Blazing Wilds Megaways

Anyone sick to death of those joker-filled, jazzy, jammin’, classic slot numbers best be turning their eyes away now. The reason why is that developer Pragmatic Play has designed Blazing Wilds Megaways, an online slot possessing just about all of the things mentioned in the first sentence. It’s not, in other words, the most original-looking or sounding game. However, it has as its showpiece feature something relatively original-ish, in the form of an expanding upwards wild feature, which also grants a multiplier equal to the number of wilds on the reel – double when its free spins round is active.

But first, the joker-filled, jazzy, jammin’, classic outer shell. Okay, maybe ‘filled’ is an over statement, as but one joker slash harlequin character resides here all wide hipped and thin waisted, holding up a card with a heart on it, standing next to the reels the way Zues hovers in Gates of Olympus, though with both of her feet on the ground. As for jazzy, that side of Blazing Wilds Megaways is supplied by flashing lights and a funky disco bass-heavy soundtrack. It’s all a bit overly plasticky, but presumably, this will be just the thing for players in the mood for a game of this style.

Blazing Wilds Megaways plays out on a 6-reel Megaways set where 2 to 7 symbols may land on each reel, providing up to 117,649 ways to win. The top four position reel is not one of those tracker reels where regular pay symbols, wilds, or scatters land. Instead, this is where multiplier values are displayed when created by the wild feature, coming up soon. The game runs on a highly volatile math model, available in several RTP settings where the default value is 96.06% – when betting 20 c to $/€240 on individual paid rounds.

Typical of Megaways slots, the tumble mechanic means that winning symbols are removed after they have created a win, and the empty gaps this procedure causes are filled with symbols tumbling from above. Runs of consecutive tumble wins end when no new win appears. All pay symbols award wins left to right from the leftmost reel onwards, and there are 10 of them in total. They include 10-A card ranks, then a ring, money, a gold-filled box, sevens, and diamonds. Hitting a 6 OAK royal win pays 0.5 to 1 times the bet, while the same result made up of high pays is worth 1.25 5 times the bet. Wilds hit on reels 2 to 5, substituting for all pay symbols, and trigger the Expanding Wild feature when they land.

Blazing Wilds Megaways: Slot Features

Blazing Wilds Megaways gets its name from its expanding wilds features, which accompanies free spins, and a bonus buy option.

Expanding Wild

Whenever a wild symbol lands, extra wilds are added above it up until they reach the top of the reel. After this expansion has taken place, a multiplier appears in the box above the reel, which is equal to the number of wilds on the reel. All wins passing through the expanded wilds are subjected to the multiplier. If more than one multiplier is present on screen at the same time, they multiply between themselves. After each tumble, if the wilds that made them are used in a winning combination, the multipliers are removed.

Free Spins

In the base game, hitting 4, 5, or 6 scatters awards players 15, 20, or 25 free spins. During free spins, all multipliers made by expanding wilds are double the amount of the wilds on each reel. Free spins cannot be retriggered.

Buy Free Spins

For 100 times the bet, players can buy the free spins round, randomly activated by 4, 5, or 6 scatters on the triggering spin. When buying free spins, the RTP drops to 95.93%.

Blazing Wilds Megaways: Slot Verdict

Blazing Wilds Megaways is a textbook Pragmatic Play slot with a relatively new (not that new) clever idea in the base game, which gets a leg up once free spins are triggered. The Expanding Wild feature being the clever idea. Usually, wilds spread downwards, obeying the laws of gravity rather than spreading upwards like a newborn bird first spreading its wings to fly. This is newish for a Megaways game, perhaps, but expanding upwards wilds have been seen before in a slot like Hacksaw Gaming’s Beast Below with its Expanding Sirens feature. Both slots give their expanding upward wilds multipliers, too, though, on an individual wild basis, Beast Below wins this round since the multiplier can reach as high as x200.

However, Blazing Wilds Megaways has a lot more ways to win, plus a tumble feature, and its multipliers are not additive. Having a lineup of extras like this means the action can get rather wild, a tad blazing, when the action’s unfolding well. There is some debate, though, whether injecting multipliers into free spins this way is better than the more orthodox rising multiplier after winning cascade method. Perhaps for some, it is; at the very least, Blazing Wilds Megaways offers a different and potentially exciting way of using multipliers. Patience might be required to compare the two methods, though, since a free spins frequency of 1 in 369 means bonus rounds theoretically won’t arise super often.

In the end, Blazing Wilds Megaways has a characteristic Pragmatic Play game show gloss and an interesting feature to check out, making it worth a look if a jazzy joker game held on a Megaways panel is of personal interest, plus the 10,000x the bet win cap isn’t a bad figure to aim for either.