With the recent developments within the British gambling industry in mind, it’s hard not to think this release comes at the worst possible moment. The UK Gambling Commission, or the UKGC, is the body that grants licenses for casinos to operate in the UK, and they’ve recently ruled that cartoon-style characters can’t be used as a promotional tool.

Let’s begin with what’s obvious and what many people are likely already thinking. It’s fair to say it can come across as somewhat distasteful to push this far in trying to tap into a gambler’s inner child, subtly suggesting gambling is lighthearted and carefree. That feeling is even stronger when the game leans on characters from our childhood.

That said, we’re not here to preach—we’re really not. We enjoy slots and appreciate the creative freedom shown by different providers. It’s genuinely interesting to watch well-known brands, even Hugo, get adapted into slot form. So, distasteful? Possibly. But does it pay? That’s the more relevant question…

Hugo 2 is a 5-reel video slots with 10 fixed paylines. The game includes a wild symbol (Hugo), a freespin scatter symbol (Beaver) and a bonus scatter symbol (Evil Witch Afskylia). The wild symbol substitutes for any other reel symbol (except the scatter and bonus symbols) to help comprise winning combinations.

Base Game

The base game itself doesn’t offer a lot of punch and, honestly, it’s unlikely to stay exciting over time. The provider lists the volatility as “very high” and it does have a max win potential of 5000x, but to us it feels closer to a low-to-medium volatility slot.

Because both a picking bonus and a free spins feature are in play, you’ll get plenty of near-misses and tense moments, which helps offset how plain the base game can feel. The picking bonus tends to trigger fairly often, but that’s probably because it usually pays cheaply and doesn’t seem to hold a large share of the game’s payout potential.

Picking Bonus

Three or more Evil Witch Afskylia scatter symbols appearing on any reels will trigger the Skull Cavern bonus game where you choose paths inside the cave. Your objective is to reach the treasure chamber unharmed to unlock the treasure of Afskylia by picking the correct treasure key. Each chosen path can award monetary price, and finding the treasure at the end will award a total win multiplier depending how many lives you have left. 2x, 3x, 4x, or 5x of total win for 0, 1, 2, or 3 remaining lives.

Be careful of hazards that can send you to a deadly finish. Still, even if you fail, you’ll have extra lives to take another shot, since 3, 4, or 5 scatters will award you 1, 2, or 3 extra lives respectively.

Free Spins Feature

Three Beaver scatter symbols appearing on reels 1, 3, and 5 will trigger the Troll Race free spin feature. 10 initial free spins will be awarded, but 5 or 10 additional free spins can be won during feature. After reaching the maximum 20 free spins, there is a chance to enter into the Skull Cavern bonus game with 3 initial lives. All bets and lines are the same as the game that started the feature.

On each free spin, once the reels stop but before wins are shown, there’s a chance to pick up 0 to 2 wild items (the bag marked “W”). When you collect 4 or more, 4 wilds are placed onto the reels, replacing any 4 symbols, and 4 wild items are deducted from your collected total.

On each free spin, once the reels stop but before wins are shown, there’s also a chance to pick up 0 to 2 multiplier items (the coin marked “x2”). If you collect 4 or more, 4 x2 win multipliers are applied to any 4 symbols on the reels, and 4 multiplier items are removed from the collected multiplier items.

Conclusion

The default RTP on Hugo 2 is 96.53% but may be much lower playing on a non Maltese license. It’s already well known that PnG lets operators choose their own RTP within certain limits, and they’re probably not the only provider doing it. As frustrating as that can be, PnG deserves some credit for being open about it when others aren’t. This isn’t really a problem as long as you’re playing the game under the Maltese jurisdiction.

We’re not especially impressed with this slot—not due to the theme or anything like that, but because the base game is extremely dull and the picking bonus doesn’t appear to offer much upside. The Free Spins feature is the only truly engaging part, and it’s where the real potential sits.

From a production standpoint, the game is put together nicely and looks excellent. It also runs smoothly without irritating pauses between spins. Hugo 2 is definately an improvement over the first Hugo slot, and the overall potential is solid with a max win of 5000x.

The original Hugo slot ended up being unexpectedly popular with many viewers and some streamers in the casino streaming community—though some probably didn’t want to admit it. It’ll be interesting to see how this one performs.