Guardian of Athens: Slot Overview

After the strong reception of their 2018 title Eastern Emeralds, Swedish studio Quickspin has essentially run that Asian-themed slot through a reskin machine and released it as Guardian of Athens. The Far Eastern koi and turtles have been traded for the togas and marble statuary of Ancient Greece. Both themes are fairly familiar, but as with the original, it’s the mechanics and the figures that matter most. On that front, Guardian of Athens delivers, even if the years since have dulled the surprise factor that Eastern Emeralds‘ stats created at launch.

In case there was any uncertainty, Athena is the guardian at the heart of the story, and legend says her role as Athens’ protector is how she earned her name. Others claim the reverse—that the city took its name from the goddess. We’ll leave the academics to it and stick to the slot. Visually, Guardian of Athens polishes up the simple style of its predecessor. Gameplay runs on a 5-reel, 3-row layout with 20 bet lines for forming wins. Set outside a temple to Athena, two bright white statues frame the reels, and once free spins begin, the view scrolls upward into a more celestial setting. Up there, players face the same 4 bonus choices that made Eastern Emeralds such a tough call. The difficulty comes from the fact that each option follows different rules, creating very different levels of risk and potential payout.

To reach those features, you’ll first choose a stake, with options running from 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin. Because Guardian of Athens is a direct reskin, the underlying stats are unchanged. That includes a highly volatility model (Quickspin rates it 5 out of 5) and a strong RTP of 96.58%. For players hunting huge payouts, the headline remains the same: a 16,000x max win, supported by plenty of wild multipliers that can help push results upward.

As before, the standard pay rules apply: you win when three or more matching symbols land along a payline. Everything carries a Greek flavour this time, including the 10-A royals styled with that sharp, classical font. Above them sit Golden Age-inspired icons such as xiphe, owls, plumed helmets, a horn of coins, and a golden vase surrounded by more coins. Payouts aren’t enormous on their own, so the multipliers are key to boosting returns, with 5-of-a-kind premium lines paying 3-7.5x the bet.

Guardian of Athens: Slot Features

Wild multipliers are the real key to landing monster results in Guardian of Athens, and Quickspin has designed a clever system that can strongly reward players willing to embrace the risk. Starting with the wilds: they substitute for standard pay symbols to help complete winning combinations. The twist is that they also carry multiplier values based on which reel they land on. In the base game, wilds appearing on reels 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 have values of x1, x2, x3, x4, or x5 respectively. Their power comes from the fact that when 2 or more multipliers wilds land on the same winning line, their values are multiplied.

Quickspin expands on this in the free spins round, which starts when 3 scatter symbols land on the middle three reels. That activates the Fate Bonus, where players select one of four options.

• 6 free spins with multipliers of 5x-8x on reels 2-5.
• 9 free spins with multipliers of 4x-7x on reels 2-5.
• 12 free spins with multipliers of 3x-6x on reels 2-5.
• 15 free spins with multipliers of 2x-5x on reels 2-5.

The risk/reward balance is clear: fewer spins means higher volatility, but also the chance of much bigger hits. That’s because the full-line multiplier potential shifts dramatically, with the 6, 9, 12, or 15 free spins options capable of generating multipliers of x120, x360, x840, or x1,680 respectively.

Guardian of Athens: Slot Verdict

A lot has changed since Eastern Emeralds arrived in 2018, so Guardian of Athens doesn’t land with quite the same punch as its Asian-themed counterpart did back then. Quickspin has released plenty of other slots since, many with big potential and smart feature design. Still, that doesn’t take away from Guardian of Athens, which delivers the same kind of fun as the game it’s based on—just wrapped in a new theme.

Even with all the multipliers on offer, Guardian of Athens is every bit as challenging as the original. Scatters often show up as frustrating singles or pairs, and while free spins can trigger more often than you might assume, you shouldn’t expect huge returns every time—bonus rounds can easily come and go with only moderate payouts. That said, when two or three wild multipliers land in the right spots, the results can be genuinely exciting.

The theme may be different, but the main attraction is still the maximum payout potential, which stays at 16,003x the bet in the 6 free spin option – observed in 100 billion spins. That was an enormous number when Eastern Emeralds first launched and remains very impressive today, even if several newer slots have surpassed it. Even so, Eastern Emeralds has proven its potential in the real world, as shown in Casumo’s monthly biggest wins blog posts.

Guardian of Athens may not introduce anything fresh, but it executes what it offers extremely well. And given how popular the original was with players, there’s little reason to think Guardian of Athens won’t find the same audience.