5x/1x/2x/3x/5x/8x/10x/12x/15x/20x total bet · Coin multipliers x2/x3/x5/x10 · Add
Symbols & Pays
- Wild
- None
- Scatter Reels
- All reels, pays on any position
- Line Pays
- Top symbol 100x · Lowest 0.3x
Viking Forge by Pragmatic Play
Twelve Viking Kings on one grid pay 100x the bet, the largest single-symbol figure on any Pragmatic Play game in our catalogue. Viking Forge asks you to reach it by counting, not by lining anything up. Six reels and five rows give 30 positions; any symbol showing up eight or more times pays wherever it lands, and no wild exists to help fill a count. The premiums do that work on their own, with a coin overlay layered over the tumbles to top up what the symbols miss. Free play makes the counting easy to follow, because every tumble redraws the totals in front of you.
Pragmatic Play launched this one in October 2023, on the scatter-pays chassis behind a good part of its tumble catalogue, and then swapped the reward layer for something closer to a collection game.
Demo Features
Coin Overlays
A coin overlay can attach to any symbol except the scatter, and it carries either a cash award between 0.1x and 20x the total bet or a multiplier of x2, x3, x5, or x10. The coin only counts when its host symbol forms part of a winning count before it explodes. Cash values add into a meter, multipliers multiply whatever the meter already has, and the game pays the whole meter once, after the spin and every tumble it produced. Two 10x coins and an x5 in the same sequence therefore settle as 100x rather than as three smaller wins. The floor matters as much, because a 0.1x coin contributes a tenth of a bet to a meter that may never meet a multiplier.
The Premium Set
Four premiums and five royals fill the reels. The Viking King leads at 10x for eight or nine, 25x for 10 or 11, and 100x once a dozen of him land, so his top tier is five times the treasure chest below him. Everything under the chest is small change by comparison, with the 10 bottoming out at 0.3x for the smallest paying count. That distribution makes the counting feel binary rather than gradual, since a screen heavy in royals rarely changes a balance much even when it pays.
Free Spins Ladder
Four, five, or six scatters award 10, 20, or 30 free spins, and three or more scatters during the round add another 5. Special reels come into play for the feature, and the meter makes the round worth more than its length, because coin values accumulate across every spin instead of clearing at the end of each one. A 10-spin trigger with a busy meter can outpay a 30-spin round that never collects.
Ante Bet and Buy Free Spins
The Ante Bet raises the stake by a quarter and loads more scatters into the reel set for a higher natural trigger rate, and switching it on disables the buy. The buy price is 100x the total bet for a random 4, 5, or 6 scatter start, so the same money can land the shortest round or the longest one with no say in which.
How to Play
Counting to Eight
Eight matching symbols are the entry price for every standard symbol here, and the count runs across all 30 positions rather than along a line. Position is irrelevant, so three Viking Kings stacked on reel 6 and five spread across the rest count exactly the same as eight in a neat row. Scatters work to their own table and start paying from four, which is also the point at which they open the feature.
The absence of a wild changes how you read a near miss. On a tumble game with wilds, a substitution can rescue seven of a premium; here, seven Viking Kings pay nothing, and the next drop has to supply the eighth itself. That’s the central tension, and it’s why the coin overlay exists. It also changes what a busy screen is worth, since a grid crowded with four different premiums, none of them eight strong, returns nothing, while a dull screen of eight matching royals pays something. Pragmatic Play builds several games on this counting format, among them Sugar Rush and Gates of Olympus.
Reading a Tumble Sequence
Winning symbols clear, the symbols above them fall into the gaps, and fresh ones drop in from the top. Tumbling carries on until a drop produces no win, with no limit on how long that can run, and the game totals the whole sequence before it credits anything. Watch the coins rather than the symbols while that happens. A coin on a Viking King that keeps qualifying feeds the meter several times over a long sequence, whereas the same coin on a royal that clears once contributes once and disappears.
Bet Steps and Switches
The plus and minus buttons either side of the spin button move the stake through the bet ladder, and the bet menu behind them shows the total in coins or in cash. The buy price and the Ante Bet toggle each keep a plaque of their own, so both routes into free spins stay one click away while you play. Three spin speeds cycle from one button, and the autoplay menu carries a skip-screens option that removes the feature introduction and end screens, shortening a 30-spin round considerably.
