Towering Pays Valhalla: Slot Overview

A quick browse through software provider GamesLab‘s back catalogue makes one thing obvious: the studio has a real fondness for mythology. Egypt is there as expected, alongside Asian fantasy and Aztec themes, and now we get another Norse-inspired title. It’s called Towering Pays Valhalla, and it brings back the studio’s Towering Pays mechanism. If this is new to you, the idea is that towers of symbols can land on certain reels, increasing the number of rows and paylines as they appear. Is it just a flashy trick, or a genuinely clever concept? Time to head into Valhalla and find out.

Towering Pays Valhalla opens on a 5-reel, 3-row layout with 15 fixed paylines for landing wins. Visually, it’s a strong showing: the backdrop is washed in an unsettling blue glow, with Viking longships, a striking red-leafed tree, and one of those impressive Norwegian stave churches in the distance. The audio is similarly haunting, and together they create an atmosphere that encourages you to keep spinning to see what else is in store.

Next comes the stake selection, with bets running from 25 p/c to $/€31.25 per spin, and it’s playable across devices. The maths model follows the familiar Towering Pays pattern, delivering medium volatility and an RTP value of 95.75%, which slips to 95.65% if you choose to buy the bonus feature. This entry does bring the highest upside of the series so far, though, so anyone who enjoyed the mechanic previously but felt the max win was too limited should appreciate GamesLab being more generous in Towering Pays Valhalla.

Wins are created by landing three to five matching symbols across one of the active bet ways. Horns of Odin wilds assist by substituting for any paying symbol. Wilds also pay on their own, awarding up to 10x the stake for five across a line. There are 10 standard symbols in total, starting with card suits—clubs, diamonds, spades, and hearts—as the lower pays, worth up to 0.8x for five of a kind. Above those are better-crafted icons like dragons, two-headed eagles, horses, rams, wolves, and a Viking warrior. Hitting five of these pays 1 to 6 times the stake. That isn’t huge given the paylines, but the expanding grid and multipliers are designed to raise the game’s overall potential.

Towering Pays Valhalla: Slot Features

Towering Pays Valhalla’s feature set includes Mega Tower Magic, Stage Play, Prize Multipliers, plus a Feature Trail that unlocks four free spins rounds – somewhat reminiscent of Thunderstruck II.

Mega Tower Magic is built around Towers (stacks) of special golden symbols, which can appear on reels 1, 2, and 3 in the base game. When Towers hit, they transform into standard paying symbols and can also trigger additional features.

Any time a Tower lands on every reel that can contain them, the game advances to the next Stage. Each Stage adds 1 extra row of symbols and 10 extra paylines. This progression continues until the grid reaches 5×8 in size, at which point 65 paylines are active. Once free spins end, or if you decline free spins, the grid returns to its original dimensions.

On random winning spins, a multiplier can be added to the payout. The available value depends on the current Stage, meaning the more rows you’ve unlocked, the bigger the potential multiplier, ranging from x2 to x10.

When at least 1 Tower lands on reels 1-3 on the 5×8 sized grid, you’re presented with a feature offer. It can be accepted or rejected if you want to continue playing for a stronger option. There are 4 features presented in order – Valkyrie, Loki, Thor, and Odin. Each one grants 7 free spins and begins on the standard 5×3 reel setup. If at least 1 Tower appears during the feature on all eligible reels, an extra free spin is awarded.

Valkyrie and Loki Free Spins work much like the base game, with Towers appearing on reels 1-3, but in Loki the win multipliers are guaranteed. In the Thor or Odin rounds, Towers appear on reels 1 to 4. Once the grid has fully expanded in the Odin feature, Towers can land on all 5 reels, which is where the game’s top potential becomes possible.

If you’d rather skip the slow build and the wait for Towers, there’s also the option to buy the feature. The price is 50 times the stake. After purchase, you spin a wheel split into segments: 10 segments award Valkyrie, 3 for Loki, 2  for Thor, and 1 segment awards Odin.

Towering Pays Valhalla: Slot Verdict

Towering Pays Valhalla has some positives, though it also comes across like something that would have felt more cutting-edge a few years back. It runs into a similar problem to Reflex Gaming’s game Sea God, which we reviewed shortly before this. The main drawback is the fairly limiting paylines, which often leave wins trapped in a small area of the fully expanded grid—even when it looks like the same symbol is appearing all over. Not every spin, of course, but the near-misses stand out more when you’re staring at eight rows and only getting a tiny three-symbol hit down in the bottom-left.

That said, the larger grid can sometimes link up better-value combinations, especially with Towers acting in a mystery-like way. The four-step bonus trail is a neat idea, even if the differences between rounds are fairly minor—aside from the extra Towers in Thor and Odin, building up to all five reels once the grid expands in the latter. It does provide a clear target to chase, but you’ll need patience and genuine interest to keep going long enough to reach it. Whether Towering Pays Valhalla holds attention will depend on the player: for some it may click, while for others the expanding rows and extra ways could become repetitive quickly.

There is genuine upside, with up to 6,500x the bet available in Odin free spins. Odin’s main appeal is having Towers across all five reels, yet even if they fill the screen with the highest symbol, the payout is only 390x the bet, which feels underwhelming for an eight-row setup. Multipliers can significantly lift that, but still. It’s also unclear what the other bonus rounds can pay, which may put some players off—especially since triggering Odin isn’t exactly straightforward, whether you’re aiming to reach it naturally or via the bonus buy.

Ultimately, Towering Pays Valhalla lays out a very defined progression path that some players will enjoy, and it’s presented in an attractive, moody setting. It does end up a bit overcomplicated, though, and might have been stronger if GamesLab had streamlined the idea into a single bonus round or modernised the pay structure.