Big Bass Christmas Bash: Slot Overview

Ever felt like you missed the big get-together that everyone you know seems to have attended? Not ideal. In slot terms, if you skipped the previous Big Bass Xmas reskin, Pragmatic Play and partner Reel Kingdom are offering another go. It’s called Big Bass Christmas Bash, and it’s essentially a rework of 2022’s Big Bass Splash (it was even originally set to be named Big Bass Splash Xmas) — the one featuring the huge-wheeled monster truck. Beyond the holiday-themed refresh, it plays almost exactly like the earlier game (with extra betting options), so if you’re up for another round, you may as well cast the lure and see how it goes.

With this new look, Big Bass Christmas Bash is set in a more wintry scene than before. The surface appears frozen, and beneath it, Christmas-themed objects are scattered across the lakebed (or riverbed, or wherever we’re meant to be). The soundtrack matches the vibe too — shut your eyes and it’s easy to picture walking through a shopping mall right before Christmas, double-checking you’ve ticked off every gift on your list. Getting it done early is best, of course, if you want to avoid the last-minute scramble for whatever’s still on the shelves. Put simply, Big Bass Christmas Bash is Big Bass Splash with a Christmas coating, end of story.

Big Bass Christmas Bash uses bubble-separated 5 reel strips, each showing 3 rows and running across 10 paylines. Volatility remains high, and the RTP stays fixed at 96.71% — whether you’re wagering 10 c to $/€250 per spin, switching on the ante bet, or purchasing free spins. Turning on the ante bet increases the stake by 50%, which gives a higher chance of naturally triggering free spins.

The pay symbol lineup is largely familiar too. Low symbols are the 10 to A card ranks, followed by fish, a tackle box, dragonfly, rod, and a bulldozer as the premium icons. Alright, that last one’s a change. Payouts work out to 5-10x the bet for a 5 OAK low-pay hit, or 20x to 200x the bet when 5 matching high pays form a winning line.

Big Bass Christmas Bash: Slot Features

Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols triggers Big Bass Christmas Bash and awards 10, 15, or 20 free spins. This is the mode where fish money symbols may be collected. Fish can land with values of 2x to 5,000x the bet, and each Fisherman on the screen collects their prizes. The Fisherman also acts as a wild, substituting for any regular pay symbol, though wilds only show up during free spins. In the base game, if 2 scatters land, there’s a chance another scatter is brought into view using these two methods:

• If the scatters can move down one position without exiting the play area, a respin is activated where the reels containing scatters drop down one position, while the reels without scatters respin.
• A hook may pull one of the reels to uncover an additional scatter.

Before free spins begin, 0 to 5 modifiers affecting the round are randomly chosen from the following list:

• More Fish – additional fish symbols appear on the reels.
• More Fisherman – extra wild symbols appear on the reels.
• More Dynamite, Hooks, and Bazookas – the likelihood of landing these is increased.
• Start From Level 2 – the progressive feature begins at level 2.
• +2 Spins – the round starts with 2 extra free spins, and 2 more free spins are added to every retrigger.

Wild symbols are collected when they land during free spins. Each time 4 collected wilds retriggers the feature, you receive +10 free spins plus a multiplier for the money collection feature: x2 at level 2, x3 at level 3, and x10 at level 4. Any retriggered spins are played after the current set finishes, and the multiplier applies to those retriggered spins. Once level 4 is reached, further retriggers are no longer possible.

Randomly, when Fisherman symbols are on the reel but no fish, fish symbols may randomly appear through the dynamite spin feature. Likewise, if fish symbols are in view but no Fisherman, then at the end of the free spins, randomly, a hook may appear to pull a Fisherman into view. Also at random, when Fisherman symbols are in view but no fish, a bazooka transforms every symbol on the screen except Fisherman symbols into something else.

Finally, free spins can be purchased for 100x the bet. This triggers the round with 3, 4, or 5 scatters.

Big Bass Christmas Bash: Slot Verdict

Where does it stop? Honestly, where does it stop? It doesn’t, does it? We’re going to be flooded with fishing slots until people stop gambling or the universe reaches heat death (assuming that theory holds up). And it certainly won’t be Pragmatic Play or Reel Kingdom stepping away from the whole fish craze. Remember, this is the same crew that already delivered seasonal entries like Christmas Big Bass Bonanza and Big Bass Halloween. Now they’re back with another holiday release: Big Bass Christmas Bash. If you’ve already played Big Bass Splash, there’s not much to report beyond presents, jingling tunes, extra betting options, and similar touches.

For fans of fish slots who never got around to Big Bass Splash, there still isn’t a ton more to say. Big Bass Christmas Bash doesn’t offer loads of base-game thrills, since most of the added mechanics are saved for when free spins land. Yes, it runs the familiar money collection setup, and the fish symbol values can be pretty hefty as well. As in Big Bass Bonanza, the Fisherman collector symbol is collected too, with the aim of bringing cash collection multipliers into the mix, along with extra spins. Big Bass Christmas Bash raises the win potential compared to Big Bass Bonanza, pushing it to more than double at 5,000x the bet (or 3,334 when the ante bet is active), and you also have those modifiers — or none at all — depending on what’s assigned before free spins begin.

Just days before encountering Big Bass Christmas Bash, we looked at Nolimit City’s Ugliest Catch slot; not long after came Yggdrasil Gaming’s Nice Catch 2 DoubleMax, and the month before had plenty of fish as well. The point is, fish slots are everywhere, and while Big Bass Christmas Bash is a decent Christmas-themed take, it also felt like a bit of a slog at times.