Rat King: Slot Overview

It’s curious how people and animals alike seem wired to form pecking orders—an alpha, a matriarch, a president, you name it. Humans at least have layered systems for figuring out where we sit on the ladder; without them, you’d think everything would collapse into chaos… or maybe that’s just the story we’re told. Out in the wild, though, leadership is often settled the hard way, with scraps and shows of strength. In Rat King from Push Gaming, you’re introduced to a top-dog rodent who’s fought its way to the summit and now rules its territory.

That “territory” is a candy factory after hours, once the lights are off and the staff have clocked out—likely trying not to think about sweets. Rat King is Push Gaming’s first scatter paying slot, a format that’s become hugely popular as more studios jump on the mechanic. And yes, a scatter paying slot filled with sugary treats does sound familiar. The concept definitely echoes Sweet Bonanza, but with Rat King, Push Gaming has added fresh mechanics and chosen a very different presentation style. This isn’t a bright, fluffy sugarland where treats rain from the sky. Instead, Rat King leans into a chunky, pixel-art throwback that feels like late 90s/early 00s gaming, complete with punchy, bleepy sound effects. For the right audience, it should land as a strong nostalgia trip, similar in spirit to slots like Hellcatraz, Hellcatraz 2 Dream Drop, NFT Megaways, and Flame Busters.

Alongside three feature buy options, players need to choose a base stake of 10 p/c to $/€100 and decide whether to enable the Push Bet, which increases the stake by 20%. Switching Push Bet on gives a greater chance of activating the bonus round, and the RTP is 96.35% versus 96.3% when it’s turned off. The odds of hitting the max win improve too when Push Bet is active. From there, Rat King’s layout comes into play: a 6×6 gaming grid powered by a medium volatile math model. Any time at least 7 matching pay symbols appear, a payout is triggered.

Along with a couple of special symbols, Rat King includes standard pay symbols plus what the game calls Dud symbols. Regular pay symbols carry cash values; Dud symbols don’t. The paying set features 6 candy-themed icons, returning 0.5 to 2 times the bet for 7-8 OAK on the grid, increasing to 7.5 to 50 times the stake when 20 or more land. Dud symbols mainly clog up precious space, but if at least 7 of the same Dud symbols show up, they are removed from the grid, opening room for fresh symbols to fall in. Winning regular symbols are cleared as well, letting new ones drop down in their place.

Rat King: Slot Features

Two more symbol types worth watching for are Star symbols tied to the Collection Boxes, along with Rat King symbols, which are required to trigger free spins.

Collection Boxes & Star Symbols

Star symbols act as multiplier symbols and come with values from x2 to x500, while each reel has a Collection Box positioned beneath it. When a Star symbol reaches the bottom of the grid, it drops into a Collection Box and its multiplier is added to the multiplier counter. That multiplier counter is then applied to the win for the current round.

Free Spins

When Rat King symbols reach the bottom of the grid, they also drop into a Collection Box. Collecting 3, 4, or 5 Rat Kings this way awards 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. During free spins, if a Rat King lands in a Collection Box, players receive +3 free spins. When a Star symbol is collected, its multiplier is added to the multiplier counter, which multiplies the total win for that spin. The multiplier counter then becomes inactive until another multiplier is added, and it does not reset.

Bonus Buy

The three options players are presented with when buying a bonus are:

• 3 Rat King scatters for 100x the bet with 96.58% RTP.
• 4 Rat King scatters for 250x the bet with 96.36% RTP.
• 5 Rat King scatters for 500x the bet with 96.93% RTP.

Rat King: Slot Verdict

As noted earlier, Rat King is Push Gaming’s first scatter paying slot, and the developer delivers it with the same confident polish it’s known for. The retro look won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a direction that’s becoming more common across modern casino releases. Push Gaming makes good use of the style, and with a bit of imagination, it’s easy to feel pulled back to a time when players filled in the gaps and truly sank into a game’s world—unlike today, where ultra-real visuals and widely adopted VR feel like they’re just around the corner. Considering how far games have already come, it’s a little unsettling to imagine what “realistic” will mean in the future.

For the moment, Rat King offers both a fun hit of nostalgia and a sturdy take on scatter paying gameplay. Even though it shares clear similarities with Sweet Bonanza, one of the genre’s heavy hitters, Rat King separates itself with gameplay adjustments and a distinctive visual approach. Some of those changes may test your patience—like the inclusion of valueless Dud symbols—and having to drop Star symbols or scatters into the bottom buckets can feel like an extra task. Still, with a bit of time, Rat King’s quirks could easily start to click. Its particular rules don’t drag down the numbers, and with a top payout of 10,000x the bet, the max win is a properly tempting prize. Add in the medium volatility and Rat King may not reach Razor Returns levels of chaos, but the calmer profile could make it appealing to a wider range of players.

If you’re used to more straightforward scatter paying slots, Rat King might take a little longer to fully appreciate, but the rush is still there when the game starts firing. Overall, it’s an impressive first pay-anywhere slot—exactly what you’d expect from a studio with Push Gaming’s talents—and well worth a spin for fans of the format, or anyone who enjoys pretending they’ve rolled the clock back a couple of decades while playing.