Battleship Direct Hit Megaways (WMS/Red7): Overview

The straightforward two-player strategy game Battleship goes back to the 1930s, when people played it with pencil and paper, before it later became a plastic board game in 1967 under Milton Bradley. These days, there’s no need to buy the physical set, because you can jump into this online slot created by WMS and Red7. Battleship Direct Hit! drops you right into the conflict, cruising the open seas as you hunt down enemy battleships. With the strong production values Red7 has brought to the table, it’s even more engaging to play. The concept also stands out, taking the tension of the classic board game and pushing it further.

Once you start spinning, you’ll be playing on 6 reels with up to 7 rows. On top of that, Battleship Direct Hit uses the well-known Megaways engine, so as many as 117,649 ways to win may be active on any spin. It’s available on all devices, with stakes ranging from 0.10 and €/$100 per spin.

Looking at the presentation in Battleship Direct Hit!, Red7 has clearly packed in some eye-catching visuals. Behind the reels sits your own battleship as you sail out to track the opposing fleet. On both sides of the reels, cannons sweep from left to right while searching for targets. The reels themselves hold the game symbols, starting with standard card ranks from 9 up to A. After those come four medal icons: the first three show bronze, silver, and gold stars, while the fourth displays a gold star with two smaller gold stars beside it. The top-paying regular symbol, however, is the one featuring the battleship outline, which can pay up to 6 times your stake per single payline.

Battleship Direct Hit Megaways (WMS/Red7): Features

Even if you enjoy the theme and the core spins, the game really relies on its built-in mechanics to feel complete. First up are the Cascading Wins. This triggers whenever you land a win. All symbols involved in the winning combo are removed and “sunk,” leaving gaps on the reels that are filled as new symbols drop in from above. If fresh wins appear, the cascade repeats again. This keeps going until no further wins can be created.

Turret Fire is another mechanic included in Battleship Direct Hit!, and it can trigger at random after any base game spin ends. It happens before any payouts are calculated. When it activates, the turrets blast the reels, wiping out lower-value symbols and replacing them with higher-paying alternatives.

You can also encounter Missile Symbols on the reels. When they show up, they fire straight upward toward the target positioned above the reels. If your missiles manage to destroy every section of the target ship, you’ll also earn a batch of Free Spins. The amount depends on which ships you hit, with up to 50 available to win this way.

During the Free Spins round, Missile Symbols can still appear. In addition, sinking ships can award jackpot prizes and extra spins (up to five extra spins or one of the four large jackpot totals). The jackpots are displayed to the right of the reels as the Mini, Minor, Major and Grand jackpots (with the Grand paying 2,500 times your stake). On top of that, the wild symbol is now introduced to help build winning combinations—it’s only available in the free spins round, and only on reels 2 through to 5.

Battleship Direct Hit Megaways (WMS/Red7): Verdict

For anyone who grew up playing Battleship, the theme will naturally hit a nostalgic note. That said, the slot doesn’t come close to matching the fun of the original board game. One major issue is that the Megaways concept feels heavily compromised by capping the maximum win at just 2,500x. When this title was released, WMS likely didn’t fully anticipate what players would expect from a Megaways slot. Although the action is fairly enjoyable and the overall build quality is solid, Battleship Direct Hit! ultimately fails to land its shot.