Kingdom of the Dead: Slot Overview

As the English pop group Tears for Fears once put it, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’. Still, anyone keen on taking over might be less thrilled by the idea of presiding over a realm of the deceased. Even so, Kingdom of the Dead is the title of an online slot created by Pragmatic Play alongside partner studio Reel Kingdom. Add an extra ‘of’ and you can almost sense Ra lurking nearby… and that’s exactly the vibe here. Kingdom of the Dead is very much a ‘Book of’ style slot, but it spices things up with two different expanding-symbol bonus rounds, and players get to decide which one is used.

Two things stood out after a quick look at Kingdom of the Dead. First, the character resembling the Ridiculously Photogenic Guy meme from earlier Reel Kingdom ‘Book’ slots – Return of the Dead and Book of Kingdoms – is no longer around. Instead, the game goes with a tougher-looking, more cartoon-styled adventurer. Second, it immediately shows that familiar Reel Kingdom visual identity, which is oddly difficult to describe. It’s a studio-specific feel that somehow comes across as both retro and modern at once, if that makes sense. Maybe it’s an acquired taste, but it also makes the game instantly recognisable as a Reel Kingdom release.

Kingdom of the Dead gives would-be explorers three different ways to play. The first is standard spins, wagering 10 p/c tp $/€250 per paid round. Alternatively, activating the Ante Bet makes stakes increase by 50% in exchange for an extra chance of getting scatters. The third option is to purchase the free spins feature for 120x the bet. All three approaches come with a maximum return to player of 96.07%, and Kingdom of the Dead uses a highly volatile math model.

The layout uses 5 reels and 3 rows, with 10 fixed bet lines to form winning combinations. The lower-paying symbols award wins for 3 to 5 OAK and are made up of 10 to A card ranks. Higher-paying symbols deliver payouts for 2 to 5 of a kind and include a scarab, Anubis, a Pharaoh, and an adventurer. Landing a 5-of-a-kind line pays 10 to 15 times the bet for the royals or 75 to 500 times the bet for the premium symbols.

Kingdom of the Dead: Slot Features

Sticking to the usual formula, Kingdom of the Dead’s book symbol acts as wild and the scatter. When used as a wild, book symbols replace any standard symbol. When they land as scatters, hitting 3, 4, or 5 of them pays 2x, 20x, or 200x the bet, respectively, and also starts the free spins feature. When free spins begin, 10 free spins are awarded, and players can pick one of two options:

• Fixed Mystery symbol – one random pay symbol is chosen at the start of the feature to act as the special expanding symbol.
• Random Mystery symbol – on every free spin, a random pay symbol is selected to be the special expanding symbol.

In free spins, once any normal wins have been paid, if the special expanding symbol can form a win, it will expand to cover all positions on their reel. Expanded symbols pay all lines, and from any position, meaning they don’t need to land next to each other or follow adjacency rules. Landing 3 or more book scatters during the feature adds +10 free spins under the currently selected Mystery option. There is no cap on how many times the feature can retrigger.

Kingdom of the Dead: Slot Verdict

Kingdom of the Dead opens with the line ‘The Legend Continues’, and at first it wasn’t entirely clear what Reel Kingdom was getting at. Most likely it points to Kingdom of the Dead carrying on the ‘Book’ slot tradition, or perhaps it’s about Reel Kingdom continuing to add its own entries to that lineage. Maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither—either way, here we are with another Egyptian-themed online slot built around expanding symbols that pay all lines from anywhere.

There’s also a slightly puzzling choice of wording in calling the two bonus rounds ‘Mystery symbol’ options. These aren’t quite the same type of ‘mystery symbols’ you often see in other slots, because Kingdom of the Dead sits firmly within the ‘Book of’ framework. It has the Egyptian skin, familiar genre iconography, a bold adventure theme, and all the usual trimmings. For players who prefer the classic approach, Kingdom of the Dead largely delivers exactly that.

The main twist is that, once the feature is triggered or bought, players can choose which bonus round they want. One follows the more traditional route, while the other adds a heavier dose of randomness, almost like a controlled bit of chaos. Each has pros and cons, so which is the better pick? Go with the standard option and you might end up with a symbol you don’t want, or the opposite could happen. Choose the random option and simply see what unfolds. It’s the kind of call where you can’t really know if you made the right choice until it’s all over. Still, a bit of variety is never a bad thing, and Kingdom of the Dead offers some of that. Another positive is its above-average potential of 10,000x the bet.

All things considered, Kingdom of the Dead lands more on the positive side than the negative, and fans of this format likely won’t feel short-changed choosing it over many of the numerous alternatives out there. On the other hand, it doesn’t do anything especially groundbreaking either, so with so many similar titles releasing, it may struggle to stand out for long.