Forging Wilds

Forging Wilds: Slot Overview

The act of heating metal till it's glowing hot then physically beating it into a desired shape might be less common than it was in the past, but the activity is apparently experiencing a revival due to a demand for bespoke metal art. If you've ever had the urge to bash hot bits of metal but aren't keen on the physical labour or the heat, why not live out those fantasies on the reels in Pragmatic Play's slot, Forging Wilds? Your wallet might get pummelled into pig iron, but at least you won't suffer burns as you go about forging wild symbols, triggering respins, or even hammering your way into the Forging Wilds Respin bonus round.

If blacksmithing is perceived as an activity of the past, then Forging Wilds emphasises this thought process further by being a fantasy, sword and sorcery style game. Well, there's not really any sorcery, but Forging Wilds is held in a stone-block castle-style room featuring a bearded warrior-type character, and its hammer scatters have a Mj?lnir look to them. The Vikings Forge-style atmosphere has a heavy plod to it, capturing the essence of taking a hammer to hot metal as sparks fly about. Presumably.

Forging Wilds spins 5 reels and 3 rows along with 20 paylines welded on to work out winning combinations. Players looking to forge something can choose a stake of 20 c to $/€240 and pick from two bonus buys if they'd like to skip the base game formalities. Highly volatile, the most desirable RTP model for Forging Wilds is the 96.52% one.

Jack to Ace card ranks are Forging Wilds' lesser value pay symbols, worth 2x to 2.5x the bet for a 5 OAK combination. Next is an air blower, an anvil, a helmet, and a warrior, paying 10 to 40 times the bet for 5 matching symbols in a line. Wilds may land on any reel and have the same value as the warrior (or is he a blacksmith?). Wilds also substitute any regular pay symbols to help complete wins.

Forging Wilds: Slot Features

Actually forging wild symbols around here means making them sticky and giving them win multipliers. This effect is available to players in the base game and in the Forging Wild Respins round, which can be bought.

Forging Wilds

When a wild symbol hits, after wins have been dealt with, it may randomly become forged. If so, a respin occurs with the wild locked in place and getting +1 added to its multiplier. After each respin, the wild may stay forged and have its multiplier increase or become unforged. Respins end when there are no more forged wilds on the reels. Wild multipliers apply to winning combinations they are included in, and multiplier values are added if more than one is part of a win.

Forging Wild Respins

Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols triggers the free respins round with a starting pool of 5, 10, or 15 wild symbols. On each respin, a random number of wilds can be taken from the pool and added to the screen in random positions. These wilds may become forged. The round ends when there are no more wilds in the pool and no more forged wilds on the screen. Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols adds +5, +10, or +15 wild symbols to the pool. Wild symbols are not present on reel strips during the bonus and can only be added from the pool.

Feature Buy

It is possible to buy the respins round from the base game; 75x the bet gets you a bonus round triggered by 3-5 scatters, while 550x gets you a bonus round triggered by 5 scatter symbols.

Forging Wilds: Slot Verdict

Well, that was fine. Pragmatic Play is very good at coming up with a lot of ideas, most of them of average to above average quality, a few are even exceptional. Given how many slots the studio produces, brainstorming sessions at Pragmatic Play HQ must be extraordinary, with ideas pouring forth from all corners, ending up on a whiteboard smothered in writing with arrows linking concepts together like one of those crime boards on the telly. Coming up with just one semi-decent idea can be challenging, but Pragmatic Play does so on a consistent basis while also draping those ideas in attractive skins.

Not always, of course, and partner Reel Kingdom is there like a trickster entity adding randomness. But on the whole, production values are generally solid, as they are in Forging Wilds. The actual Forging Wilds feature ties wilds, multipliers, and respins together nicely, for starters. Later, when free respins are active, the wild pool concept takes over to tighten the screw, with a 10,000x the bet win cap as a final sweetener. And yet, while Forging Wilds is a competent game it didn't have the mark of greatness stamped on it. Getting masses of forged wilds on the screen didn't happen a whole lot; three or four was about the most, limiting their combined multiplier values. Wilds landing in the bottom right-hand corner was sad, and the game just didn't feel like it was going to explode into a shower of sparks and coins at any moment.

But who knows, the next person in line might experience the complete opposite since Forging Wilds does have the tools to dispatch white-knuckle action. A good game, then, but not one that created a massive storm of interest.