John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen (Pragmatic Play): Overview

John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen is the third entry in Pragmatic Play’s slot series starring John Hunter, a thrill-seeking explorer who roams the globe hunting for forgotten treasures. Much like Play’n GO’s Rich Wilde—best known from the Novomatic rip-off Book of Dead—John Hunter has also attracted his share of controversy.

The debut title, Da Vinci’s Treasure, generated plenty of buzz after Pragmatic promoted a 48,000x maximum win that, unsurprisingly, nobody ever came anywhere near hitting. The follow-up, Aztec Treasure, raised eyebrows across the casino scene when it emerged as a blend of William Interactive’s classic Montezuma and Pragmatic’s own take on the Megaways engine (and they weren’t exactly the first to try that).

The third game, with the rather overlong name John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen, sends John to one of the most popular settings for both tourists and game studios alike—the pyramids of Giza. It runs on 5 reels with 25 paylines and leans on Pragmatic’s favourite Money symbol mechanic, which can award standard cash prizes as well as respins, expanding money symbols, and multipliers up to 25x. The free spins round takes it further, including the possibility of unlimited free spins. You can play John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen on any device with stakes from 0.20 to €/$125 per spin.

Backed by a steady Egyptian-style rhythm, the reels sit in a desert scene framed by ancient pyramids. The symbol set features low-paying J to A royals, plus higher-value leather bags, revolvers, the Egyptian god Anubis, and John Hunter himself as the top payer, awarding 32 times your stake for five across a full payline. Cleopatra acts as the wild and can land on every reel except the first.

John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen (Pragmatic Play): Features

John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen comes with a Money Collect mechanic. As you play, scarab symbols can appear on reels 1 to through 4 showing cash values. If you manage to land a collect scarab on reel 5 at the same time, then one of the following outcomes will trigger:

• Collect – all visible cash values are totalled and paid out.
• Extra Credit Collect – the value on this symbol is added to every money symbol in view and then paid.
• Multiplier Collect – the combined value of all collected money symbols is multiplied by up to 25x before payout.
• Expanding Collect – all money symbols on screen expand to fill their reels, effectively creating extra money symbols.
• Respin Collect – all money symbols remain locked while the other positions spin again, giving you another chance to land more money symbols.

The action ramps up when you hit at least 3 scatter symbols at once on the three middle reels, which triggers the Free Spins feature with 8 spins awarded initially. As outlined above, the money symbol feature is active here too, but with an extra twist.

Throughout the bonus, every money value collected is added into a pot shown in the top-right corner. After the final spin, the feature reaches its climax: a gigantic scarab money symbol drops in to cover the first 4 reels completely, then the 5th reel spins. If a collect symbol lands, you win the entire pot. Note that this pot can still be multiplied by up to 25x, which can produce wins above 10,000 times your stake. Also, landing 3 scatters awards 8 additional free spins, and there’s no cap on the number of retriggers.

John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen (Pragmatic Play): Verdict

In general, we’re not especially keen on cash prize symbol mechanics, but here it’s clear there’s an added layer that makes the feature far more engaging than usual. On top of that, with medium variance, it isn’t as punishing as some of its sister titles—particularly when set against Da Vinci’s Treasure.

John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen stands out as one of Pragmatic’s stronger recent releases and arguably the best of the John Hunter series, even if not everyone will agree. Either way, it’s refreshing to see Pragmatic deliver something that feels distinctly their own, and they’ve pulled it off nicely in this one.