North Guardians Slot Review

North Guardians Slot RTP, Details & Wager Limits

The North Guardians slot is played on a 5×5 grid with 50 paylines. Winning combinations are formed when 3 or more matching symbols appear from left to right across any of the paylines. It looks like a grid slot but it’s not.

Stakes vary between 50p and £100 per spin. The minimum bet is quite high compared to most online slot games (the average is between 10p and 20p a spin). If you want to change your stake, click on the plus and minus buttons either side of the main ‘Spin’ button. For non-UK players, there’s a Quick/Turbo Mode for faster spins and an Autoplay facility.

The North Guardians RTP is 96.38% which is slightly below the customary 96.5% we’ve come to expect from a Pragmatic Play release. It’s still above the 96% average though. The volatility is very high (5/5).

In terms of exposure, the most you can win is 5,000 x your total stake. This can be achieved during the free spins where you’ll play with special reels.

Theme – Valhalla calls

With a Norse mythology theme, the North Guardians slot sees you join vikings battle in the middle on a blizzard. Fantastically designed, I instantly thought of the Game of Thrones TV series and the lands beyond the Wall guarded by the Night’s Watch.

With an uplifting and harrowing soundtrack with strong winds blowing, symbols include 5 lower value rune stones. The higher value symbols include axes, shields, horns, coins and 2 Viking warrior characters. The male Viking warrior is the best paying symbol with 3, 4 or 5 in combination paying 0.52, 3 or 10 x your total bet.

Odin the wild symbol and substitutes for all symbols except the Free Spins scatter. Appearing on all 5 reels, 3, 4 or 5 awards 0.6, 4 or 15 x your total stake respectively.

Symbol	Payouts/Info
Rune Stone 1	3, 4 or 5 = 0.04, 0.12 or 0.48 x stake
Rune Stone 2	3, 4 or 5 = 0.04, 0.12 or 0.48 x stake
Rune Stone 3	3, 4 or 5 = 0.04, 0.12 or 0.48 x stake
Rune Stone 4	3, 4 or 5 = 0.08, 0.2 or 0.8 x stake
Rune Stone 5	3, 4 or 5 = 0.08, 0.2 or 0.8 x stake
Axe	3, 4 or 5 = 0.12, 0.24 or 1.2 x stake
Shield	3, 4 or 5 = 0.16, 0.4 or 1.6 x stake
Horn	3, 4 or 5 = 0.2, 0.8 or 2.4 x stake
Coin	3, 4 or 5 = 0.24, 1.6 or 3.6 x stake
Female Viking Warrior	3, 4 or 5 = 0.4, 2.4 or 6 x stake
Male Viking Warrior	3, 4 or 5 = 0.52, 3 or 10 x stake
Odin Wild	Substitutes for all symbols above
Free Spins Scatter	3+ triggers Free Spins feature

North Guardians Mobile

With high definition graphics and animations, you can enjoy North Guardians on mobile, tablet and/or desktop devices. This includes devices using iOS, Android, MAC and Windows operating systems. For the best visual and audio experience, a larger screen is always recommended.

North Guardians Bonus Features

The North Guardians slot has 3 bonus features. There is a Wild Patterns Wheel feature which is played when 2 halves of the rectangle appear on the same position in the base game. A wild pattern or Level Up applies. With each Level Up, the patterns are bigger are more lucrative. In the free spins, wild patterns apply on each free spin. Levelling up will see richer patterns and more free spins awarded.

Wild Patterns Wheel feature

In the base game, 2 halves of a marking rectangle appear beneath the symbols on the reels. On each spin, the 2 halves move randomly. If they stop of the same position, they will merge to form a full rectangle.

A wheel showing wild patterns starts spinning and will stop on a slice or a Level Up. If it lands on a wild pattern, this is then added on the reels, randomly. The wheel has 5 levels, each containing different wild patterns. When the Wild Patterns Wheel feature is triggered in the base game, 1 of the levels is chosen randomly.

When it comes to the levels, the higher the level, the more lucrative the wild pattern. At level 5, at least 18 wilds will be added to the reels. If you get the best possible wild pattern, you’ll benefit from a grid full of wilds.

Free Spins feature

The Free Spins feature is triggered when 3 or more Free Spins scatter symbols land anywhere on the reels. 3, 4 or 5 scatters will pay 2, 10 or 100 x your total bet respectively as well as 5 free spins.

On each free spin, the Wild Patterns Wheel spins and displays a wild pattern or a Level Up. That wild pattern is then added randomly to the reels. Every time a Level Up happens, additional free spins are awarded:

Finally, there’s a Buy Free Spins feature for non-UK players. For a cost of 100 x your total bet, you can gain entry into the Free Spins feature.

North Guardians Review Summary – wild patterns key to Valhalla

The North Guardians slot is very well designed for starters. I found it quite hard to land the 2 halves of the rectangle together in order to get a wild pattern or Level Up. When they do match up, you need to Level Up to level 3 or above to get any substantial wins.

The bigger wins will come in the free spins as the Level can only increase. If you manage to reach Levels 4 and 5, huge wins are possible. With max wins of 500 x stake per spin or free spin, the 5,000 x bet max win can be achieved in the Free Spins feature as a whole.

Highly volatile, the 96.38% RTP rate may not be as high as most Pragmatic Play slot games but it’s quite exciting in the free spins especially when you level up. I would say North Guardians is more suited to non-UK players as it has the Bonus Buy element.

Overall, North Guardians a good game but could of done with bigger max win potential for it to compete with slots sharing the same theme. Lastly, the minimum bet of 50p a spin may be a tad higher for most players.

If you like the Norse mythology theme, there are plenty of slots to choose from. Thunderstruck 2 by Games Global is the most popular and comes with 8,000 x bet max wins as well as 4 free spins features. Playtech’s Age of the Gods Norse: Book of Dwarves is also played on a 5×5 grid with 50 paylines but offers 10,000 x stake max wins and 3 progressive jackpots.