Dead Rider’s Trail

Theme and Design

Dead Rider’s Trail, much like other Relax classics, doesn’t really feel like a normal slot game. Instead it feels more like a video game – cinematic, violent and explosive. And that’s just the intro! Once the dust clears, the action takes place on a 6x6 grid with symbols and granite blocks interspersed. The backdrop is like a scene from a biker heist gone wrong – money fluttering down, bikers and cops with guns stalking one another and a dust cloud blowing through. This is the atmosphere throughout the game and it feels electric, enhanced by a whip smart breakbeat soundtrack that really keeps you in the mood.

Meanwhile, on the reels a cast of nefarious characters animate when they form part of a win, inevitably throwing knives or firing guns. It seems like there isn’t a single person in Dead Man’s Trail who isn’t looking for a fight!

That is how the game looks and sounds throughout and its all the better for it!

RTP and Variance

Dead Rider’s Trail has an RTP of 96.2% which is just about average for a UK slot and for Relax Gaming products too. If you are looking for a higher RTP from the same supplier then you can find it in games like Book of 99 (99% RTP) and Marching Legions (98.12% RTP).

And of course, it is worth repeating that this is a highly volatile slot characterised by unpredictable payouts, potentially slow periods followed by short bursts of high value wins. It is high risk for high reward, and if that’s your thing, then you are in the right place. You can find more games like that in our list of top 20 best high variance slots.

Relax Gaming are one of a few studios who also publish the hit frequency of their games – that is the number of times you are likely to land a winning spin – is 24.61%.

Maximum Win

The top payout in Dead Rider’s Trail is 50,000x. The best of the winning action undoubtedly comes on the Bonus Trail where hitting persistent modifiers can really boost your payouts. That potential puts it right up there with some of Relax Gaming’s highest paying slots, though both Money Train 3 (100,000x) and Hellcatraz (51,840x) come in higher.

We also recommend that you read our article on all slots with the highest max wins where we list games with payouts of 100,000x or more.

Symbols and Paytable

Like Temple Tumble and other Relax slots, this one plays out on a 6x6 grid, this time with each space taken up by a pay symbol, a wild or a valueless stone block. Interestingly, even the number of stone blocks on the reel set is randomised, with between 3 and 24 appearing at the start of a game round.

This is not a payline slot.

Instead, all you need to do (!) is land 3 or more identical symbols on adjacent reels from left to right, regardless of their vertical position.  This is what creates 46,656 win ways on every spin (6x6x6x6x6x6).

When it comes to the paytable you will see that Dead Rider’s Trail does not offer particularly high values even for the premium symbols. That means that you won’t win much in the base game in my opinion. But do we care? Not really, because we are here to unlock that trail and chase something much bigger.

So, low payers are the card suits – spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts. They max out at 0.8x for five on a line. And premiums are the four characters – Two Knife, Sniper, Payer and Leader – and the Dead Rider’s Trail logo. The max out at 2x for five logos on a line.

We also have a Route 666 Wild that subs in for all other symbols to create wins, and a BOMB that is active only in free spins and helps produce more wins …. more on that in the gameplay and features section.

Features and Gameplay

For me, what is cool about this game is that Dead Rider’s Trail really comes in 3 parts. The first part is all about demolishing ALL the stone blocks from the reel set. This is done with the help of Cascading Wins. Then you have a Bonus Wheel spin that can unlock parts 2 and 3 which are the Free Spins and the Trail itself.

With all that in mind, let’s have a look at how the game unfolds at each stage.

Cascading Wins Remove Winning Symbols AND Stone Blocks

This is the Cascading Wins part of the game. Your objective at the start of each spin is to blast ALL the stone blocks away to trigger the Bonus Wheel.

How does it work? By now, we all know the drill – winning symbols explode off the grid after a winning spin to be replaced by new ones.

But in this case, there is more ...

