Pirots 3: Slot Overview

If there’s one casino game studio that clearly understands how to build a winning slot series, it’s Swedish outfit ELK Studios. The developer has impressed players with collections like the Kane’s Gold range, Nitropolis, Toro, and others. Now ELK’s Fearsome Four parrots lineup has officially become a trilogy with the arrival of Pirots 3. There was a clear change in direction between Pirots and Pirots 2, so it felt natural to expect Pirots 3 to raise the bar by bringing in elements the earlier entries didn’t. As it turns out, fresh ideas are indeed part of the package.

Up to now, every Pirots game has placed the action in a totally different setting. The first was a pirate-themed (as the name suggests) swashbuckling adventure; Pirots 2 jumped back to the dinosaur era, and Pirots 3 lands in a classic Wild Western scene. Though, is it the real Wild West or more of a theme-park take? The question comes up because, behind the see-through grid, you can spot amusement rides, and some of the street-front buildings look more like tourist stops than grimy saloons. That interpretation fits, since the four parrot characters, the bandit, the train, and the frantic, chaotic gameplay make Pirots 3 about as far from a dark, dusty slot as you can get.

On every base game spin, symbols and parrots fall into a 6-reel, 7-row matrix, and the game isn’t built around clusters, scatterpays, ways, or paylines. Instead, the key mechanic is that the four birds dropping onto the grid are mainly responsible for gathering pay symbols. The game runs on a highly volatile math model, delivers ELK’s familiar RTP of 94%, and allows bets from 20 c to $/€100 per base game drop. Alongside standard wagering, Pirots 3 also includes the usual five X-iter bonus buy options.

Pirots 3 drops 4 standard paying gem symbols onto the reels in blue, green, purple, and red. Each gem can be collected by a bird that matches its colour. Gems are also able to upgrade: while they start with payout values of 0.05 to 0.1 times the bet each, they can increase to 7.5 to 30 times the bet.

Pirots 3: Slot Features

Pirots 3 features four collecting bird symbols that travel around the grid. The birds take turns collecting gems that match their colour, along with all feature symbols, by moving to adjacent symbols connected horizontally or vertically. They continue collecting until they can’t take anything else, and they may move multiple times before the symbols refill. There is also a locked-up bandit. Once freed, the bandit roams the grid as well, collecting gems of any colour plus all feature symbols.

Collection Meter

Positioned above the grid is a symbol collection meter that tracks what has been gathered. Only gems or wild symbols collected by any birds other than the bandit are counted. The collection meter is disabled for the bandit escape feature. When the symbol collection meter is full, one pending feature symbol release is added. Up to 3 feature symbol releases can be stored at once, and they are all granted at the same time. A feature symbol release can happen before dynamite detonates, as part of the first free drop in the bonus game, or when birds are no longer able to collect additional symbols. During a release, a number of random gems on the grid are converted into random feature symbols.

Feature Symbols

The feature symbols in Pirots 3 are bonus scatters, wilds, coins, upgrades, transforms, peanuts, keys, and dynamite. A feature symbol’s effect is triggered when it is collected.

• Collected Upgrade Symbol – increases the payout level of gems that match the collecting bird’s colour by 1-3 steps, up to a maximum of level 7.
• Collected Upgrade All – boosts all gems by 1-3 steps up to a maximum of level 7.
• Key – once collected, the bandit’s escape feature activates when birds can’t collect any more symbols. After release, the bandit can collect symbols like the other birds. The bandit duels adjacent birds, and if all 4 are defeated, the bandit coin game triggers, and the bandit’s escape ends. If the bandit is defeated, the bandit’s escape ends.
• Transform Symbol – when collected, a group of gems beside the collecting bird are changed into that bird’s colour. A random number of gems may also be turned into feature symbols.
• Peanut Symbol – when collected, peanuts are placed into empty grid spaces. This lets birds cross empty spaces one time each, allowing access to additional symbols.
• Dynamite – detonates when collected, and birds are unable to collect any more symbols. The blast removes birds from the grid and clears all symbols except feature symbols, creating a redrop. It also expands the grid to 8-rows and 7-columns. Dynamite appears in two sizes – one that explodes a close proximity area, another that explodes the whole grid.
• Wild – acts as a substitute for any gem at the current level. Black bandit wilds indicate the current highest-paying gem.
• Coin – a collected coin pays its value times the bet. The Max Win coin pays the remaining amount needed to reach the maximum win.

