Pandemic Rising: Slot Overview

Editor’s note: This review is based on an early access version of the game. We may update the review after the full release if necessary.

Think back to 2019–2020, when COVID-19 panic was at its peak and affected almost every corner of the globe. Is it premature to turn such a painful, world-shaping event into entertainment? Software provider Pragmatic Play clearly doesn’t think so, having created Pandemic Rising, an online slot that explores bio-disaster scenarios and asks a simple question: what might the next one look like?

If COVID-19 was linked to bats, as some claim, then Pandemic Rising seems to hint that its outbreak could be connected to our primate relatives. Or perhaps it’s something entirely different—or even totally made up. One of Pandemic Rising’s character symbols even reads ‘Conspiracy!’ suggesting the worldwide sickness is engineered by a powerful hidden group looking to tighten control over the population. When the truth behind major events can feel impossible to pin down, who’s to say what’s really happening in the shadows? In any case, Pandemic Rising clearly echoes Nolimit City’s xWays Hoarder slots in both look and subject matter, but while Nolimit leaned hard into dark comedy and satire, Pragmatic has taken a noticeably more straight-faced approach.

Here, the outbreak plays out on a 5×4 gaming layout with 40 paylines used to calculate wins. The engine runs on a highly volatile math model and delivers an RTP of 96.51% when wagering $/€0.20 to $/€240 per spin, although it’s worth watching for lower RTP versions. Players can also opt into one of two ante bets if they want. Ante Bet 1 costs 4x the bet and makes the chance of triggering free spins close to 10 times higher, while Ante Bet 2 costs 10x the bet and ensures at least 1 wild symbol lands on every spin with a random multiplier.

Wins pay from the leftmost reels, and there are 11 paying symbols in total: 10-A card royals plus five character premium symbols. A 5 OAK line of royals returns 1x to 1.5x the bet, while 5 matching high pays award 2.5x to 20x the bet.

Pandemic Rising: Slot Features

The “rise” of the pandemic is expressed through wild multipliers, free spins featuring a growing overall multiplier and sticky wilds, plus feature buy options.

Wild Multipliers

Wild symbols replace all paying symbols and can appear on the middle three reels. Whenever a wild lands, it may come with a multiplier of x1 to x10, and that multiplier boosts any win that runs through it. If multiple wilds contribute to the same win, their multipliers add to each other.

Free Spins

The bonus scatter can land on the leftmost, middle, and rightmost reels. Landing 3 scatters awards 8 free spins plus 2x your bet. In free spins, any wilds that appear stay on the reels until the feature ends. The bonus also includes a general multiplier that affects all wins, beginning at x1 and can be increased by collecting Virus symbols.

The Virus symbol shows up only during free spins and is collected when it lands. A meter outside the reels tracks how many have been gathered. The meter starts at x1 and increases at set intervals up to x100. Each set of 3 Virus symbols collected advances the general multiplier to the next level and grants +1 free spin. The multiplier meter’s progress is also reflected through changes to the look of the premium symbols.

Feature Buy

The free spins feature can be purchased directly from the base game for 100x the bet. Spending 500x the bet activates super free spins, which guarantees 2 wilds land in random positions with random multipliers at the start of the bonus.

Pandemic Rising: Slot Verdict

The word “pandemic” can bring up very different reactions—sadness and anxiety for some, or even relief for others who enjoyed remote work and fewer public interactions. Overall, Pragmatic Play’s Pandemic Rising left a favorable impression. It’s not a miracle cure for every slot craving, but there’s plenty here worth masking up for and spinning. The studio handles the theme in a fairly engaging way, nodding to conspiracy ideas and non-human origins without pushing it too far, while the semi-futuristic vibe suggests that if another outbreak ever happens, it might occur in a world where we’ve learned to control microbes rather than fear them.

To “solve” Pandemic Rising, you’ll want to connect with as many wild symbols as possible—both for their substitution power and their multipliers. The base game teases this concept, then free spins expands it further, even if the core idea isn’t entirely new. Sticky wilds are common across slots, but combining them with multipliers is a strong extra layer. If that’s your style, there are several solid alternatives, including Relax Gaming’s Top Dawg$, Hacksaw Gaming’s Ultimate Slot of America, and Prag’s own slot, The Dog House. The takeaway is that players have plenty of sticky wild multiplier games to pick from. Pandemic Rising strengthens its appeal by adding a multiplier meter that can climb to x100 via Virus symbol hits, neatly linking the theme to the gameplay.

On top of that, Pandemic Rising’s setup is capable of delivering wins up to a 14,000x the bet win cap. That gives fans of sticky wild multiplier mechanics a fairly compelling choice in Pandemic Rising—unless masks, social distancing, and messaging the authorities to say you’re going for a walk outside your home brings back the kind of flashbacks you’d rather avoid.