Banquet of Dead: Slot Overview

Oddly, considering how dominant they are, it had been some time since a ‘book of’ slot landed on the review table—so it makes sense that Play’n GO would be the one to deliver. This is the same studio that brought Book of Dead, Legacy of Dead, and Ghost of Dead to players, so it clearly knows its way around both books and the afterlife. There are so many titles in this mould now that coming up with fresh words to sit either side of the ‘of’ must be getting tricky. Here, Play’n GO goes with Banquet of Dead, which—unless you’re absolutely starving—doesn’t exactly sound delicious, but let’s dig in.

Most likely, Banquet of Dead refers to a ceremonial feast for the departed rather than anything grimly sinister, and the food scattered around the chamber looks more everyday than exotic. The game is steeped in Ancient Egypt, naturally—the same backdrop that helped Book or Ra kick off this style of slot years ago, and a theme Play’n GO knows well. Visually, Banquet of Dead is a polished production with a clear Book of Dead feel, even if it doesn’t aim to overwhelm with spectacle. It looks good, but that familiar sense of “haven’t I seen this before?” does hang around.

For reasons that likely boil down to tradition (or nostalgia), Banquet of Dead expresses many figures in coins. When setting your stake, you can select a coin value of 1 c to $/€2 and choose how many coins to wager from 1 to 5. Converted into cash, that equals 10 c to $/€100 per spin. Staying true to the classic format, the game uses 5 reels, 3 rows, and 10 paylines. The default RTP is 96%, and Banquet of Dead is built on a highly volatile model.

Looking at the paytable, the 10 to A card ranks serve as the low-paying symbols, joined by what appears to be a fan, a dish of food, a crocodile statue, and a Cleopatra-like character. Low symbols require at least 3 OAK to pay, while the premiums return wins from 2 OAK and up. Payouts range from 10x to 20x the bet for 5 matching card ranks, and from 60 to 150 times the bet for a full line of 5 premium symbols.

Banquet of Dead: Slot Features

As it turns out, the Hourglass scatter in Banquet of Dead also acts as a wild, meaning it can replace any regular pay symbol that isn’t expanded. On top of that, landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols awards 2.5x, 25x, or 150x the bet, respectively, along with 7 free spins (landing 2 scatters returns 0.5x the bet, but no free spins are triggered).

Free Spins

For the free spins feature, a special expanding pay symbol is randomly chosen. Once wins have been calculated, the special symbol can expand to cover all positions on its reel. Special symbols only expand when doing so results in a win. The upside is that expanded symbols pay from any reel position across all paylines—gaps between them don’t matter. During the feature, hitting 3 or more scatters retriggers +3 additional free spins, and you can reach up to 30 at the most.

After a spin, when the special symbols expand, the current lowest value low pay symbol (10, J, Q, Q, or A) is removed from the game from the next free spin onward. If the symbol removed happens to be the special expanding symbol, then a new special symbol is randomly chosen from the remaining non-scatter symbols.

Gamble Feature

There’s also an optional gamble round where players can try to boost their winnings. Guess the correct colour of a face-down card to double the prize, or guess the suit to quadruple it. The gamble round can be won up to 5 times consecutively, up to a cap of 2,500 coins.

Banquet of Dead: Slot Verdict

Play’n GO struck gold with Book of Dead, and in the spirit of following up a blockbuster, the studio has revisited the formula repeatedly—reworking it into a long line of ‘book’ slots with different tweaks and angles. Some entries have stood out more than others, depending on whether their features and presentation made the experience feel sharper or more forgettable. Banquet of Dead isn’t a wild explosion of originality, but it does manage to separate itself in a few notable ways.

The biggest hook for players who like to swing for the fences is the unusually large maximum win of 35,000 times the bet. If 5Ks or even 10Ks no longer feel exciting in this genre, chasing Banquet of Dead’s 35K could be exactly what you’re looking for. That said, max wins in Play’n GO slots aren’t something you see every day, so it’s sensible to treat those figures with a bit of caution.

In terms of pure enjoyment, Banquet of Dead didn’t automatically feel more entertaining than Legacy of Dead, which introduces special symbols rather than stripping out the lowest royals from the reels. Still, it’s easy to see how this removal mechanic could become genuinely fun if you manage to narrow the free spins round down until only premium symbols remain. It’s a pity it stops at the high pays—the idea of clearing everything except the single top-value symbol is a head-spinning thought.

Maybe another time. As it stands, once you set aside the huge win potential—which many players won’t come close to, let alone hit—Banquet of Dead does lose a bit of its sparkle. What remains is still perfectly solid, though, so if you’re in the mood for another Ancient Egypt outing with expanding special symbols and a small twist on the formula, Banquet of Dead is worth considering.