Coin Game

The coin game begins when the entire grid is cleared by either the birds or the bandit. After it starts, coin bags and scorpions drop into random grid positions, and the train arrives – Either the bandit or birds get off the train. The symbol collection meter switches to a coin game win counter. Birds or the bandit throw lassos to try to collect coin bags. If a scorpion is caught, the bird or bandit is removed from the game. The coin game finishes once no bird is remaining. When the coin game ends in normal mode, fresh symbols and the 4 birds drop back in.

Showdown Feature

When they can’t collect any more symbols, two neighbouring birds may use a Switcharoo to swap places. Alternatively, two adjacent birds can activate the Showdown feature, while 3 or more birds positioned next to each other will always set it off. During the Showdown, birds move apart, removing symbols, then randomly shoot in a number of directions. Symbols hit in the shooting direction are impacted in different ways. Gems are removed. Bonus scatters, super bonus scatters, keys and coins are collected. Dynamite symbols ignite. Other feature symbols are unaffected. Once the duel ends, birds are redropped and a symbol refill takes place.

Train Heist

2 or 4 symbol positions along the left and right edges of the grid are marked with a train backdrop. If a bird collects a symbol on a train backdrop and can collect any of the symbols on top of a train backdrop on the opposite side of the game grid, the train heist triggers. The train heist does not trigger in case the bird can reach the opposite side symbols from its current position. When it triggers, after the active bird completes its collecting, a train arrives and the bird boards it. The train then loops around the grid, awarding 1 to 3 random feature symbols. It stops on the opposite side, and the bird steps off to continue collecting.

Bonus Game

A total of 5 free drops are awarded if the birds collect 3 bonus scatter symbols in a game round. Collecting a bonus scatter in bonus mode awards +1 free spin. The regular bonus game starts with the current rows and columns, whereas the super bonus starts on an 8×7 matrix. The progress on the symbol collection meter and the payout level of gems are persistent in bonus mode.

X-iter

Pirots 3’s X-iter options are these:

• Bonus Hunt – 3x the bet for one drop with quadruple the chance of triggering the bonus.
• Bandit Jailbreak – 25x the bet for one drop where the bandit’s escape is triggered.
• Coin Game – 50x the bet.
• Bonus Game – 100x the bet.
• Super Bonus Game – 500 the bet.

Pirots 3: Slot Verdict

Whether you think Pirots 3 is the greatest thing ever or not quite your cup of tea, it’s hard to deny it’s absolutely loaded with extra mechanics. In fact, it arguably packs in even more than the previous two entries, which were already feature-heavy. A lot of the underlying gameplay in Pirots 3 feels the same as, or at least very close to, Pirots 2, yet there’s still plenty of new content to justify checking it out, especially for fans of the earlier games. It can take a while before the birds are doing much more than scooping up a handful of low-value gems, but once they start building momentum—and you land on the right side of the game’s volatility—Pirots 3 can create long chains of events that may, with luck, end in a strong cash return.

One curious aspect is how much can happen on the grid while the payout still ends up being unexpectedly small. The peanut symbol helps reduce that problem, since peanuts let birds link across to more gem symbols—and feature symbols too, which can completely shift a round. Duels can also keep a spin going in certain situations, and the longer a spin continues, the higher the odds of something genuinely interesting unfolding. Even so, on that front, Pirots 3 didn’t feel quite as gripping as first expected. The mind kept wandering back to ELK’s slot Dam Beavers, where the beavers could dance, smash through different levels while looking ridiculously cute, and ultimately captured the imagination more strongly. If you missed it, like Pirots 3, Dam Beavers is also a four-character/gem collector game with lots of added features.

Overall, while reviewing Pirots 3 was enjoyable, there was a faint sense—somewhere on the sunlit emotional horizon—of diminishing returns. To be clear, Pirots 3 is absolutely solid; it seems capable of going as wild as any other Pirots title and keeps the same 10,000x the bet max win. Still, something stopped it from feeling like a big leap forward. Maybe it’s the theme, or something else—it’s hard to pin down. Either way, Pirots 3 is a grin-worthy third entry in the series, just perhaps not quite as essential as the first two.