Mortal Oath: Slot Overview

A new developer has stepped into the ever-expanding ranks of Hacksaw Gaming studios and launched its first title. That studio is Foxhound Games, and it has come out swinging with Mortal Oath, a release that feels pleasingly unconcerned with playing by the usual rules. Rather than easing into the market with something familiar but forgettable, Foxhound Games has opted for a more distinctive direction, even if the gameplay hints at inspiration from Hacksaw Gaming.

Mortal Oath can be placed under a broader Asian-themed banner, but it’s far removed from the cheerful Cai Shen-and-sycees style of slot. The setting is the Sengoku era, or Warring States period, a stretch of civil conflict, political scheming, and social disruption in Japan from roughly 1467 to 1600. In this game’s take on that world, it’s also an age of demons, hells, and divine punishment, set in “a land ruled by fear and flame,” where a demon hunter seeks to purge the mortal realm. The result is a windswept, barren backdrop for Mortal Oath’s action, blending harsh reality with dark fantasy.

Running on a 5×3 gaming grid, Mortal Oath offers 9 paylines in the base game for forming winning combos. Under the hood sits a highly volatile math model, and of the two RTP options, 96.32% is the higher setting. Using the up and down arrows, players can set a wager from $/€0.10 to $/€100 per spin.

There are nine standard paying symbols in total: three coin symbols, scrolls, blades, headgear, plus three demon symbols. A 5 OAK line returns 1x to 10x the stake. The wild substitutes for all regular paying symbols, and 5 wilds on a winning payline deliver 20x the bet.

Mortal Oath: Slot Features

Its feature set includes base-game-only Corrupted Hunter symbols, a hold ‘n’ win style bonus round featuring special symbols, plus feature buys.

Corrupted Hunter

Corrupted Hunter symbols are wild and show up only in the base game. They expand to cover the whole reel if the expanded symbol would contribute to a win. When expansion happens, it reveals a random multiplier and 3 empty stacks. Each time it helps form a winning line, one stack fills. If it’s involved in multiple winning lines, several stacks may fill simultaneously. Once all stacks are full, a respin is triggered. In the respin, the Corrupted Hunter becomes sticky. No new Corrupted Hunters can appear during a respin. Multiplier values can range from x2 to x100.

Demon Symbols

Demon symbols carry no multipliers in the base game, where they serve as the top-paying symbols. In the bonus round, their multipliers become active. Bonus Demon symbols remain sticky throughout free spins, and the Bonus Yellow, Blue, and Green Demon are valued at x1-x3, x4-x6,and x7-x9, respectively.

Night of the Hunt

Hitting 3 scatters in the base game starts the bonus round. While it runs, only bonus feature symbols or blanks can land. The round’s total multiplier starts at 0. Each time Bonus Demon symbols land, they steadily increase the multiplier. When the feature finishes, the accumulated multiplier is paid out. The bonus includes 3 lives that reset whenever a feature symbol lands. One life equals one spin. When all lives are used up, the bonus ends. If the grid becomes filled with Bonus Demon symbols, a 500x payout is added to the total multiplier.

• Collector – Collects all Bonus Demon multipliers on the grid and adds them to itself, but does not remove the values from the original Bonus Demons. It then acts as a Bonus Demon symbol and is sticky. If it lands by itself and there are no Bonus Demon symbols, it gets an x1 value. If it lands together with a Gun Ability on the same spin, the Gun will not target it.
• Gun Ability – Targets one Bonus Demon and shoots up to 3 times. Each shot doubles the multiplier value of the Bonus Demon symbol. It does nothing if it lands with no Bonus Demons on the grid.
• Gates of Hell – Lands with an x5 value and stays on the grid. Each time a bonus feature symbol lands, the multiplier doubles. Once a life is consumed, the Gates of Hell multiplier is added to the Total Multiplier and the symbol is removed from the grid. Only one can be active at a time.
• Guardian Statue – Lands with 4 empty stacks, one fills immediately. One stack is filled each time a symbol lands. If a life is lost before all 4 stacks are filled, the Guardian Statue is removed on the next spin. When all 4 stacks are filled, the Guardian Statue stays sticky and can trigger Divine Retribution.

Divine Retribution activates when all 3 lives have been spent and an activated Guardian Statue is present on the grid. It doubles all Bonus Demon multipliers, adds them to the Total Multiplier bar, wipes the grid of sticky symbols, and refills lives back to 3. It can occur only once per bonus round.

Feature Buys

BonusHunt FeatureSpins are priced at 3x and make each spin 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game, while Corrupted Hunter FeatureSpins cost 50x and ensure at least 1 Corrupted Hunter symbol lands, though scatters cannot appear. Night of the Hunt costs 100x to buy.

Mortal Oath: Slot Verdict

Mortal Oath is an imaginative first outing from Foxhound Games, signalling a newcomer that’s prepared to push past conventions instead of taking the safest route. By swapping the bright, lucky-iconography typical of Asian slots for a grim, demon-infested setting, the studio starts to shape a more individual identity. With a supernatural twist on a historical period, the theme draws you in, and the hunter-versus-demon angle gives Mortal Oath a strong personality.

Less positively, the base game can feel like a grind, and the symbol payouts come across as light for a slot offering only 9 paylines. Corrupted Hunter symbols, along with multiplier values up to x100, are crucial to getting anything worthwhile from that stage, and the potential Hacksaw Gaming influence is easy to spot, given how often expanding wild multipliers appear in that studio’s work. Whether the bonus round also carries a Hacksaw Gaming fingerprint is more arguable; on paper it sounded a little Chaos Crew-ish, though it plays out in a clearly different way. Where Mortal Oath fell slightly short was in the lack of big, standout moments at times. The bonus round could deliver solid returns, yet they sometimes felt muted even when the win amount was substantial. Perhaps putting more spotlight on special symbols like the Gates of Hell, which can surge in value, and making big wins feel more celebrated would have given the bonus round more punch.

Even so, there’s a lot to enjoy here, and overall Mortal Oath is a fun slot backed by a robust 10,000x max win. For a first release, Mortal Oath looks promising and is exactly the kind of debut that turns heads. While it might have benefited from a few higher peaks, it certainly leaves you curious about what Foxhound Games does next.