Viking Queen
The Viking Queen online slot from Microgaming centers around a viking theme with various aspects of that culture. One of these components is a unique shield collection game mechanic that drives up your multipliers for the eventual trigger of the free spins bonus round.
Casinos with Viking Queen
- Viking Queen
An Introduction to Viking Queen
Something we absolutely love to see is when a slot uses a different style of theme or concept than we’re used to checking out. With the Viking Queen video slot from Microgaming, we were very happy with the result along these lines. It’s all about a mythological style of presentation of vikings that we haven’t really seen previously.
The uniqueness of the handling of the theme is similar to the uniqueness to the handling of the gameplay.
You’ll have the queen herself as the wild in this game, and she shows up fairly often. However, other high-end symbols are various animals illustrated in a cool way. They glow and are covered in different runic symbols that give them a menacing appearance. Additionally, you’ll see that these highly detailed symbols are matched by the flowing water in the background that makes you feel like you’re on a viking longboat going on an adventure.
The gameplay has a different style to it than you’re probably used to as well. Everything is set up around this idea of simply progressing as you play instead of having each session not really mean anything. However, even if you prefer to play shorter sessions, the idea is the same. It’s set up so that you’re building to an eventual feature trigger, and the value of that trigger is greater the longer it takes.
Betting and Layout
You’ll find that the layout from this game is really straightforward, and it’s easy to learn too. It’s all about having a good number of ways to win without it being overwhelming. Here’s a quick look at what you can expect:
- The five reels are separated by golden lines that really frame the entire experience.
- Along those lines, you’ll have three symbols on each reels, which never changes.
- Additionally, a set of 25 paylines are used in this title. This number cannot be increased or decreased.
- Outside of the scatters, all wins must happen on a payline starting from the far-left reel and working toward the right on consecutive reels.
- At the low end, you’ll have bet sizes that go down to the €0.50 level. Additionally, you can get your wager up to €125 at a maximum as well.
The volatility of this slot is in the medium range. While the pay table for the regular game mode hits at a solid enough rate to keep the swings from being too bad on average, a lot of value is tied up in the free spins bonus round, which is even more the case when the multipliers get large from the shield collection feature.
Your prizes awarded in this title are multiplied by the overall amount you’re wagering. Microgaming did not opt for coin-based bet sizing in this game, which we’re happy about. We find that the coin-based approach ultimately does nothing but offer an opportunity for players to get confused.
Gameplay and Features in the Viking Queen Slot
A lot of the gameplay in the Viking Queen online slot is all about making sure that you have steady value building over time. This happens due to the shield collection feature that’s tied to multipliers. Additionally, this provides a level of continuity between your sessions. In the following, we’ll show you why this matters and what else you need to know for this slot.
Wild Viking Queen Symbol
The name of the game comes from the queen of the vikings. Accordingly, it’s not surprising that she shows up as the wild symbol. She’s draped in gold and appears as if she’s on a boat with the water and sun rising behind her. As you can see, she’s as regal as they come, and she offers the best payline-based wins in the game:
- Five of a Kind – 200x
- Four of a Kind – 20x
- Three of a Kind – 2.8x
- Two of a Kind – 0.4x
Something you’ll notice here is that she pays for just two of a kind. However, she’s not the only symbol to do so. Several other top-level symbols do the same thing, which really helps with the hit-rate of the game as a whole.
Each individual payline is considered independently in the Viking Queen video slot when determining payouts. As a result, you can have situations where a wild behaves one way for one line while the same exact wild acts a different way on the other. We want to point this out in case you see it at some point and get a bit confused. It’s designed to be this way so that you can always get the best payouts possible based on the symbols that landed on the game board.
Shield Collection Meter
On the far-left side of the game board, you will see a meter that extends vertically. At the bottom is your current multiplier that you would be given if you triggered the free spins. However, at the top is the next available multiplier that you’re working toward. You move this symbol up to achieve the next multiplier with the shield collection meter.
Every single time one of the shields lands on the board, it increments your meter a bit. Additionally, when it increments far enough, it will increase the multiplier and reset. A total of 10 different shields can be found on the reels, but it doesn’t matter which you get. They all behave essentially the same. However, after they’re collected, they all turn into scattered free spins symbols as well.
Viking Queen Free Spins
Even though you can get more than one of the golden free spins symbols on a reel at once, you can only get up to five on the game board simultaneously. However, you only need three (or more) to trigger a set of 10 free spins.
These free spins are granted the multiplier shown in the bottom-left corner at the lower end of the shield meter.
However, there’s a bit more to it than that. The meter will also reset once the feature is over, but you can also re-trigger. What’s great is that your options to re-trigger and extend the feature are much wider than the way you start the feature off in the first place.
When you get the following numbers of scatters on the board during the Viking Queen free spins bonus, you’re given additional free turns added to your total:
- Five of a Kind – 50 free spins
- Four of a Kind – 20 free spins
- Three of a Kind – 10 free spins
- Two of a Kind – 5 free spins
- One of a Kind – 2 free spins
This means that any number of scatters at all gives you more free turns. That’s a really great way that Microgaming has boosted up the value of this feature and made it worth waiting for.
How to Win at Viking Queen
On the regular pay table, you get a higher hit-rate than average. A lot of this has to do with the number of symbols that pay for just two of a kind. Additionally, as we noted above, this includes the wild symbols. However, between the shield collection multipliers and free spin re-triggers, the bonus feature brings a lot of volatility to the table. These two components combine and result in a medium volatility overall.
As a result, we really don’t think you should be adjusting your bet size that much. We mean this in comparison to what you’d normally wager with. However, we do want you to understand how important it is to eventually get to the free spins mode. A lot of value is tied up in those shield multipliers over time.
Payout Structure for Viking Queen
The magical animals are the best-paying non-wilds. It starts with the bear that gives you 40x for five of a kind. From there, a 14x win is yours for five of the green wolf, and it’s 14x for five of the purple lynx. All of those pay for two of a kind or more.
From there, players can earn 10x for five of the claw or chalice symbols. Pays drop a little further for the 8x win you can earn for five of the red A or turquoise K. With the purple Q and green J, your available win is 4.8x for five of a kind. Finally, both the blue 10 and violet 9 get you 2.4x when you line up five on a payline.
Overview
The hit-rate of the regular game mode in the Viking Queen slot is serious enough that players won’t get bored waiting on the free spins mode to hit. Also worth noting, the presentation of this title is exceptional and boosts the overall play style, especially with how the shield collection ties into both the gameplay and aesthetic appeal.
We don’t see a lot of Viking-themed slots that stand out to us, but this one definitely did. Produced by GONG Gaming Technologies and distributed by Microgaming, this is the kind of game that gets outside of the box a bit without being too over the top about it. Another game that’s like this is the Buffalo King Megaways edition that removes the collection component and adds more ways to win.
FAQ
Which online casinos have Viking Queen?
Use the list of Viking Queen casinos to see all online casinos that have Viking Queen. We filter the casino top list to only show Viking Queen casinos that accept players from your location.
What is the Return to Player (RTP) for Viking Queen?
The Viking Queen RTP is 96.92%. An RTP of 96.92% puts Viking Queen among slots with an average Return to Players. To be a high RTP slot it would have to be 98% or more.