Book of Vikings: Slot Overview

After ruling the dunes of Ancient Egypt for what seems like countless ages, the ever-present ‘Book of’ slot formula heads north into the colder reaches of Scandinavia. Pragmatic Play clearly decided to blend Book of Ra with Vikings, resulting in the straightforwardly named slot Book of Vikings. It’s difficult not to feel a touch cynical when you’ve seen this template so many times. Even so, Vikings are a slightly fresher fit for the book theme, so let’s see how this one measures up.

Unsurprisingly, play takes place on a familiar 5-reel, 10-payline layout set against a fjord-like backdrop, with sheer cliffs framing the grid. Longships rise and fall along the bottom of the screen, while flashes of lightning cut through a purple sky above. It’s suitably Viking in tone, giving the well-known mechanics room to do what they do best. The soundtrack is a little less impactful than the visuals, but it’s serviceable and doesn’t get in the way.

Playable on any device, Book of Vikings offers stakes from 10 p/c to $/€100 per spin. As expected, Book of Vikings is a highly volatile slot focused on landing scatter symbols to trigger free spins, since the base game has very little else to shake things up. The default RTP is a strong 96.5%, placing it among the more player-friendly ‘Book of’ options. Pragmatic also sensibly kept symbol values toward the higher end.

While chasing those hard-to-hit expanding symbol free spins, wins land when two or three matching symbols connect from the first reel onward. Three are required for the low-paying royals (10-A), which come with a pleasing visual flourish when they hit. This drops to two or more for the premium symbols: horns, helms, a fierce Viking warrioress, and a Chief sporting an impressive triple-plaited beard. Top-line payouts can be excellent when five of a kind appear, ranging from 75x up to 500x the bet – and these results become even more potent during free spins.

Book of Vikings: Slot Features

As with most ‘book of’ titles, the book symbol is the game’s most valuable icon for several reasons. First, it acts as the wild, substituting for any other symbol to complete winning combinations. Second, it also serves as the scatter, with 3, 4, or 5 landing on the reels awarding 10 free spins plus an additional payout of 2x, 20x, or 200x the bet respectively.

Before free spins begin, a book turns its pages to choose one of the pay symbols as the special expanding symbol. During free spins, once standard wins are paid, the chosen symbol expands vertically to fill all three positions on its reel. The key advantage is that the expanded symbol pays across all win ways, even when it appears in non-adjacent spots. A symbol will only expand when doing so creates a win.

The last bit of positive news is that landing 3 or more scatters during the bonus grants 10 extra free spins with the current special symbol. This can happen an unlimited number of times.

Book of Vikings: Slot Verdict

So, do the Vikings deliver as the main attraction? They perform just as well as any Pharaoh, scarab, or Egyptian deity, to be honest. In this kind of slot, the mechanics are what matter most, and Pragmatic Play largely stays out of the way so the formula can shine. Book of Vikings executes the concept as capably as most entries in this overcrowded genre, and arguably a bit better.

In a sense, Book of Vikings feels like the sort of release a smaller studio might use to get noticed, and you’d normally be more forgiving. Still, Pragmatic Play has at least done it with flair, and Book of Vikings is genuinely enjoyable from an audio/visual perspective. Small details—like animations on low-paying symbols when they contribute to a win—sit nicely alongside the fast, brooding clouds sweeping across the scene.

The gameplay is similarly entertaining, though that’s hardly surprising when it follows such a well-established blueprint. The good thing is Pragmatic Play hasn’t damaged the recipe by messing with symbol values or trying to reinvent it. Few things are worse than a studio ‘borrowing’ the Ra format and turning it into something that doesn’t play well. The features here will be familiar to most players, and they can be very rewarding when the right expanding symbol takes over the reels. If you’re new to it, be ready for a game where single spin wins of up to 5,000x the bet are possible.

Overall, Book of Vikings delivers classic ‘book’ slot action, and not much beyond that. It doesn’t bring much new to the category, but it also doesn’t detract from what fans already enjoy. If you like this style, Book of Vikings is a dependable alternative among the many Egyptian-themed takes on the formula.