Game RTP
Stakes start at $0.20, the $300.00 maximum is the 25x Ante Bet ceiling rather than a normal-play figure, and the Medium badge on the game’s own splash undersells a slot this volatile.
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum bet | $0.20 |
| Maximum bet (Ante Bet, 25x) | $300.00 |
| Bet multiplier, normal play | 20x |
| RTP, standard build | 96.05% |
| RTP with Ante Bet | 96.00% |
| RTP with Buy Free Spins | 96.06% |
| Operator versions | 95.00%, 94.00% |
| Maximum win | 10,000x |
Symbol Pays
Every figure below is a multiple of your stake, counted in three bands: 8 to 9, 10 to 11, and 12 or more.
| Symbol | 8-9 | 10-11 | 12+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Viking King | 10x | 25x | 100x |
| Treasure chest | 2x | 10x | 20x |
| Sword and shield | 1.5x | 5x | 15x |
| Tankard shield | 1.25x | 2x | 10x |
| A | 0.75x | 2x | 8x |
| K | 0.6x | 1.5x | 6x |
| Q | 0.5x | 1.25x | 5x |
| J | 0.4x | 1x | 4x |
| 10 | 0.3x | 0.75x | 3x |
Scatter Helmets
| Scatter helmets | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pays | 3x | 5x | 100x |
| Free spins | 10 | 20 | 30 |
Ultimate Slots Verdict
A clean scatter-pays build with the tallest single-symbol figure in the studio's range and a coin meter carrying most of the real upside. The Norse theme is decoration, but the counting and the meter both hold up.
✓ What We Like
- The 100x top tier on the Viking King is the biggest single-symbol payout in the studio's scatter-pays range
- Coin values accumulate across an entire free spins round instead of clearing each spin
- Coin multipliers of x2 up to x10 apply to the meter total, so a late multiplier can reshape a whole sequence
- Ante Bet and Buy Free Spins both keep the return within a hundredth of a point of standard play
- Tumbles have no built-in limit, so a strong drop can keep feeding the meter
✗ What Could Be Better
- No wild anywhere, so a count that stops at seven pays nothing
- Coin awards start at 0.1x, and a coin on a symbol that never wins is worth nothing at all
- The forge theme has no bearing on how the game plays
Detailed Review
Our Review
Four Viking Kings and two scatter helmets can share a settled grid and pay nothing. Four kings are half of the smallest paying count, and two helmets are half a trigger, so a screen that looks generous returns zero, and the reels reset.
The dressing is good. Stone pillars, a lava horizon, coins spilling out of drinking horns above the reels, and a Viking King portrait drawn with more care than the format needs. The forge idea doesn’t extend into the maths anywhere, though. Nothing is forged or upgraded; the theme is paint over a counting engine.
This one earns its argument in the numbers. A 100x top symbol is unusually generous for a scatter-pays title, but it needs 12 of one premium across 30 positions, and that is a full-feature event rather than a standard-play one. Reaching the 10,000x cap from a top symbol worth 100x means the coin meter has to supply almost all of the distance, which puts the game’s real value in a layer the paytable never shows you.
The meter deserves the scepticism its floor invites. A pre-defined set that starts at 0.1x throws out plenty of coins worth a fraction of a bet, and a coin that never joins a winning count pays nothing, whatever its face value. The x10 multiplier changes an entire sequence when it arrives after the cash coins have banked, and it wastes itself when it lands first on an empty meter. Order matters here more than it does on games with free-floating multipliers, and no setting gives you any control over it. A collection layer that rewards sequence length rather than symbol quality suits the tumbles well, but it does move the interesting part of the game away from the reels.
There’s one number to check before you spend long in the demo. Standard play runs at 96.05%, and operator versions descend roughly two points to a 94.00% floor, a spread wide enough that the version in front of you is the operator’s decision rather than the game’s. The buy and the Ante Bet both stay within a hundredth of a point of the standard figure, so neither is a trap on the return alone.
Judged as a slot rather than as a theme, this holds up. The counting format is clean, the coin layer gives the tumbles a purpose, and the free spins meter is a real reason to want the trigger. Compared with Pragmatic Play’s better scatter-pays, this review lands it as a competent build with a decorative Norse skin and one very tall paytable number most sessions won’t approach.
