Eye of the Storm

Theme and Design

Generic Ancient Egyptian Slot Without Any Modern Frills

Eye of the Storm treads some VERY well-worn tracks as ancient Egypt is one of the most common slots themes around. In my opinion, it is not a particularly impressive production. The standard 5x3 reel set sits against a generic backdrop of temple pillars, with the pyramids in the background. And whilst the artwork does the job but it feels quite dated and is nothing like the quality of other Ancient Egyptian slots like Hacksaw’s Hand of Anubis for example. The free spins round brings some big cats to the side of the reels but no storm is whipped up and it all feels a little underwhelming.

RTP and Variance

Eye of the Storm has an optimum RTP of 96.71%. That is a solid Return to Player. However, there are two lower settings – 95.67% or 94.64% - and which you play at will be at the discretion of your casino. I recommend that you check the RTP setting on the game info screen (click the ‘i’ symbol on the bottom right) before wagering at your chosen site.

For this review I verified the RTP at slot sites we regularly use for testing and found Eye of the Storm to be running at 96.71% at MrQ.

This is also a highly volatile game – rated 5/5 on Pragmatic Play’s own scale. So it will be unpredictable and frustrating at times but it has the potential to unleash big wins too.

Maximum Win

Eye of the Storm does have an excellent 10,000x maximum win potential. Whilst this doesn’t make it one of Pragmatic Play’s highest paying slots, it is still a good top prize, up there with games like Gates of Valhalla (10,000x) and Smuggler’s Cove (10,000x).

Symbols and Paytable

This is a simple 5-reel slot with 3 rows and 10 paylines. It has a minimum bet of 10p which is good for a high variance game. It means you can set your stake low to stretch your balance further and ride out those spells of dead spins.

The paytable starts with low value symbols, the Jack, Queen, King and Ace cards. These are valued at from 0.5x for 3 Jacks up to 10x for 5 Aces. The premiums are the 6 Egyptian symbols, valued at from 1x for 3 of the fans up to 50x for 5 of the Eye symbols.

There is also a Wild, represented by the Queen, which only lands on reels 2, 3 and 4 and substitutes for all other symbols except for the scatter.

Features and Gameplay

The Eye of the Storm is not as feature-packed as other high variance slots on the market right now, but it still has some compelling stuff going on, including wild reels and the free spins bonus round which is what you’ll need to unlock if you want to score something even close to the top payout.

Expanding Wilds

This is a common feature of Adventure slots and Ancient Egyptian slots. Our Wild Queen ALWAYS expands when she lands to help complete paylines. This is a fairly frequent event, coming up on just under 20% of spins in my test session.

Pyramid Scatter Pays and Unlocks Free Spins

The Pyramid Scatter lands on anywhere on the reels. When 3 or more land, you have triggered the free spins round. And, you get a payout of 2x, 20x and 50x for 3, 4 or 5.

The free spins round starts with 12 spins and uses a progressive symbol upgrade feature. There are 6 levels. To progress to each new level you need to land Wild symbols. When you do, you get more free spins and your level increases. As you move up the levels, premium symbols will upgrade to higher value ones in the paytable.

This is how it works:

• Land 1 wild – add 1 more free spin and move up 1 level
• Land 2 wilds – add 3 more free spins and move up 2 levels
• Land 3 wilds – add 5 more free spins and move up 3 levels

The symbol upgrades are as follows:

• Level 2 – the fan will upgrade to the Ankhs symbol
• Level 3 – the Ankhs upgrades to the scarab symbol
• Level 4 – the scarab upgrades to the bird symbol
• Level 5 – the bird upgrades to the jackal symbol
• Level 6 – the jackal upgrades to the Eye symbol

This is a powerful progressive process that can unleash some massive wins as the reels display more and more of the higher value symbols.

And if that wasn’t enough, it’s also possible to unlock more free spins by hitting more scatters. 3 scatters gets you a re-trigger with 12 more plays.