In Dead Rider’s Trail any stone block ADJACENT to a winning symbol – above, below, left, right- is also removed. This creates a lot more movement than in a standard Cascade and more new symbols on the grid and a greater potential for another payout.

The process repeats until no more wins are formed, or better still ... ALL stone blocks are removed.

The Bonus Wheel Is Your Entry Point To Free Spins and the Trail

Removing ALL stone blocks from the grid automatically triggers the bonus wheel, a giant outlaw Wheel of Fortune if you like, with segments in black, gun metal grey and faded yellow. Note the gun that acts as the pointer which will decide which segment you land on!

Potential wins are:

• 4 Free Spins + the chance to gamble for the bonus trail
• 7 Free Spins + the chance to gamble for the bonus trail
• Bonus Trail
• Super Bonus Trail

Should you gamble on free spins?

The odds of landing the bonus trail are 33% at 4 spins and 52% at 7 spins. Personally, I would always bank your spins and hope to unleash the wheel again for another chance at landing on the Bonus Trail or Super Bonus trail segment.

Free Spins Can Re-Trigger an Unlimited Number of Times

For once, free spins are not the main event. But they are still an interesting feature with the potential to cause dramatic changes on the grid.

During free spins, bombs are placed on some of the stone blocks. If a symbol in a winning line appears adjacent to a bomb, then the bomb explodes. ALL symbols on the bombs reel now transform to identical ones chosen as the highest payer on the reel before the bomb was detonated.

And … if you can clear ALL stone blocks during the free spins round, 3 more are added. There are no limits to how many times this can happen.

Your Final Destination Is The Bonus Trail With 1,000x Multipliers and TEN Modifiers

No question where we all want to get with this game though … the Bonus Trail and enhanced Super Bonus Trail are the headline acts. And far from being a copy cat of the original Dead Man’s Trail, this version strikes out on its own.

First, let’s look at the trail itself.

It looks like a winding path made up of positions with multipliers and special modifiers that can be collected along the way. The view is birds-eye, looking down over a dusty landscape as the path winds between the Rider encampment, crashed planes, trucks and cases of money.

Now, once you are on the trail each move takes you between 1 and 6 places further along. How far you get will depend on your fuel meter which starts at 3 and drops 1 with every move. But it’s not an absolute situation – you can re-fuel by landing on fuel cans which are dotted along the trail and set you back up to 3 when you land on one.

So, as long as you don’t run out of fuel, you will just keep going and winning more prizes. And every position you land on that isn’t a fuel can is going to be a win multiplier of up to 1,000x or a feature, represented by Golden or Silver Trucks of which there are SIX on the trail.

And finally .. if you make it around the full trail ALL multiplier positions increase by 3x AND an EXTRA FUEL CAN is added to your meter for the next round!

The bonus trail features work as follows:

CASH – 25x to 50x prize
SNIPER – Between 3 and 6 standard positions on the trail have their values doubled
PAYER – A value of between 3x and 10x is added to standard positions on the trail
TWO-KNIFE – Value of 50x to 200x is added to between 2 and 4 standard positions on the trail
RE-FUEL – 2, 3 or 4 Fuel Cans are added to the trail
SHOOT BACK – Total current win value is added to 1, 2 or 3 standard positions on the trail
COLLECT – Current values of the FOUR nearest positions on the trail are collected
COLLECT ALL – Current values of ALL positions on the trail are collected
PERSISTENT SNIPER – Same as the Sniper, but triggered on EVERY turn
PERSISTENT PAYER – Same as Payer, but triggered on EVERY turn
PERSISTENT TWO-KNIFE – Same as Two-Knife, but triggered on EVERY turn
NOTE: Silver Trucks will award ANY modifier. Gold Trucks will ONLY award Persistent modifiers or Collect All modifiers.

And … in the Super Bonus Trail feature the first truck on the trail has been changed from Silver to Gold to increase your chances of triggering the highest paying features.