The Wild 3 introduction

Starting this slot up, we honestly had no clue what was going on. We stopped trying to make sense of the instructions and jumped straight in, figuring we’d learn as we played. The Wild 3 uses a familiar layout of 5 reels, 3 rows and 10 pay lines, yet it feels anything but classic once you look at the feature set.

There’s a lot happening at once, which made this review a bit tricky to put together. The emphasis seems to be on fun and spectacle rather than catering to hardcore slot purists. It’s bright, upbeat and packed with action, while the payouts themselves are fairly standard.

With cartoony graphics and a looping soundtrack inspired by The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, it delivers a familiar wild west tale. The three sheriff heroes – “El Loco” the Racoon, “Five Star” the Coyote, and “T-bone” the Bull, are taking on the nasty outlaws causing trouble in the quiet town of Peaceville.

The Wild 3 symbols

The reels show cactus flower variants, dynamite, money bags, gold bars, safes, banks and vultures, with the vulture as the top regular symbol paying 25 times the stake on bet level 0. The heart of the game is the 3 wild symbols: the Wild Racoon (purple), the Wild Coyote (red), and the Wild Bull (green), each bringing a different ability:

• Wild Racoon feature – if WILD RACOON appears anywhere on reel 3, it may randomly replace regular symbols on the reels. If 2 BONUS symbols initially appear on the reels and either/both are subsequently replaced by WILD RACOON, the free spins game will still be triggered.
• Wild Coyote feature – if WILD COYOTE appears anywhere on reel 3, all CACTUS symbols (purple, green and tall cactus) turn to WILD COYOTE symbols.
• Wild Bull feature – if WILD BULL appears anywhere on reel 3, all wins in which one or more WILDS are involved are randomly multiplied by 2, 3, 5 or 10.

As noted above, whenever any of the 3 wild symbols lands on the centre reel, the Wild 3 feature kicks in. More than one Wild feature can activate on the same spin. If, for instance, the WILD COYOTE and WILD RACOON features trigger together, the WILD COYOTE feature runs first.

The Wild 3 includes a Super Bet button, seen in plenty of other NextGen slots, offering 3 options that adjust RTP/Variance, the bet range, and which Wild features are enabled:

• Bet level 0 – allows for bets between €0.10 and €100 with a 95.5% RTP setting. Only Wild Racoon feature is active.
• Bet level 1 – allows for bets between €0.15 and €150 with a 96% RTP setting. Both Wild Racoon and Wild Coyote features are active.
• Bet level 2 – allows for bets between €0.20 and €200 with a 96.7% RTP setting. All 3 Wild features are active.

Missions

On your first play session, the game creates a random set of 3 missions. These mission sets are randomly generated for every available coin value and Super Bet level. Each set contains 3 out of 8 possible missions. It sounds more complex than it is. For instance, to finish a mission set you might need to score a big win, trigger the Wild 3 feature and hit a 5 of a kind. Complete the set and you’re rewarded with the Rob the Rich feature.

Rob The Rich Feature

This is basically a pick-and-reveal bonus where 15 moneybags appear on the screen. You begin with 3 picks, and selecting moneybags can uncover credit prizes, 2 extra picks or mystery symbols. If you reveal a mystery symbol, you receive a cash prize of 5x – 100x. Your total win equals the sum of all revealed prizes multiplied by the total bet.

Lock ‘n’ Load Respins & Free Spins

Free spins are triggered a little differently here than in most slots. You get 5 free games when 2 bonus symbols (which only appear on reels 2 and 4) and at least one wild symbol land in the same spin. If you hit the 2 bonus symbols without a wild, you’re given another opportunity via the Lock ‘n’ Load Respin. Reels 2 and 4 lock in place, while reel 3 is re-spun up to 3 times.

In free spins, any wild symbol(s) landing on reel 3 become sticky for the duration of the feature. Any extra wild that lands on the middle reel will also stick. The biggest advantage, though, is that the special ability of the wild(s) that triggered the bonus will activate on every bonus spin. So if you start the feature with 2 bonus symbols + the Coyote, the Coyote’s ability will then trigger after each spin.

The Wild 3 Conclusion

As this review probably shows, there’s a lot to follow in this one. Luckily, The Wild 3 feels far less overwhelming once you actually start spinning. Still, there are a few key points to keep in mind.

Using Super Bet level 0 and 1 felt largely pointless, as it caps the max win potential at 250 times the stake because multipliers aren’t available. To really get value from the game, you’ll want Super Bet level 2 enabled and to trigger the bonus with the green multiplier wild together with the red, or ideally all three, which can potentially create a full screen of wilds with a x10 multiplier. That’s essentially the only way to hit the 1250x max win in a single spin, which is also possible in the base game.

So, what’s the verdict? Whether this slot clicks for you depends on your style. If you’re open-minded and prefer entertaining mechanics over volatility, it could be a good fit. If you’re more of a traditional, hardcore slot player chasing highly volatile monsters, The Wild 3 may come across as messy and frustrating.