Lightning Viking

Bravery, heroism, stormy seas and vengeful gods – Viking-themed slots have it covered, and that’s before we come to the plundering! But there’s nothing particularly dark about Lightning Viking, aside from the colour of the reels.

This is an epic-style game but with minimal animations, so there’s none of the blood and gore that sometimes accompanies this theme.

Design

Cloudy skies, towering cliffs and pounding waves form the backdrop to Lightning Viking, although there are no animations to distract from the reels.

Game symbols are well crafted, and making the playing card icons look like rune stones is a nice touch that plays into the theme. There’s an epic soundtrack too, which helps to add in some extra atmosphere.

Gameplay

There are three separate Wild symbols in Lightning Viking, although two of them only put in an appearance during the free spins bonus round. The standard Wild appears throughout the game, but only appears on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5, where it helps to create wins.

Landing 3, 4, 5 or 6 Scatters awards 10, 12, 15 or 20 free spins respectively. Throughout the bonus, any standard Wild leaves a frame behind for the remainder of the bonus round. During the feature two additional Wilds come into play:

• Viking Helmet Wild: only lands on reel 1
• Viking Hammer: only lands on reel 5

When both special Wilds land on the same free spin, all Wild frames become Wild, which can generate some impressive wins. And if you manage to fill all 16 spaces on reels 2 – 5 with Wild frames, you’ll be awarded a Lightning Spin. You’re guaranteed to land both special Wilds on reels 1 and 6, leading to big wins.

Win Potential

Playing card icons depicted as runes return up to 3x your stake, with drinking horns and rings paying up to 5x. The fur-clad barbarian pays up to 8x, and the woman up to 10x, while the Viking warrior rewards you with up to 20x your bet.

The Lightning Spin offers the best-winning potential – a 50-payline win at 20x the bet means you could pocket up to 1,000x your stake. According to the developers, the maximum win for this slot is £250,000 which works out at about 5,000x the stake.

This is a medium-volatility slot, so it should be suitable for most players, but the RTP is a little lower than we’d like, coming in below 96%.

Gamble Feature

The optional Gamble feature can be set to On, Off or 5x, in which case it activates for any win worth 5x the bet or more. Two wheels are shown, one giving options to gamble in the hope of increasing your win by a third, to double it or to triple it.

The other wheel offers the chance to win free spins - but be careful, as landing in the red section means you forfeit your win and return to the game empty-handed.

Our Verdict

If you love playing Viking-themed slots then you’re definitely going to want to give Lightning Viking a try. As you’d expect from Inspired Entertainment, the game has been perfectly executed, with some interesting bonus features.

We particularly liked the Wild frames that add extra levels of excitement to the bonus round. And the option to Gamble wins is a feature that’s bound to attract players who want to be able to maximise every win.