Shifting Seas Slot Review

Shifting Seas Slot RTP, Details & Wager Limits

The Shifting Seas slot is played with 6 reels and up to 117,649 ways to win. Not a Megaways game, you’ll begin with 6 reels in a 4x4x3x3x2x2 format. This gives you 576 ways to win. You can find out below how to get the maximum number of Pay Ways (or ways to win). 3, 4, 5 or 6 matching symbols on consecutive reels, in any position and starting from reel 1, will give you a winning combination.

Bet options vary between 10p and £100 per spin. There’s a Bet box which, when selection, will display all stake levels. If you’re outside the UK, there is an Auto Play option where up to 5,000 auto spins can be chosen.

The Shifting Seas RTP is 96.15% which is about normal for a Thunderkick slot and, importantly, higher than the 96% industry average for online video slots. The volatility is extremely high and classed at 9/10 by the provider.

In terms of win potential, the max win is 15,000 x your total bet per spin. The bigger wins will come from the Wild Reel feature in the free spins.

Theme – get ready to embark on an action-packed pirate adventure

With a pirate theme, the Shifting Seas slot takes you on an action-packed sea adventure. With an idyllic deserted island in the backdrop, the graphics are high definition but have a soft and cartoon-like appearance. It’s a world away from the setting in the iconic Cast Away film which starred Tom Hanks.

Colourful and fun appearance wise, symbols on the reels include low value A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 royals. Then you have parrots, buccaneers, pirates, pirate captains and treasure chests. The treasure chest is the most rewarding symbol with 1, 2, 2.5 or 5 x your total bet awarded for 3, 4, 5 or 6 in combination.

You’ll also find a standard wild symbol that substitutes for all symbols mentioned above. Other symbols include the pirate ship bonus scatter, the Shark Symbol Rush, Octopus Wild Surge and Wave Boost Shift. The latter 3 are known as Special Wild feature symbols. Here’s a table highlighting payouts and information on all symbols you’ll come across:

Symbol	Payouts/Info
9	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 or 0.5 x bet
10	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 or 0.5 x bet
J	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 or 0.5 x bet
Q	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.2, 0.3, 0.5 or 0.7 x bet
K	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.2, 0.3, 0.5 or 0.7 x bet
A	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.3, 0.4, 0.6 or 0.8 x bet
Parrot	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.4, 0.5, 0.7 or 1 x bet
Buccaneer	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.4, 0.5, 0.8 or 1.2 x bet
Pirate	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.4, 0.5, 0.9 or 1.4 x bet
Pirate Captain	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.5, 0.8, 1.2 or 1.8 x bet
Treasure Chest	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 1, 2, 2.5 or 5 x bet
Standard Wild	Substitutes for all paying symbols
Symbol Rush Wild	Triggers Symbol Rush feature
Wild Surge Wild	Triggers Wild Surge feature
Boost Shift Wild	Triggers Boost Shift feature
Pirate Ship Bonus Scatter	Triggers Free Spins Bonus feature

Shifting Seas Mobile

Made using the latest HTML5 technology, Shifting Seas is available to play on mobile, tablet, PC and laptop devices. The crystal clear graphics and the layout suit a larger device but it’s perfectly playable on smartphones, including ones that operate with iOS, Android and Windows.

Shifting Seas Bonus Features

With 7 bonus features, the Shifting Seas slot offers plenty of variety. There are Shift Wins that increase the reel height by 1 up to 117,649 ways to win. Get a Shift Win with a Special Wild feature symbol to trigger various extras. There are also free spins with a shifting Wild Reel that sees the multiplier increase each time.

Avalanche feature

When a winning combination is created, the Avalanche feature is triggered. All symbols part of the win are replaces with new and/or existing symbols dropping from above. The avalanches continue as long as there is a new winning combination/pay way win.

Shift Win feature

Furthermore, every winning combination and every Boost Shift (more details below) will trigger the Shift Win feature. The rightmost reel disappears and a new reel appears on the left-hand-side. With every shift, the reel height increases by 1 symbol for each reel. This means the reel height for each reel can reach 7, resulting in 117,649 ways to win.

Special Wild features

The Special Wild features are activated when a Special Wild feature symbol is part of a win or pushed out of the game area. The corresponding Special Wild feature is then triggered. If you get multiple features, they will play out in the following order: Boost Shift, Symbol Rush and Wild Surge (feature). Here’s what they entail:

Boost Shift feature: this results in an extra reel shift that enables a new reel to be added to the leftmost position of the game area. The new reel is the same height as the reel that was previously located as reel 1. If the new reel height is higher than the previous reel, a new symbol is added on top of the reel. This will result in more ways to win.

Symbol Rush feature: 4 to 8 symbols are randomly transformed on any reel into new identical symbols. This can result in many instances of the same randomly chosen symbol.

Wild Surge feature: 1 to 3 symbols are randomly transformed on any reel into wild symbols. Again, this can lead to many wild symbols being present on the reels.

Free Spins Bonus feature

The Free Spins Bonus feature is triggered when a Shift Win pushes out the Pirate Ship Bonus scatter. 8 free spins are then won and will play out once the Shift Win feature has concluded. During the feature, a Shift Win will award 4 additional free spins if the Pirate Ship Bonus scatter is pushed out.

More importantly, the Wild Reel feature can be triggered randomly on any reel. First appearing on reel 1, the Wild Reel feature moves 1 position to the right after a Shift Win.

Beginning with a 1x multiplier, a Shift Win pushes out the Wild Reel to then appear on the leftmost reel. This then increases the multiplier by 1 as well as give you 1 additional free spin. This can lead to an unlimited multiplier and infinite free spins if you continue to get Shift Wins with the Wild Reel.

Shifting Seas Review Summary – Megaways has clearly walked the plank

The Shifting Seas slot is aesthetically well crafted but doesn’t stand out in a very crowded field. In terms of the gameplay, there’s more than a hint of Megaways about it with the cascading/avalanche wins and potential for 117,649 ways to win.

However, Thunderkick has incorporated the Shift Win feature where the rightmost reel is removed a new reel appears as reel 1 with growing reel height. Offering more ways to win (up to 117,649), the Special Wild features keep things ticking along. I particularly like the Wild Surge feature as 3 symbol types can become wilds.

The bigger wins will come from the free spins as Wild Reels with increasing multipliers come into play. This is where the top payouts, of up to 15,000 x your total bet, are most likely to derive from. Megaways slots do offer increasing multipliers but Thunderkick has tweaked things to incorporate multipliers into a shifting wild reel.

Have Thunderkick done enough to stand out with Shifting Seas? In my opinion, yes. The way the bonus features play out is unique and different. However, the max win potential falls short of that on offer in many Megaways titles.

For example, Big Time Gaming’s Pirate Pays Megaways has plenty of bonus features, increasing multipliers in the Kraken Bonus feature (free spins), a higher RTP of 96.23% and importantly 104,400 x bet top wins.