Gates of Valhalla

Casinos with Gates of Valhalla

An Introduction to Gates of Valhalla

Pragmatic Play has a great reputation for integrating the gameplay style, format and theme of a title all into one cohesive experience. While they have tons of examples of doing this well, we think some of their best work in this particular area is found in the Gates of Valhalla video slot.

The way they have brought everything together is something the entire industry can learn from. It’s also awesome news for players who like high-quality slot experiences.

When you first take a look at this title, you’ll notice the looming snowing background. Mountains extend from near you off to the distance, and the snow is coming down steadily. The famous hammer of Thor named Mjolnir is laying in the snow beside of the reels. Additionally, on the reels themselves, you’ll see lots of Norse deities shown in totem style.

As if the theme’s presentation wasn’t detailed enough, the gameplay is tremendous as well. You get multiple bonus features on top of a generous pay table. However, the entire title is set off by the atypical way that wins are determined. Everything is about making horizontal or vertical lines no matter where they start on the game board. This fits the totem-based game structure really well, which is another example of the cohesive play style they’ve used here.

Betting and Layout

If you jump right into playing this title expecting it to use traditional paylines, you can end up confused pretty quickly. Instead, it uses a slightly different style that’s really easy to learn. Because of this difference, however, we strongly suggest reading over the following breakdown of the layout before diving in.

• A 25-spot grid of symbols is used with five vertical columns and five horizontal rows.
• Wins are awarded when you line up three or more matching symbols vertically or horizontally.
• However, these winning lines can happen anywhere on the game. They don’t have to start from any particular side.
• We want to make sure we’re clear here: This is not a cluster-based game. Additionally, you can’t win based on matching symbols on diagonals.
• Pragmatic Play gives two different ways to adjust your bet sizing. You can increase the number of coins wagered per spin, and you can change the size of those coins.
• The minimum number of coins wagered per turn is 20, and you can bet up to 200 in 20-coin increments. Additionally, the coin sizes range from €0.01 to €0.50 apiece.
• Overall, your betting range goes from €0.20 to €100 per spin.

Other Information

For the sake of clarity, we want players to know that wins are set up to be multiples of your overall wager and not numbers of coins or anything like that. While Pragmatic Play does use coins in their betting, it’s just for ease of use. It’s a system they offer that makes it easy to really get your bet size down to a particular increment.

The volatility of this game is a bit above-average. However, the hit-rate is reasonable and at around an average level. You’ll tend to get a bit fewer small and medium wins in this game compared to some other titles. That’s made up, however, by the larger wins available on the regular pay table and in the features.

Gameplay and Features

Once you understand the slightly atypical format, the gameplay of the Gates of Valhalla online slot is pretty intuitive. It has a set of features that keep the action coming pretty steady as well. That means you don’t have to worry so much about super long stretches of nothing happening. We know that can be boring for a lot of players, and it’s boring for us too. Thankfully, that’s not something you’ll have to deal with much in this game.

Tumble Feature

Chances are that the first feature you’re going to run into the tumble feature. That’s because it triggers every single time you get any type of win. After that win is paid out, the winning symbols disappear. However, this allows new totems and other symbols to fall down into the empty space.

What we like about this is that it allows for better chances for multiple wins on the same spin. Additionally, no cap has been put on the number of tumbles you can get in a row. That means it’s possible to just keep racking up wins over and over with this feature.

Roaming Wild Symbols

The wild symbol is easy to spot because it’s the only golden symbol in the game. It’s also worth mentioning that it can show up anywhere on the game board. We need to point out that it only offers one base win, and we’ll get into why below:

• Five of a Kind – 75x

The reason for this is that a non-wild is required to make lines with wilds in this game. However, for the exception of five of a kind, it counts as five of the Odin symbols. That’s the best-paying regular symbol on the pay table, so that makes sense.

When these wild symbols are involved in a win, they do not explode normally. Instead, their multiplier increases by a factor of one. They also have a chance to move to a random adjacent position before the next tumble. Additionally, these multipliers can go up to the 5x level. However, if a wild is a part of a winning combination with that multiplier, it will explode like normal symbols do for the tumble feature.

In the case that you get a winning line with more than one wild multipliers, those values are added before being applied to the base value of the win. Note also that these wilds do not substitute for free spins bonus symbols.

Free Spins Bonus Feature

No matter where they land on the game board for the Gates of Valhalla online slot, three or more free spins bonus scatters will trigger free spins. However, getting more than three will give you more starting spins along these lines:

• Five of a Kind – 15 free spins
• Four of a Kind – 12 free spins
• Three of a Kind – 10 free spins

Note that you can only get one free spin symbol on a vertical column at a time. Because of this, you cannot pick up more than five of them at once.

During this free spins mode, the game keeps up with a tumble multiplier. Each tumble increases the multiplier by one with no limits, and it resets at the beginning of the next free spin. Additionally, different reels are used that have a bit more value than the regular game mode.

We want to point out as well that you can get 10 more free spins for three or more scatters. Pragmatic Play did not limit the number of free turns you can get in a single bonus feature either.

How to Win at Gates of Valhalla

With its average volatility level overall, the Gates of Valhalla slot is pretty balanced on its own. It doesn’t really need any type of adjustment to your bet size to make most players comfortable with the experience.

The only suggestion we can make here is that some players might prefer a smaller bet size for their first few spins. We say that because it could be comforting to get used to the game mechanics first before jumping up to your typical bet sizing.

Payout Structure for Gates of Valhalla

Three totems represent three major deities in this game. The red total gets you a 75x win for five of a kind and is the best-paying regular symbol. Additionally, a prize of 20x or 10x is yours for five of the purple or green totems, respectively. We love the art style used here, and it fits the overall feel of the game amazingly.

Even the low-tier symbols look great in this slot. They’re bade on different colors of card suits. It starts with a 5x payout for five of a kind combinations of the yellow spade. From there, it drops slightly to 3.5x for five of the red heart. Players can also earn 2.5x for five of the green club or five of the blue diamond symbols.

Overview

Something slot players will really love about this title is the padding that the range of features (especially the tumbles) add to your bottom line. The gameplay for this slot brings a tremendous amount of excitement as a result. As part of Pragmatic Play’s offering of titles as a whole, the Gates of Valhalla video slot serves an important role since it is a great fit to so many players.

Overall, the mythological concept used as the centerpiece for this slot is a strong foundation for the gameplay style and excitement. In addition to that, we seriously like how the aesthetic appeal gives you a seriously cohesive style of play contrasted to only being a formality like what you see in most other titles.

FAQ