Ultimate Ink (WMS): Overview

On the surface, Ultimate Ink looks like a fairly standard 5-reel slot. Then you go to set your stake and, instead of the usual controls, you’re met with a puzzling Reel Cost button—so you start adjusting that. Before long, the whole thing feels oddly unclear. At that point, players tend to split into two camps: those who open the paytable to figure it out, and those who just press spin and learn the hard way.

But let’s back up before diving into the mechanics. Created by iconic provider WMS, Ultimate Ink is a 5×4, 1024 win ways slot built around a distinctive tattoo-parlour theme. It’s not completely unheard of—Microgaming released Hot Ink years ago—yet it’s still far less common than themes like ancient Egypt. The game includes a free spins bonus with lots of retrigger potential, and wild multipliers that can stack together to lift wins by as much as 9x. If the operator enables it, you can also hit randomly triggered progressive jackpots. You can play Ultimate Ink from as little as 1 cent to 100€ per spin.

Visually, WMS has done strong work, creating a warm, laid-back vibe. The action takes place in a tattoo parlour, backed by a bluesy soundtrack, and the reels show 9 to A royals styled like classic knuckle-letter tattoos. Alongside them are familiar tattoo icons such as anchors, hearts, sailing ships, betty girls and skulls. The skull is the top-paying symbol, awarding 7.5 times your stake for a 5 of a kind. It’s also the only symbol that can appear fully stacked on the reels. The wild symbol, which shows up only on reels 2, 3 and 4, substitutes for every symbol except the scatter.

Ultimate Ink (WMS): Features

Ultimate Ink lets you configure your wager using both the Reel Cost button and the Bet Per Reel button. Your total bet is calculated as the reel cost multiplied by the bet per reel. Choose how many reels you want to play by selecting the reel cost. Reel cost acts as a multiplier and is shown as 1x, 5x, 10x, 20x or 40x. After that, pick the bet per reel to set the total stake for the spin. Only symbols landing on an active reel can pay, except for scatter symbols, which can still award even when they land on an inactive reel. The reel selection also affects RTP, which ranges from 95.93% with only 1 reel activated to 96.47% with all reels activated. In addition, when 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 reel configurations are chosen, there are 4, 16, 64, 256 and 1024 active paylines respectively.

Hit 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols anywhere on the screen to activate the Free Spins Bonus – awarding 8, 15 or 20 free spins, respectively. While the Free Spins Bonus is running, landing at least 2 scatter symbols anywhere on the reel set will grant extra free spins. Any free spins you gain are added to the number of free spins remaining.

In the Free Spins Bonus, every wild symbol that contributes to a winning combination will multiply that payout by 2x or 3x. These multipliers stack for each wild that lands on selected reels, so your wins can receive a combined multiplier of up to 9x.

To finish, there’s the Mega Drop, featuring three progressive jackpots – the Minor, Major and Epic jackpots. On every spin, a portion of the player’s total bet goes into funding the progressive jackpots. Each Mega Drop jackpot has a payout level it must drop before. Once a progressive jackpot reaches its maximum payout amount, it will have been won by a player.

Ultimate Ink (WMS): Verdict

Leaving the progressive jackpots aside, Ultimate Ink should—at least on paper—be able to produce some hefty payouts thanks to the combination of wild multipliers and stacked skull symbols. Still, it isn’t especially enjoyable to play. The flow feels clunky, win count-ups take ages, and in markets where delayed spins are required, it comes across as less polished than it should be.

The Reel Cost system also feels unnecessary. It’s clearly meant to offer flexibility and a sense of choice, but in practice it mostly creates confusion and overcomplicates what could be straightforward. It doesn’t really improve the experience, and a fixed 5-reel, 1024 setup would have been the better option. With plenty of stronger titles competing for attention, Ultimate Ink isn’t a slot we’d be eager to return to.