Primate King Megaways: Slot Overview

The title screen bellows ‘The King is Back!’, and the king here is a huge, furious gorilla tearing through the jungle in Red Tiger’s online slot Primate King Megaways. He’s “back” because this rampaging primate first showed up around 3 years earlier in Primate King, a release that left a strong impression and earned a very positive review. Now time has moved on, and Primate King returns with a Megaways makeover that refreshes a number of the mechanics along the way.

What hasn’t changed is that the far-right reel begins the session locked, meaning any symbols there can’t contribute, effectively making it a dead reel at the start. It can be opened, however, by gathering Gold Coins from the active reels. The sense of danger is reinforced elsewhere too, with skulls scattered across the foreground to create a grim mood—similar to Skull Island in King Kong, with its vicious inhabitants, thick vegetation, and a seriously threatening primate. In terms of presentation, Primate King Megaways serves up another lush jungle setting to settle into while you work the collection system.

The previous Primate King was also a 6-reel slot, but here Megaways takes control, so 2 to 7 symbols can land on each reel, producing up to 117,649 ways to win once the grid is fully available. Primate King Megaways is highly volatile and comes with a default RTP of 95.67%, which is slightly lower than the earlier game. Bets run from 10 c to $/€20, and there are no bonus buys of any kind—somewhat unexpected, as purchasing a Primate Wild could have appealed to certain players, and we’re firmly in the age of Red Tiger feature buys at this point. Perhaps that will arrive in a future instalment.

In Primate King Megaways, winning combinations must always start from the leftmost reel. At the bottom of the paytable sit the chain-bound 9-A card ranks, paying 0.3x to 0.7x for 5-of-a-kind or 0.4 to 1 times the bet for 6 OAK. Above them are a dagger, a map, a skull, a compass, and a treasure chest as the premium symbols, awarding 0.8 to 5 times the bet for 5 matching symbols or 1.2x to 20x for 6 matching symbols. Symbols in winning combinations disappear, allowing new ones to fall in and potentially create additional wins. Chain reactions continue until no further win is formed.

Primate King Megaways: Slot Features

Gathering Gold Coins through the Primate Evolution feature opens up the grid and strengthens the Primate Wild symbol. These additions work alongside Chain Reaction wins and free spins.

Primate Wild

The Primate Wild is a fully stacked wild and always appears fully visible. A single Primate Wild can land in a spin on reels 2, 3, 4, or 5. The Wild carries a multiplier of x2 to x7, indicating how many symbols it counts as for ways calculations. If the Primate Wild lands without contributing to a win, it locks on the reel until it forms a win. When the Primate Wild is part of a win, it isn’t removed; instead, its symbol multiplier increases by +1.

Gold Coins and Primate Evolution

A Primate Evolution bar with 3 stages sits over the 6th reel. Until the final stage is finished, gameplay runs on 5 reels. Whenever Gold Coin symbols land anywhere on the grid, they are collected towards Primate Evolution. Collecting 30 Gold Coins completes a stage on the progress bar. The rewards for completing each stage are:

• Stage 1 – one additional Life Point is added to the Primate Wild. With each Life Point added, the Primate Wild stays for one spin longer on the reels after it forms a win.
• Stage 2 – adds one more Life Point to the Primate Wild. Also, on the next spin, the Primate Wild will destroy the 9 symbol so it no longer appears on the reels.
• Stage 3 – adds one more Life Point to the Primate Wild and unlocks the chance to enter free spins.

Once the final stage is completed, the bar is removed to free up the 6th reel, where only high-pay symbols or Gold Coins can land. From that point forward, Gold Coins will only appear on the 6th reel.

Free Spins

Hitting a Gold Coin on the 6th reel while the Primate Wild is present grants 4 free spins. An additional free spin is awarded for each remaining Life Point the Primate Wild has when the feature begins, for up to 7 free spins. The Primate Wild remains locked to the reel throughout the free spins. In addition, at the start of every free spin, the Primate King may randomly remove the current lowest-paying symbols from the reels until the feature ends.

Primate King Megaways: Slot Verdict

Primate King Megaways is the kind of Megaways rework that ticks nearly every box. Red Tiger has returned to an already very playable, well-regarded slot and turned the intensity up across the board. The studio clearly enjoys this “unlock as you play” approach; Dragon’s Mirror and 10,001 Nights are two that spring to mind, and while it does mean a reduced grid for a while, collecting Gold Coins will ultimately open the 6th reel. It also results in a stronger Primate Wild as Primate Evolution advances, plus a free spins bonus round is included this time. The trade-off is that there’s only a single Wild, unlike other Red Tiger titles with comparable full reel wilds—Athens Megaways or Buffalo Mania Megaways, for instance—where multiple full reel wilds could show up.

Still, the Primate Wild has plenty of handy advantages even when it’s working alone. For starters, it’s a welcome touch that the wild stays put until it actually helps form a win, so it doesn’t just vanish unused. One of its standout qualities is how the multiplier climbs when it takes part in wins, and earning a life to extend that upside is a smart addition. Eliminating 9s from the reels is beneficial as well. After the 6th reel is unlocked, free spins can finally be triggered. Four isn’t a huge number (even though up to 7 is available), but with the Primate Wild locked for the entire feature, the bonus round can become a sharp, high-speed burst of action. Supporting that is the fact that Primate King Megaways is among Red Tiger’s higher potential slots, featuring a 30,000x the bet win cap.

Put simply, Primate King Megaways’ chest-thumping roar echoes through the jungle, making the original look like a mischievous youngster in comparison. The first game remains a solid play, of course; it’s just that Primate King Megaways cranks almost every dial it can get its powerful hands on.