Spirit of the Beast: Slot Overview

Developer Relax Gaming taps into the idea of an inner guide and heads out into the North American wilderness with Spirit of the Beast. A spirit guide is typically seen as a kind presence from the etheric realm that supports or safeguards the living, often taking the shape of an animal. Native Americans formed deep connections with the creatures around them over countless generations of meaningful contact. What past elders would make of those animals being used as an online slot theme is hard to say. Still, that’s the setup here, and among the roaming wildlife you’ll find free spins, a Summoner feature, and Mighty Multipliers.

When Spirit of the Beast boots up, you’re greeted by a vista that must have captivated European explorers (or invaders, depending on your perspective) when they first arrived in America. Neat wigwams sit beside a clear lake that surely teems with fish, surrounded by rich grasslands and imposing mountains. It’s easy to see why colonists were eager to claim what likely felt like a wide-open arcadia compared to the crowded, dirty old world. A soft panpipe melody rounds out the atmosphere, and you may find yourself torn between pressing spin and slipping into meditation.

If you choose to spin instead, wagers from 10 p/c to $/€80 per spin can be selected on any device. Contrasting the calm visuals is a highly volatile math model with an RTP of 96.52%. That figure is the default setting. If you use the feature buy, then RTP rises to 96.71% and you’re taken directly to free spins, where collecting symbols can translate into hefty payouts.

The reel format is simple enough, using a 5×3 sized game grid with 15 fixed paylines. Wins land when 3 or more identical symbols connect left to right on a payline, beginning from the leftmost reel. The paytable is dominated by animals, with high-paying wolves, horses, eagles, bears, and bison delivering 10 to 20 times the bet for 5 of a kind. Lower-value symbols are standard card suits displayed on what looks like a Native American-style screen. Rounding things off is the golden totem wild, a valuable icon for more than one reason. For the moment, it replaces all paying symbols when calculating line wins.

Spirit of the Beast: Slot Features

Spirit of the Beast includes two additions that deliver its standout action – a Spirit Summoner Feature and Mighty Multiplier Free Spins. The Spirit Summoner can trigger randomly at the beginning of any spin. Once it kicks in, a single high-pay symbol is randomly chosen to appear stacked on the reels, while every other high-pay symbol is removed. This increases the possibility of landing full-screen wins made up of premium symbols.

Scatter symbols appear only on the 3 middle reels, and landing 3 in view awards 12 free spins. During free spins, 6 multiplier meters sit above the reels, tied to the wild and the high-pay symbols. When a stack of a high-pay symbol lands and fills every position on a reel, it is collected and added to its matching meter. After 5 stacks of the same symbol have landed, the multiplier shown is granted. The multiplier prizes are x20, x50, x100, x300, x1,000, or x10,000 for collecting wolves, horses, eagles, bears, bison, or wilds. If a scatter lands while the feature is running, +1 spin is added.

Based on the player’s country of residence, a bonus buy option may be available on a drum to the left of the screen. Selecting it costs 70x the total stake and guarantees 3 scatter symbols land on the next spin.

Spirit of the Beast: Slot Verdict

Spirit of the Beast feels like the slot equivalent of unwinding with a peace pipe after a long day of fishing, tending fields, and weaving, while mulling over life’s bigger questions. The game’s biggest highlight is collecting wild stacks in free spins to land a 10,000x the bet payout. Because so much of the game’s appeal is concentrated in that single outcome, Spirit of the Beast generally plays as a calm, easygoing experience—right up until the bonus finally arrives.

The upside is strong, but mainly if you manage to collect wilds in the Mighty Multiplier feature. A 1,000x hit from the bison would also be a solid result, yet beyond those two, the values fall away sharply, making it difficult to pull ahead in Spirit of the Beast without them. And outside free spins, Spirit of the Beast doesn’t offer a huge amount of excitement. With a small number of paylines and low-paying symbols, it’s not exactly built for constant thrills. The Summoner feature does what it can, but even the best-case scenario of covering the screen with bison only returns a modest 300x the bet.

Some players have suggested Relax Gaming has an A team producing the truly mind-bending releases, while a B team occasionally puts out filler titles to pad the catalogue. Spirit of the Beast lands somewhere between those poles. It isn’t a Relax Gaming classic, but it does have a role. It could suit players who want something more contemplative in a pleasant setting. Catch Spirit of the Beast on a day when your guide is guiding and you’ll have a great time, but most of the outcome depends on getting one key thing to happen during free spins.