Beware the Deep Megaways

Theme and Design

A Peaceful Submarine Setting With Hints of Menace Bur Rarely a Shark In Sight!

Beware the deep is another of those ominous-sounding deep sea games that take you down beneath the surface to where danger is lurking – usually just off-camera - in the shape of some razor-mouthed super-shark. In this instance though we only get to the see the beast as a wild on the bottom reel. And we spend the rest of our time scanning the depths for hidden treasures, watching smaller fish and jelly fish idle by whilst air bubbles float up to the surface in a turquoise and green seascape. It's a relaxing atmosphere in fact, completed by a weird hazy guitar soundtrack. It’s all much more pleasant than the title of the game suggests.

RTP and Variance

As always with Pragmatic Play slots, Beware the Deep Megaways has more than one RTP setting. The game can run at 96.54% or 95.49%. The optimum RTP of 96.54% is good for a Megaways slot and you should look for casinos that run the game at that rate. You can check the RTP for yourself when you load up the game by hitting the ‘I’ button under the reels and scrolling through until you see the Return to Player figure.

I recommend playing at MrQ from Lindar Media who consistently choose the max RTP settings for games on their site.

As you might expect from a Megaways slot, the volatility in Beware of the Deep is high – 5/5 on Pragmatic’s own rating scale. So, you can expect an uneven win distribution and some tough times though the free spins round with plenty of wilds and multipliers looks like its set to pop on occasions.

Maximum Win

Beware the Deep Megaways has a maximum win of 10,000x which is OK, though not as high as some of Pragmatic Play’s other slots. It means you can win £2,000 with just a 20p bet. You can check out our list of slots with the highest max wins for games with better potential.

Symbols and Paytable

Pragmatic Play have gone for the standard Megaways set up of 6 reels. The 2 outer reels display between 2 and 7 symbols per spin. Reels 2, 3, 4 and 5 display between 2 and 6 symbols per spin. But there is also a 4 reel, 1 row reel set beneath reels 2 to 5 which spins independently and adds an extra row so that altogether up to 7 symbols are displayed across the game area on every spin.

With the win ways mechanic triggering wins you need 3 or more identical symbols to land on adjacent reels, regardless of the row, starting at the left-most reel, to score a payout. That gives you up to 117,649 win ways per spin (7x7x7x7x7x7).

The paytable has 10 symbols on it. The low value ones are the cards, 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. These are valued at from 0.1x for 3 10s up to 0.75x for 6 Aces. The premiums are the bell, bottle of rum, cutlass, treasures, and beware the shark sign. These are valued at from 0.1x for 3 bells up to 5x for 6 of the shark signs.

There is also a wild, represented by the shark. This only appears on the independent reel set that sits under reels 2 to 5, dropping with a multiplier value each time. More on that in the next section.

Features and Gameplay

Beware the Deep Megaways mixes classic Megaways features like Tumble Wins and Mystery Symbols with a powerful progressive multiplier in the free spins round which can catapult your wins to epic levels at fast speeds! 

Tumble Wins 

The tumble wins feature is simple. After any win, winning symbols are removed from the reels and remaining symbols drop down to fill the spaces left behind. Then, new symbols drop down from above the reels to fill remaining spaces. This process can create more wins, in which case it repeats. And on on, until no more wins are formed.

Mystery Symbols

Another feature often found in Megaways slots is the Mystery Symbol. These display an image of green seaweed floating in the deep – no specific symbol – and when they drop they will transform into one random symbol from the paytable. And where two or more drop, they ALL transform into the same symbol. That increase your odds of landing a win.

Wild Multipliers Up To 100x

You should look out for the wilds that only drop onto the bottom 4x1 reel set. These ALWAYS carry a random multiplier which will be applied when a win way includes the wild. In the base game multipliers may be 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 10x or 25x. But in the free spins round they can be higher at 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 10x, 25x, 50x or 100x.

Two Free Spins Rounds With Progressive Multipliers

The best part of Beware the Deep is definitely the free spins round. Not least because you get two configurations to choose from. Before you get there you need to unlock the feature by landing four or more of the Bonus symbols, represented by the shark cage.

The Deep Free Spins

The first option is The Deep. You get 10, 12, 14 or 16 spins for 4, 5, 6 or 7 bonus symbols. Before the round begins you get the option to gamble to increase your free spins count. The gamble is on the spin of a wheel. Win, and you go up to the next level – 10 becomes 12, 12 becomes 14 and 14 becomes 16. Lose, and you drop a level down to a minimum of 6 free spins.

If you hit the bottom level then the gamble stops and round begins. The same is true if you get up to 16 spins.

The Deep Free Spins come with a progressive multiplier that starts at 1x and increases by 1x with each successive tumble. This global multiplier is applied to EVERY win in the round. But that’s not all because if a win includes one of the wild multipliers from the bottom reel set then the value of that multiplier is also added to the global multiplier.

And finally, if you land a Bonus symbol above a Wild then that wild is locked in place for up to 3 tumbles during which it’s multiplier value changes on every tumble.

Extra free spins can be awarded at 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 spins for 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 bonus symbols landing on one free spin. 

Even Deeper Free Spins 

The Deeper Free Spins option has the same progressive multiplier format as The Deep. However, elsewhere it uses an alternative format where instead of being given a fixed number of free spins, your round only ends when your progressive multiplier hits a pre-defined level. The more bonus symbols that triggered the round, the higher the progressive multiplier threshold that ends it.

• 4 bonus symbols – round ends when the progressive multiplier hits 15x
• 5 bonus symbols – round ends when the progressive multiplier hits 20x
• 6 bonus symbols – round ends when the progressive multiplier hits 25x
• 7 bonus symbols – round ends when the progressive multiplier hits 30x

Once again, you can gamble to improve the configuration of the round, up to the 30x level. This is on the spin of a wheel. If you win, you go up to the next level. If you lose, you drop down a level, down to a minimum of 10x. When you hit the bottom or top levels, the round begins. 

Once again, if you land a Bonus symbol above a Wild then that wild is locked in place for up to 3 tumbles during which its multiplier value changes on every tumble. 

And finally, landing a bonus symbol at any point will increase the progressive multiplier threshold for the end of the round by 1x.