Into the Storm is a feature fest of a game developed by SG Digital in which players climb aboard a Viking Longship and set sail for (hopefully) maritime riches. When traveling the ocean aboard a boat designed in the olden days, even landlubbers know they need to avoid storms. Fear not, as terrible weather in Into the Storm typically heralds the arrival of features like respin rounds with wandering wilds and streak respin rounds with the ingenious Kraken Hot Zone feature.
No matter how the rest of the day unfolds, SG Digital couldn’t have selected a better day to set sail. It’s a great day for digital plundering: the sky is generally clear, a brisk wind fills the sails, and the waves are rather calm. A five-reel, three-row gaming panel with 20 fixed paylines is set on a robust wooden ship. There isn’t much going on sonically, but when the effects do kick in, it really helps to elevate the action, so all in all, it’s a nice start, if a little simple, with a hint of the potential cyclogenesis to come.
Into the Storm is as moody as the weather and as quick to change as the Vikings themselves. The game has a maximum RTP of 96%, falling to 94% in some jurisdictions and even 90% in others. There is a wide range of betting options, from 20 percent up to £/€20 every spin, however it is suspected that the maximum wager has been kept relatively low to allow for the substantial potential on offer for lucky raiders.
When at least three identical symbols appear in a row, column, or diagonal, the looting begins from the leftmost edge of the grid and progresses clockwise. The low pays feature a set of five runes that, when lined up in a row, provide payouts of 1-2 times the initial wager. Next, three Viking figures and a random helmet make up the high payouts, awarding 4-20x the stake for a five-of-a-kind win line. Wilds are special tiles that only occur in the main game or during respins; their primary role is to replace the regular pay tiles whenever possible.
Slot Features for “Into the Storm”
Settle in as we discuss Walking Wild Respins, Krakens, and the Into the Storm Bonus that SG Digital has packed into this adventure.
Insane Reversals
Any regular spin has a chance of activating the respins function. When triggered, 2, 3, or 4 Walking Wilds are added to the reels and advance left or right by one place with each respin. Over conventional wild symbols, the Walking Wild adds a +1 multiplier for the duration of the feature. When there are no more visible Walking Wilds, the respins stop.
Bonus for Braving the Storm
If you get 3, 4, or 5 Kraken Bonus symbols while playing the standard base game, you’ll enter the bonus game and be given the choice of 1, 2, or 3 Kraken Hot Zones. There are 3 initial spins available in the Into the Storm Bonus game, which is played on a 9×5 field. Spins reveal either a blank space, a multiplier between x1 and x3, or a modifier symbol, which resets the spin counter to 3. Locking modifier or multiplier symbols reset the number of spins. Here are the effects of three of the modifiers:
Lightning acts as a hammer, doubling any number of multipliers.
The Gold Multiplier Treasure Chest stores the current values of all active gold multipliers.
The Viking Coin gives you one additional life.
The Kraken Hot Zone is the fourth adjuster. Depending on the amount of scatters that activated the feature, the Kraken symbols either appear on the reels or are given out as a prize. By adding multipliers between x2 and x5 in all of the neighboring cells, each Kraken generates a Hot Zone. By the way, they aren’t multiplication signs. Multipliers for Hot Zones add up to their total if they overlap. Whenever a real multiplier symbol lands in a Hot Zone position, the value of the multiplier is applied to the sign’s bet. If the grid is completely filled when the timer reaches zero, players earn 10,000 times their wager.
Get Your Hands on a Pass
Players can skip the normal entry process and go straight to the bonus game by using the Buy Pass option. The price for purchasing 3, 4, or 5 scatters is 105x, 145x, or 185x the wager, respectively.
Judgment in the Eye of the Storm
Is this another instance of the Viking Money Train? Into the Storm is not exactly that, but it is a solid streak respin game with some interesting new twists. Feels like it was built by the same team at SG Digital who created Rise of the Mountain King, or at least in the same vein. At first look, you could compare Into the Storm to Relax Gaming’s Sails of Fortune, but this slot has more than enough to offer gamers who enjoy the streak respin structure to keep them entertained.
The walking wilds respin function ensures that things are never boring in the base game. A distraction from the main event, to be sure, but nevertheless welcome. The storm does not pick up speed until the requisite number of Krakens strikes, starting the main bonus round. The Kraken Hot Zone concept is interesting, for example. Since regular multiplier symbols are only worth 1x-3x the stake without the help of Hot Zone, this feature is essential for winning amounts that are more than negligible. Even yet, the multipliers in the Kraken Hot Zone aren’t particularly high; at most, two x5s can stack to make an x25. This prompted frantic calculations, the result of which was the realization that one of Into the Storm’s flaws is that runners-up are extremely unlikely to come anywhere near 10,000x unless they win the entire grid. After getting the hang of things, a sense of restriction set in; this isn’t like the Money Train 2 bonus round, when a random special symbol might appear out of nowhere and send the game into orbit.
However, if you’re in the mood for some Viking-themed hold & win action, Into the Storm delivers. Expectations for racking up runaway bonus rounds, outside of complete grid hits, might stand to be tempered. Even while Into the Storm isn’t exactly in the running for best film, there’s still enough of material for streak re-editors to try to steal.
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