Immortal Glory: Overview

If there’s one civilisation modern Europeans owe a huge cultural debt to, it’s the Ancient Greeks. Of course, some would argue today’s crowd are doing a pretty good job of collecting on that debt. But let’s steer clear of politics and focus on something far more fun: reviewing the Ancient Greek-themed slot Immortal Glory from Microgaming partner Just For The Win.

For sports lovers, the Ancient Greeks’ standout legacy is the Olympic Games, which continue today on a scale bigger than ever. Once limited to the Hellenic world, the modern Olympics now involve almost every nation. Some fans are so devoted they’d probably watch tiddlywinks if it made the programme. That competitive energy is exactly what Immortal Glory aims to capture. This Olympic-inspired slot transports players back to the glory days of Ancient Greece, where the ultimate prize is a sizeable fixed jackpot.

Players take their mark by choosing a stake from 10 p/c to $/€25 per spin, with the action set inside a grand old stadium backed by dramatic music and roaring crowds. You can join in too—if only with a polite golf clap—thanks to a slightly above-average RTP of 96.19%. Here it’s win or walk away, with volatility that JFTW rates as very high, and it certainly plays that way. The punishing volatility, paired with a hit rate of 21.6%, makes this a tough contest.

Pressing spin gets the 5-reel, 4-row grid rolling, where wins are formed across 40 fixed paylines. Payouts land when three or more matching symbols connect consecutively starting from the first reel.

The paytable is made up of four low-paying 1×1 tiles and three premium symbols sized 1×4. Legend says Ancient Greek athletes competed without clothing, but there’s none of that here. Instead, the low pays come as sandals, discuses, shot puts, and a winner’s wreath, while the high pays are three fully dressed athletes—a discus thrower, a runner, and a shot putter. As noted, the premium symbols are all 4 rows tall, meaning they can cover entire reels and even deliver full-grid wins. The top symbol is a buxom female shot putter, paying 5 times the stake for 5 of a kind, or 200x for a full screen.

Wilds pay the same as the shot putt premium at 5 times the stake for a five-symbol line. These flaming torch wilds only appear stacked four rows high and substitute for anything except jackpot symbols.

Immortal Glory: Features

Jackpots rule the arena, though there are a couple of other mechanics worth noting, including free spins and glory spins. Let’s start with the headline act: the jackpot feature. The process is straightforward on paper, though far harder to pull off in practice. It begins by landing bonus symbols, which can appear on reels 1, 3, and 5.

When all 3 land, the game switches to a new screen where players pick one of three covered statues. There are three possible results—Bronze, Silver, and Gold—paying 20x, 100x, or an enormous 10,000 times your stake respectively.

Wild stacks drive the free spins round. If wild stacks are fully or partially visible on the 1st reel and on one other reel, then 5 free spins are awarded. In free spins, wild stacks turn into nudging wild stacks that remain on the reels but drop down one position each spin until they slide off the grid.

If at least one nudging wild stack is partially visible on the final free spin, then a Glory Spin triggers. Any nudging wild that’s fully visible disappears, while any that’s only partially visible is nudged to cover the entire reel. After that, any wins on the glory spin receive a random multiplier of 2x, 3x, 5x, or 10x.

Immortal Glory: Verdict

You don’t have to look far to realise there aren’t many slots built around the Ancient Olympics, so credit to Just For The Win for taking a less common route. Even with the distinctive theme, Immortal Glory largely revolves around the Gold Jackpot and not much else. Still, if you land a glory spin and it hits with a 10x multiplier, you could potentially reach 2,000x. Then again, like the real Olympics, nobody talks about second place.

The base game can feel slow at times, though stacked symbols help keep things moving, even if the payouts are kept in check by relatively low values. We may have run into a cold streak during testing, but triggering free spins felt almost mythical. After a long stretch, it genuinely seemed like Just for the Win had listed them on the paytable but forgot to include them in the actual game. When they finally arrived, we got a glimpse of how Usain Bolt might have felt breaking the 100m world record. In practice, free spins were usually decent, but we rarely managed to unlock a glory spin. As with the rest of the slot, free spins play second fiddle to the Gold Jackpot.

When those three jackpot symbols do appear, the adrenaline kicks in fast. It seems so simple—just choose the correct option from three for a massive win—how difficult can it be? Naturally, it’s rarely that straightforward. One interesting detail is that the game’s statistical data was produced from over one trillion simulated spins. It would be fascinating to know how often the 10k jackpot landed in that run.

Overall, Immortal Glory has flashes of excitement and should appeal to anyone looking for a very highly volatile slot with a solid fixed jackpot, a handful of decent features, and a setting you don’t see every day.