Cannonade!: Slot Overview

Slot developer Yggdrasil Gaming has already shown it knows its way around piratey, high-seas themes, as demonstrated in Pirates Smugglers Paradise and Pirates 2: Mutiny. The crew now returns with another ocean-going release called Cannonade! For anyone curious, Google defines a cannonade as “a period of continuous heavy gunfire”, which instantly conjures images of old galleons closing in before unleashing every cannon they had. Considering the thunderous blasts, cannonballs ripping through sails, and splintering timber, it must have been a truly frightening spectacle—especially since, if your ship went down, there was no phone signal or rescue helicopter on the way.

Back to Cannonade!, which offers a more romanticised take on naval conflict, centred on dropping anchor, hunting treasure, and fending off pirates. The action plays out on a 5-reel, 6-row layout, set aboard a cannon-packed vessel decorated with carvings and sails. At the beginning of the base game, half of the reel positions (15) are active, with the remaining half inactive and covered by blocker tiles. Those inactive spots can be unlocked as winning ways begin to land. Around the grid, the scene shows ships rocking on the sea beneath a brooding, cloud-heavy sky that shifts into a blazing sunrise or sunset on the horizon, almost like a Turner canvas. It’s classic swashbuckling stuff—let’s move along.

Playable across devices, Cannonade! can be approached in a few different ways depending on the jurisdiction. The simplest is to choose a stake from 20 p/c to $/€20 and fire off spins. Another option is switching on the Golden Bet, which increases the stake by 50% in exchange for extra scatter symbols appearing on the reels, improving the odds of reaching free spins. The third route is purchasing free spins outright. In every case, the top return to player figure appears to be 96% (though lower versions may exist), and volatility is labelled as ‘Super High’.

With the default half-active, half-blocked setup, the game offers 120 ways to win, climbing to 7,776 once every position has been opened up. Payouts land when matching symbols connect on neighbouring reels from the left side of the grid. There are ten paying symbols in total. The first six are axes, rifles, cannons, swords, and pistols, returning 0.2 to 0.3x for five of a kind, followed by four nautical character symbols paying 0.4 to 2 times the stake for five of a kind. Finally, it’s worth noting there are no wild symbols anywhere in Cannonade!

Cannonade!: Slot Features

Whenever winning ways land, they activate Cannonade!’s Win Streak feature. Any symbols involved in the win become locked in place, and one blocked position on the reels where they appeared is removed, letting fresh symbols drop into that space. Next, the newly opened positions respin. If additional wins occur, those symbols also lock, remove blocked positions from their reels, and trigger another respin. When multiple symbol types form wins at once, the lowest-paying winning symbol is upgraded to match the highest-paying locked symbol. The sequence keeps going until no new winning symbol appears, after which the win is totalled.

Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols in a single spin awards 6, 9, or 12 free spins, respectively. Before the round begins, players may be given the choice to gambling them for a shot at more, or to accept the amount won and enter the feature immediately. The gamble uses a wheel split into red and green sections. Hitting green grants +3 free spins, while red wipes out the entire free spins award. Win Streaks continue during free spins with the same rules as in the base game, except for one change. In the bonus, each time a scatter lands it adds +1 free spins, and the lowest paying symbol is removed from the reels.

Buy Bonus

Where offered, Cannonade! includes two bonus buy options. You can pay 100x the bet to receive 6 free spins, or 500x the bet to receive 15 free spins.

Cannonade!: Slot Verdict

The Streak Wins/sticky win style isn’t everywhere, but it does resurface from time to time. NetEnt helped bring it into the spotlight in classics like Jack Hammer and Long Pao, Quickspin used it in Blue Fortune, and Thunderkick applied it in Odin’s Gamble. If those titles were your kind of thing, Cannonade! is another one to try. It applies the sticking-symbols-and-respins idea in ways that are rarely seen, if ever, while keeping the core process intact. All of this plays out in an engaging maritime backdrop which, while not the most original theme, is generally executed well enough to deliver a sense of salty peril—though the rapid jumps between phases can feel a bit sudden.

As for Win Streaks, the notable twist is pairing them with blocker tile removal, opening up space for extra symbols and increasing ways to win as you go. Cannonade! clearly offers far more potential winning routes than the earlier examples, and peeling away blocker tiles can be gratifying. On top of that, there’s the possibility—though it wasn’t straightforward during testing—of stripping lower-paying symbols from the reels in free spins, which in theory improves the odds of chaining higher-value symbol streaks. When it comes to payout potential, Cannonade! puts up a strong number too, with the loading screen advertising wins of up to 20,000x the bet.

Overall, Cannonade! looks like a compelling pick for players who enjoy this kind of build-and-lock gameplay. It didn’t come across as quite as polished as some of Yggdrasil’s A* slots, though that impression may have been coloured by memories of Calavera Crush, which—despite being a totally different game—oddly sprang to mind. Still, Cannonade! brings some genuinely inventive touches, and if this win-building approach appeals to you, it’s well worth a go.