Gates of Valhalla

Theme and Design

Icy Norse Adventure With Dramatic Soundtrack

I wasn’t blown away by the visuals in Gates of Valhalla. It’s very much a Pragmatic Play game in this respect – they can deliver some really great looking slots from time to time but also occasionally ones that look like they were built on a budget. This falls into the latter category.

That said, it still carries some drama, with blue skies and rugged mountains providing an icy backdrop to the reel set which itself looks like it was forged from iron. The paytable itself is stacked with brightly-coloured gems and stone masks which look slightly at odds with the backdrop, but the soundtrack, a dramatic orchestral score, does a great job of carrying the game through the rare quieter spells.

Overall, Gates of Valhalla has a simple appearance and does what is needed, though if you prefer more epic qualities in your Norse games you could try something like Hacksaw’s Stormforged instead.

RTP and Variance

Pragmatic Play slots regularly have more than one RTP setting, leaving it to the discretion of your casino to choose which level to run the game on. In this case, there are three settings – 96.46%, 95.5% and 94.47%. Whilst in truth you wouldn’t notice the difference between these 3 as you were playing – the numbers are calculated over millions of spins – it is always about giving yourself the best chance of winning. So, I recommend playing at the optimum RTP where possible. I checked five popular slot sites to find out what RTP level they had set. This is what I found.

• MrQ (Independent) – 96.46% RTP
• Casumo (independent) – 94.47% RTP
• BacanaPlay (Skill on Net) – 92.47% RTP
• Barz Casino (White Hat Gaming) – 94.47% RTP
• All British Casino (L and L Europe) – 94.47% RTP

As if often the case with this test, MrQ comes out on top – in this sample it is the only site to run the game at 96.46%. Therefore, if RTP is a big concern for you then I recommend you play there.

Gates of Valhalla is also a highly volatile slot with an unpredictable payout distribution. It may run with many non-winning spins but it can also kick out some massive win sequences in short bursts.

Maximum Win

The top payout here is 10,000x which is good for a Pragmatic Play slot. Most of their high risk games come in at around 5,000x to 10,000x though we have found bigger wins in this article. Games with similar payouts from the same provider include Crystal Cavern Megaways and Smugglers Cove.

Symbols and Paytable

Unusual Win Ways Mechanic and Impressive Paytable Values

Gates of Valhalla uses an interesting pay ways mechanic that keeps you on your toes during the game. The grid is a simple 5 reels and 5 rows in size. Wins are triggered by landing 3 or more identical symbols in adjacent horizontal or vertical positions anywhere on the grid. That brings up just 10 paylines, or pay ways, in total.

What impresses when you browse the paytable is the symbol values which are higher than you find in many other slots. That is likely because there are fewer pay lines than you find in most slots, so when you hit a win, it tends to be bigger.

Low value symbols are the brightly coloured gemstones in the shape of card suits: diamond, club, heart and spade. They are valued at from 0.2x for 3 diamonds to 5x for 5 spades. The premiums are the stone faces of Norse gods in green, pink and red. They are valued at from 0.5x for 3 greens up to 75x for 5 reds.

There are also Golden Lion Wilds that substitute for other symbols to complete win lines and have special properties as we will find out, and free spins symbols which land on any reel and trigger the bonus round.

Features and Gameplay

Tumbling Reels and Roaming Wild Progressive Multipliers

I enjoyed the gameplay in Gates of Valhalla during testing. It uses a classic Tumbling Reels mechanic with progressive multipliers but throws a roaming sticky wild into the mix to keep you on your toes and add extra jeopardy to proceedings.

The Tumbling Reels triggers after any win, with winning symbols exploding off the reels in style before new ones drop in to replace them. The interesting part is that Wild symbols do NOT explode, but stick on the reels, and move, or Roam, one space to the left, right, top or bottom, if possible. If not, they just stay where they are.

The exciting part is, for each tumble, the wild’s own multiplier increases by 1x up to a maximum of 5x. That multiplier applies to any win that the wild is involved with.

Get Up To 15 Free Spins With A Global Progressive Multiplier

The free spins round is generous in Gates of Valhalla giving you 10, 12 or 15 spins for 3, 4 or 5 free spins symbols landed. As well as the chance to re-trigger an unlimited number of times by landing 3 more free spins symbols. That gets you 10 more spins.

The best part is that you now have a classic global progressive multiplier which increases by 1x with each successive tumble and does NOT re-set between spins. This works alongside the Roaming Wild Multipliers as well.

In my opinion that is a superb free spins configuration. It bares all the hallmarks of a super-charged high variance slot feature with the chance to build massive multipliers and just keep hitting win after win until that 10,000x cap is reached.