Pirates’ Bounty Megaways: Slot Overview

Blueprint Gaming keeps its Megaways conveyor belt moving, rolling out a pirate-themed title powered by Big Time Gaming’s well-known engine. To move things along, a lot of Pirates’ Bounty Megaways seems to have been lifted from Blueprint’s UK success Deal or No Deal Megaways. It isn’t a one-to-one copy, as some features have been tweaked and the numbers differ. Still, the overlap is obvious, and it can come across as hurried, as though the studio lacked either the time or the drive to craft a standout pirate adventure. The end result feels a little off.

Pirates’ Bounty Megaways uses 6 main reels with up to 7 symbols per reel, creating up to 117,649 ways to win, plus a 4-symbol horizontal bonus reel across the top. The action sits on the deck of an old pirate ship, framed by barrels, ropes, and flaming torches (a questionable choice on a wooden vessel). Beyond that lies the sparkling Caribbean Sea, where merchant ships ready for plundering would be sailing.

Available on mobile, tablet, and desktop, Pirates’ Bounty Megaways supports bets from 10 p/c to $/€100 per spin. Even if the theme feels a bit flat, Blueprint still delivers a solid set of figures in the math. The game comes with an RTP rating of 96.12%, which is higher than its apparent blueprint, Deal or No Deal, so that’s a plus. A medium/high variance adds some bite, and the upside is fairly strong too.

Winning follows the familiar Megaways format. Wins must begin on the leftmost reel, regardless of reel height, with three matching symbols or more. The only exception is the highest-paying symbol, which pays from just two in a row. At the bottom of the paytable are 9-A royals, then nautical-themed icons like octopi, ships, mermaids, and skull and crossbones. Premium payouts start at 2x the bet and climb to 50x for 6-of-a-kind wins. Rounding out this section is the Wild, which appears on the upper tracker reel. It has no payout value but substitutes for any standard paying symbol.

Pirates’ Bounty Megaways: Slot Features

The feature set is largely typical Megaways fare, with a Bonus Wheel included to add a bit of variation. First are Blueprint’s usual mystery symbols, which can land in random quantities and then all change into the same paying symbol – anything except the wild.

Cascades are essential in Pirates Bounty Megaways. They not only create strings of back-to-back wins by removing winning symbols and dropping new ones into place, but they also set off the bonus game. If 4, 5, or 6+ cascades happen on a single spin, the Bonus, Super Bonus, or Mega Bonus is triggered.

After that, players face a 3 leveled Bonus Wheel. Before the spin, players pick gems that can boost the number of spins, increase prizes, or add extra arrows to the wheel. Landing a stronger bonus places you on a higher starting tier:

• Bonus – begins on level 1, with instant prizes of 12 – 40 times the bet, 8-12 free spins, or an arrow result that moves you up a level.
• Super Bonus – begins on level 2, offering 12-18 free spins, or a green arrow.
• Mega Bonus – grants level 3 and 20 free spins.

A progressive multiplier applies in free spins, starting at x1 and increasing by 1 for every cascade. The multiplier doesn’t reset between spins; it only continues to rise. Finally, scatter symbols also appear on the upper reel, granting extra free spins when at least 3 are visible.

Pirates’ Bounty Megaways: Slot Verdict

Want a swashbuckling trip across the seven seas in a pirate slot? If not, you may actually be in the right spot, because Blueprint Gaming doesn’t seem especially invested in that either. For all its name and visuals, Pirates’ Bounty Megaways feels short on enthusiasm. It plays like the team had a pirate brief, assembled it from parts of other titles, and pushed it out as fast as possible.

In one sense, Pirates’ Bounty contains the right ingredients, but the complete package still feels like it’s lacking. It’s like meeting someone you’ve built up in your head, only to discover there’s nothing to connect over. The spark just isn’t there. Much of what’s included has effectively been seen already in Deal or No Deal, just without the famous box-picking moment and the showdown with the banker where it gets personal. Remove those, and what remains? Pirate Bounty Megaways.

Perhaps that’s too harsh. Pirate Bounty is still a capable Megaways implementation. The visuals are decent and the mechanics do what they’re meant to. The Bonus Wheel can be frustrating when it refuses to cooperate. You can trigger up to 20 free spins from it, though some players might have preferred scatters awarding free spins directly instead of potentially settling for a smaller xbet. The win potential is significant, however, with payouts of up to 10,000 times the stake possible.

If this release existed in isolation, it likely wouldn’t be such a problem. The issue is that Pirates’ Bounty Megaways feels like it was fired out mainly to keep Blueprint’s Megaways presence in the spotlight. The studio is among the strongest at producing Megaways slots, yet Pirates’ Bounty comes across as unnecessary.

Overall, it’s a decent slot with occasional bright spots. From a technical standpoint it ticks the boxes, but it’s far from essential – if anything, the opposite. Pirates’ Bounty doesn’t push Megaways forward or do anything fresh with the pirate theme. It’s the kind of polished, corporate-safe version of sea rogues you might imagine if they’d been funded by modern businesses back in the old days.