Cubes 2: Slot Overview

Developer Hacksaw Gaming adds a new title to its catalogue with its first-ever sequel. Cubes 2 continues the highly playable Cubes slot, which proved to be a notable success for the studio. Cubes and Cubes 2 don’t behave like standard slots because there aren’t traditional reels, nor much in the way of spinning. Instead, the concept feels like a grid slot crossed with a Rubik’s Cube and a touch of Tetris. If that sounds a bit like a novelty, the reality is that the gameplay can be surprisingly addictive.

In typical Hacksaw Gaming fashion, Cubes 2 arrives with a pared-back, retro-leaning presentation that doesn’t immediately scream for attention: a simple 5×5 grid of multi-coloured blocks sits over an equally understated backdrop. Still, visuals aren’t the point here, and Hacksaw is excellent at getting a lot of mileage out of minimal ingredients. The most noticeable tweak is that the ‘X’ has shifted from the centre to the four outer corners. As before, ‘X’ symbols activate a couple of mechanics when they’re part of a win.

Pocketz games, as they are referred to by Hacksaw, are built with mobile play at the forefront, so on a smartphone the grid is essentially the entire view. On a bigger display, Cubes 2 doesn’t open up much more visually, aside from bonus rounds where a fresh 3D animation has been included. Don’t expect anything extravagant, though, since the emphasis stays firmly on making the cube symbols do the work.

As mentioned, Cubes 2 runs smoothly across devices, with stakes ranging from 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin. In the move from a more casual feel to something far more aggressive, volatility has been pushed up from medium to high, rated 5 out of 5. The RTP setup has dipped ever so slightly from 96.35% to 96.33%. Oddly, rather than boosting RTP as is often seen, the bonus buy option uses a lower configuration of 96.30%. Whether that’s tied to the feature’s volatility is anyone’s guess.

Looking at the paytable, it’s as straightforward as it gets: six plain square tiles and nothing else – there are no scatters or wilds here. Every symbol carries the same payout range, from 0.10x for five of a kind up to 40x for clusters containing 25+ matching coloured blocks.

Cubes 2: Slot Features

Cubes 2 keeps everything the original offered, but expands on it significantly. At its core, you’re aiming to link at least five identical symbols of the same colour anywhere on the grid. When a winning combo lands (with a frequency of 15.68%), the play area expands by 1 cube in every direction, forming a 7×7 sized grid. These expansions continue on back-to-back hits until the grid reaches a maximum of 11×11 in size. Once no further wins appear, the grid returns to the standard 5×5 layout for the next spin.

Corner multipliers come next. When a winning cluster includes one of the cubes marked with an ‘X’, the ‘X’ transforms into the total number of symbols in that winning cluster. The resulting payout is then multiplied by this value. If the same winning cluster touches more than one ‘X’, the multipliers are added together before being applied.

The free spins feature in Cubes 2 activates when 5 cluster wins made up of different colours occurs in a spin sequence – 5 free spins are initially awarded and, before the round begins, several cubes appear for players to select. The numbers revealed add free spins until your designated colour appears, which ends the picking stage and starts the free spins. During the feature, any wins made of the chosen colour become sticky. In addition, the grid does not reset between spins, meaning if you reach the maximum 11×11 setup, it remains at that size. Another key element of free spins is the Color Blast feature; if 50, 70, or 90 sticky blocks of the chosen colour are present on the grid, an instant prize of 500x, 2,500x, or 7,000x the bet is paid.

The second bonus round is Multi Color free spins, which triggers when all corners of the grid show the same colour on the initial spin. Once again, players choose cubes before the feature begins to set both the number of free spins and which block colours will be sticky. The rules match the previous bonus, except the Color Blast does not appear.

A final addition that should please certain Cubes fans is the feature buy. There are 2 choices: Multi Color free spins for 109x the bet, or free spins for 129x the total stake. Alternatively, landing a bonus naturally occurs once every 223 spins on average.

Cubes 2: Slot Verdict

Cubes is the type of game that doesn’t instantly seem like it needs a sequel, yet after spending time with part 2, the reasoning becomes clear. Hacksaw has smartly kept or refined what made the first game so engaging, then layered in extra touches that make the follow-up feel far more complete. Cubes already played like a fun, wager-based take on Tetris (arguably more so than the actual Tetris slot), but Cubes 2 pushes that sensation further.

Anyone who enjoyed the style and vibe of Cubes but felt put off by its medium volatility or merely decent potential should give this one a look. Cubes 2 does a lot to address those limitations. The math model hits harder, opening the door to much bigger returns – 7,500x in Multi-Color free spins, or 11,000x in free spins.

From a gameplay perspective, the standout moment is building a large sticky cluster early in a bonus and then collecting repeated wins from it. When you get into that kind of rhythm, it becomes genuinely difficult to stop playing. That’s even more true if you also manage to land a Color Blast reward along the way, which happened a couple of times during testing.

It doesn’t take many spins for the contrast between the two Cubes games to show. The visuals may be largely familiar, but Cubes 2 improves on the original in virtually every other area, resulting in a much more dangerous game overall. Cubes one still fits perfectly for a quick session on the commute, but if you want a stronger hit of lethality, Cubes 2 is simply bigger in every sense.