Opal Fruits (Big Time Gaming): Review

After the gambling community reacted somewhat coolly to Holy Diver, it didn’t take long before it was followed by the far more straightforward—and far more explosive—The Final Countdown. What comes next is still unfolding, but Opal Fruits has everything it needs to unite longtime Big Time Gaming fans and, at the same time, bring new players into the fold.

Nik, Big Time Gaming’s CEO, is hands-on and personally invested in every project the studio releases, and that enthusiasm is obvious when you speak with him about his games. He genuinely lives and breathes slots, and his biggest aim is for players to be blown away by what he creates. As Nik told us, he spent a big part of his youth in arcades playing Defender, the WMS shoot ’em up, even skipping school to fight off waves of alien invaders. Because of that, Opal Fruits isn’t only an exciting slot—it’s also a nod to Nik’s childhood and a simpler era.

The most immediate impression Opal Fruits gives is its unmistakable 1980s retro vibe. Beyond that, it’s packed with smart jokes and references to pick up on. Even the name is a playful nod to the UK sweet Starburst, which originally went by Opal Fruits—a chewy treat Nik used to snack on while playing his favourite arcade titles.

Even though it may look reminiscent of Bonanza, you’ll quickly find it doesn’t use the Megaways game engine. Instead, it introduces a distinct mechanic called Triple Reaction that adds 2 extra reels rather than the single extra reel Big Time Gaming typically uses. These sit above and below reels 2, 3, 4 and 5. Combined with the 6 reels, 3 rows, 5,625 ways to win, the layout becomes notably packed, effectively forming a 3-5-5-5-5-3 structure.

As in Bonanza, Opal Fruits includes a reaction-style mechanic where winning symbols are blown away and replaced with new ones, repeating until no further winning combinations land.

Opal Fruits isn’t overloaded with features, but it still hits hard. In the base game, x3 Multiplier Wilds can significantly boost your returns. Spell F-R-E-E and you’ll activate the Free Spins feature, which comes with an unlimited multiplier and a completely different method for re-triggering the bonus. Stakes range from 10 cents per spin up to 20€/$.

In terms of presentation, it uses a colour scheme reminiscent of NetEnt’s Starburst, which—considering the wordplay—feels very deliberate. The music leans heavily into an 80s atmosphere and even uses original samples from Williams Electronics Robotron and Defender sound effects. Overall, the visual style is classic Big Time Gaming, with the studio clearly choosing a safer, familiar approach here.

Racing through space in true Defender style, the reels feature royal values from 9 to A, alongside four gemstone-like fruit symbols: pears, plums, watermelons and grapes. The last two swap the top-paying spot because, as Nik said, “you can’t really push purple Melons“. Either way, landing 6 grapes pays 50 times your stake.

There are also two separate wild types, and both only appear on the extra reels:

• Regular wild – shows up in the base game and during the Free Spins feature, substituting as normal
• x3 Multiplier wild – appears in the base game only. The x3 wilds multiply each other on different columns, and while the odds are extreme, this can effectively lead to 6*6*6*6* x50 combinations, plus a few thousand more depending on what else connects.

Opal Fruits (Big Time Gaming): Features

Beyond the multiplier wilds adding constant tension in the base game, there’s also a Free Spins round that starts when you land the 4 scatter symbols required to spell FREE. You begin with 10 spin and a x1 multiplier, and the key objective is to grow that multiplier, with every reaction increasing it by 1.

Each time the multiplier meter hits a multiple of 10 (x10, x20, x30, etc), the feature retriggers and adds 5 extra spins to your total. On top of that, if you trigger Free Spins with an extra scatter, the win multiplier gets a x5 increase instead of awarding 5 extra spins. Every further scatter after that grants a x10 boost!

Opal Fruits (Big Time Gaming): Verdict

Big Time Gaming set out to achieve something specific here—and they delivered it with confidence. The result is a clean, rapid-fire, explosive, no-nonsense slot that pairs huge potential with a strong hit of nostalgia, sending a clear reminder of who the real leaders in inventive game design are. In our chats with Nik about the title, he told us; “We could of overcomplicated it, but we just wanted a pure, unmistakable game that you feel genuinely entertained by“.

Opal Fruits’ simplicity isn’t a drawback at all. If anything, it’s exactly the kind of experience we didn’t realise we’d been missing. It offers a welcome pause from the feature-stacked releases we’ve seen lately, while still delivering adrenaline-charged action in its most direct form.

If you enjoy Big Time Gaming but specifically want titles built on the Megaways engine, we recommend checking out Royal Mint Megaways, Kingmaker Megaways or Monopoly Megaways.