Forging Wilds: Slot Overview

Heating metal until it glows and then hammering it into shape isn’t something you see every day anymore, though it seems to be making a comeback thanks to demand for custom metalwork. If you’ve ever fancied smashing red-hot steel but could do without the sweat and scorching temperatures, you can channel that urge on the reels in Pragmatic Play’s slot, Forging Wilds. Your bankroll could still end up flattened, but at least you’ll avoid the burns while you forge wild symbols, set off respins, and potentially smash your way into the Forging Wilds Respin bonus round.

If blacksmithing feels like a relic of the past, Forging Wilds leans into that idea even more by wrapping it in a fantasy, sword-and-sorcery vibe. There isn’t much actual sorcery going on, but the action takes place in a stone-walled, castle-like chamber with a bearded warrior-type figure, while the hammer scatters look distinctly Mjölnir-inspired. The Vikings Forge-style mood is weighty and deliberate, aiming to capture the feel of hammering hot metal as sparks scatter everywhere. Probably.

Forging Wilds runs on 5 reels and 3 rows, with 20 paylines fixed in place to calculate wins. Anyone ready to start forging can set stakes from 20 c to $/€240, and there are two bonus buys available for players who’d rather bypass the base game routine. With highly volatile gameplay, the top RTP configuration for Forging Wilds is the 96.52% model.

Low-paying symbols are the Jack to Ace card ranks, awarding 2x to 2.5x the bet for landing 5 OAK. Above them are an air blower, an anvil, a helmet, and a warrior, which return 10 to 40 times the bet for 5 matching symbols across a payline. Wilds can appear on any reel and pay the same as the warrior (or maybe he’s the blacksmith?). Wilds also replace any standard paying symbols to help form winning lines.

Forging Wilds: Slot Features

In this game, “forging” wilds essentially means turning them sticky and attaching win multipliers to them. This mechanic can occur in the base game as well as during the Forging Wild Respins round, which is also available via purchase.

Forging Wilds

Whenever a wild lands, once any wins have been paid, it can randomly become forged. If it does, a respin is awarded, with the wild locked in place and receiving +1 added to its multiplier. After each respin, the wild may stay forged and have its multiplier increase or it may revert to an unforged state. Respins stop when there are no forged wilds left on the reels. Wild multipliers affect any winning combinations they contribute to, and if multiple wilds are involved in the same win, their multiplier values are added together.

Forging Wild Respins

Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols activates the free respins feature with a starting pool of 5, 10, or 15 wild symbols. On every respin, a random number of wilds may be drawn from the pool and placed onto the reels in random positions. These wilds may become forged. The feature ends when there are no more wilds in the pool and no more forged wilds remaining on the screen. Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols awards +5, +10, or +15 wild symbols to the pool. During the bonus, wilds do not appear on the reel strips and can only enter play via the pool.

Feature Buy

The respins feature can be purchased directly from the base game; 75x the bet awards a bonus round triggered by 3-5 scatters, while 550x awards a bonus round triggered by 5 scatter symbols.

Forging Wilds: Slot Verdict

That was perfectly decent. Pragmatic Play has a knack for generating loads of concepts—most landing somewhere between average and very good, with the occasional standout. Considering how many releases the studio pushes out, you can imagine the idea sessions at Pragmatic Play HQ being intense, with suggestions flying in from everywhere and ending up on a whiteboard packed with notes and arrows connecting everything like a TV crime-scene board. Even producing one reasonably solid concept can be tough, yet Pragmatic Play manages it regularly, usually dressing those ideas up in appealing themes.

Not every time, of course, and partner Reel Kingdom sometimes feels like a wildcard stirring in extra unpredictability. Still, the overall presentation is typically reliable, and that holds true for Forging Wilds. The core Forging Wilds mechanic blends wilds, multipliers, and respins in a satisfying way. Then, once free respins kick in, the wild pool system takes over to ramp up the pressure, capped off with a 10,000x the bet maximum win as the final incentive. Even so, while Forging Wilds is well put together, it didn’t quite earn a “must-play” stamp. Seeing the reels packed with forged wilds wasn’t especially common—three or four felt like the usual ceiling, which kept the combined multipliers in check. Wilds dropping into the bottom-right corner was a letdown, and the game rarely gave the sense it might suddenly erupt into a burst of sparks and coins.

Still, results can swing the other way, and the next player could easily find Forging Wilds delivering the kind of edge-of-your-seat moments it’s built for. Overall, it’s a good slot, just not one that sparked a huge wave of excitement.