Mercy of the Gods (NetEnt): Review

Anyone who enjoyed NetEnt’s progressive jackpot slot Divine Fortune (2017) will immediately spot the familiar formula used here. Mercy of the Gods is very close to that title, launching first as an exclusive and later rolling out across all NetEnt casinos. Beyond the fresh theme, a few small paytable adjustments, and a 0.05% uplift in the theoretical return to player, there isn’t much to explore feature-wise if you already know the original—which, for the record, was a big success for NetEnt. That said, there are still a few key differences between the two, and we’ll point them out in this review.

Thanks to smaller—but more attainable—progressive jackpots, Divine Fortune has delivered plenty of major wins since launch, and it continues to do so regularly, as highlighted in Casumo’s monthly big win reports. In January 2019, one lucky player scored the 5th biggest win of the month by hitting a $109,272.44 jackpot; in February 2019, it produced the single biggest win on Casumo when a player landed a €45 107,63 win on a €0.40 stake; and in September last year we covered a story about a player who won $146k on a $1 spin!

Both Divine Fortune and Mercy of the Gods are local progressive jackpot slots, meaning the jackpots build only within the casino where the game is hosted, rather than across a network like the multi-million progressives Mega Fortune Dreams and Mega Moolah. While the totals are typically smaller, they’re also far more likely to be won.

Taking place in ancient Egypt and backed by a classic faux-Arabic soundtrack, Mercy of the Gods runs on 5 reels, 3 rows and 20 paylines. It includes the Gift of Life Re-Spins, where wilds drop down one position with each re-spin and continue as long as new wilds appear. The Gift of Double Wilds feature makes a wild expand to cover the entire reel for bigger wins and also re-triggers the re-spins. A Free Spins round is also available, where both of these features can occur, but for most players the main attraction is the progressive jackpot accessed via the Gift of Wealth Jackpot game. The betting range is 20 cents to 100€ per spin, and it’s playable on all devices.

Visually, it’s top-tier—something you can usually expect from NetEnt—and the level of detail is impressive. Framed by the entrance to a pyramid with Anubis statues on either side of the reels, the symbol set mixes low-value A to J royals with higher-paying Tutankhamun figures, scarab beetles, and Horus (God of the sky). The highest-paying symbol is the female explorer –  5 on a payline yields 80 times your stake. A wild symbol is also part of the lineup and substitutes for all regular symbols.

Mercy of the Gods (NetEnt): Features

The feature you’ll see most often is the Gift of Life Re-Spins feature. It activates whenever one or more wilds land in view. Each wild then shifts down by one row on every re-spin until it drops off the reels. If additional wilds appear, the re-spins keep going. If, during the Gift of Life Re-Spins, a wild lands behind another wild, it expands to cover the full reel and also re-triggers the Gift of Life Re-Spins feature. This expanded-wild mechanic is called the Gift of Double Wilds feature.

You can also trigger the Free Spins feature in Mercy of the Gods. Hit 3, 4 or 5 scatter symbols anywhere on the reels to receive 5, 8 or 12 free spins respectively. In this mode, only a single wild is needed to activate the Gift of Double Wilds feature, which then triggers the Gift of Life Re-Spins exactly as it does in the base game.

Finally—and arguably the main reason to play—there’s the Gift of Wealth Jackpot game. You enter the jackpot chamber when 3 or more bonus symbols are collected on the same base game spin or during the Gift of Life Re-Spins feature. Once triggered, the bonus symbols you’ve collected are randomly positioned on the jackpot game reel set. You begin with 3 spins, and every time a bonus symbol lands, the spin count resets back to 3.

Each bonus symbol carries a random cash value (between 10 and 200 times your stake), but the real objective is to complete full rows of bonus symbols. Completing one row awards the Minor jackpot equivalent to 20 times your stake. Completing two rows triggers the Major jackpot, paying 100 times your stake. Fill the entire screen with bonus symbols and you’ll win the progressive Mega jackpot!

Mercy of the Gods (NetEnt): Verdict

While Divine Fortune and Mercy of the Gods share the same core mechanics and features, there are notable mathematical differences worth knowing. To start, Mercy of the Gods has an improved paytable that delivers bigger non-jackpot payouts (1600x vs 600x). It also seems a touch more volatile, with a lower hit frequency (17,64% vs 20,33%), and it assigns a larger share of RTP to the free spins compared to Divine Fortune.

There’s a trade-off, though. Even if the progressive jackpot may build to a larger amount in Mercy of the Gods, the chance of triggering it is reduced. For instance, the odds of triggering the Major jackpot are 1 in 3355 in Divine Fortune, but 1 in 3674 in Mercy of the Gods. From this, we can say Mercy of the Gods is the more evenly balanced of the two, offering solid potential across the board. Divine Fortune, by contrast, is a ruthless experience that revolves heavily around the progressive.

All in all, these are two excellent jackpot slots with strong visuals and impressive production values. Since the original has already established itself as one of the best jackpot slots available, there’s a strong chance that Mercy of the Gods will do the same.