Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair (Thunderkick): Overview

Swedish studio Thunderkick is set to roll out a set of five traditional-style slots aimed at delivering an intense, high-volatility ride. The developer bills them as games ‘made for the brave’—not just because the action can swing hard, but also because each title is built around a fearsome monster. Alongside that volatility comes respectable win potential, and with Thunderkick behind the wheel, you can also expect strong production quality, which adds to the appeal.

The first creature players face in Thunderkick’s series is the legendary Kraken, the deep-sea, octopus-like sentinel. It’s already the third slot this year to feature the ocean-dweller, so the shock factor isn’t quite as sharp as it could be. Even so, the concept has promise, and the Kraken’s Lair online slot arrives with a contemporary tweak that Thunderkick says helps it stand out. Time to find out.

Thunderkick positions the Beat the Beast lineup as a run of classic slots, and the initial look supports that with a standard 5 reel, 3 row layout running on 9 fixed paylines. Thunderkick often manages to make games that feel straightforward while still looking polished, and Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair continues that approach with clean, practical visuals that remain easy on the eye. The crisp HD symbols help, as does the moody underwater backdrop featuring wrecked ships on the seabed. Presumably, those vessels—and their crews—met the Kraken’s unforgiving grip.

Facing the beast means wagering from 10 p/c and go up to $/€100 per spin. The pay rules are uncomplicated. As in Sword of Khans, wins land with three low symbols or two premium symbols on a payline. The low tier consists of 10 – A royals, styled with a metallic, stone-like finish. Premiums include a trident, a pendant, a chest, and two Kraken symbols. The two Kraken icons are separated by a major value gap: the Gold Mid-Kraken is the smaller version and pays 50x the stake for five, while the purple “daddy” Kraken is far stronger at 500 times the stake for five of a kind. There’s also a Kraken-themed wild that doubles as a scatter, which we’ll cover next.

On the math side, the slot carries a dependable RTP of 96.12%, so the headline stat is in good shape. As a deliberately high-volatility game, expect stretches where the base game runs cold. Balancing that are occasional solid-paying hits along with feature drops. Importantly, features can trigger in the base game too, which keeps the pace moving and helps maintain engagement.

Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair (Thunderkick): Features

Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair includes some strong-paying symbols, but the biggest driver of top-end results is the Kraken Emblem. This gold icon does double duty as both wild and scatter. As a wild, it substitutes for any other symbol in the base game and the bonus game. When the Kraken Emblem forms part of a winning line, it activates the Expanding Win feature. Here, the regular symbols involved in that win expand to fill their entire reels, potentially creating additional winning combinations. This expansion can occur in both the base and bonus rounds.

Landing 3 or more Kraken Emblems triggers the bonus round, awarding 10 Free Spins. In addition to starting the feature, 3, 4, or 5 Emblems also pay 2x, 20x, and 200x the stake respectively. During the bonus game, a Kraken Emblem is randomly placed on the reels at the start of every spin. If 3 or more scatters appear while in free spins, they award another 10 free spins. Better still, there’s no cap on how many times the free spins can be retriggered.

Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair (Thunderkick): Verdict

Thanks to its high volatility paired with fairly strong rewards, Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair works well as an opening entry in the series. Thunderkick largely achieves its goal here: delivering a classic slot framework with a modern edge. It isn’t a fully original concept, and the twists aren’t entirely new either. The combined scatter/wild setup appeared in Sword of Khans, for instance, and so did the expanding-symbol idea. That said, the expansion rules here are adjusted slightly because of how the Kraken Emblem functions. Then there’s the win ceiling—at 7,777 times the stake it’s a healthy figure, though that sort of potential isn’t exactly rare within Thunderkick’s wider catalogue.

Even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, the end result is still an exciting, quick-moving slot with solid payout potential. It’s also only the beginning for the Beat the Beasts lineup. With four more monster-packed releases on the way, the series could develop in several directions. Its full impact will be clearer once the later titles arrive and can be judged together. For now, players get another dependable Kraken-themed slot to spin.

Be sure to take a look at Thunderkick’s second instalment in the Beat the Beast series, Mighty Sphinx – a 5-reel, 9-payline slot with potential for wins of over 4,000 times your stake.