Wolf Howl: Overview

Microgaming teams up with Just for the Win to help players ‘leave this stressful world behind’ in their North American wilderness slot Wolf Howl. The previous JFTW title we covered was the Olympics-themed Immortal Glory, which went on to become a pretty strong performer for the studio. A big part of that was the Jackpot feature, where players sit just one click away from an instant 10,000x win. If you’re hunting huge hits, take note: Wolf Howl’s upside makes Immortal Glory’s potential feel like loose coins down the back of the sofa.

Before we get too carried away with jackpot dreams, here’s how the game is set up. Wolf Howl keeps things fairly traditional, running on 5 reels with 10 fixed paylines. The numbers suggest it’s aimed at players who enjoy a tough but potentially lucrative ride, thanks to a highly volatile math model, a hit frequency of 22.46%, and a respectable RTP of 96.15%.

The gold-framed reels sit in a snowy woodland scene that also glows with a golden hue—whether it’s the aurora borealis or a forest fire is anyone’s guess. What’s obvious is that, visually, Just for the Win borrowed a couple of ideas from Pragmatic Play’s massively popular Wolf Gold, as plenty of others have done too—the wolf and moon symbols make the connection hard to miss. Beyond that, the games diverge quite a bit, even if the fundamentals are familiar: land three or more matching symbols on a payline, left to right starting from reel one, to get paid.

With stakes running from c/p 10 to €10 per spin, the paytable mixes low-value card ranks with wildlife symbols. From lowest to highest you’ll see Jack – Ace, then a bunny, an eagle, a bear (sporting a mullet), and a moose. Considering how chaotic the multipliers can get, the symbol payouts are decent: premiums range from 6x for five bunnies up to 20x the stake for a full line of moose.

As noted, wilds are a major part of the action, and in the base game they can carry multipliers of 1x, 2x, or 3x. Five wilds across a payline pays 30 times the stake, and when multiple multipliers appear on the same line, their values are multiplied together.

Wolf Howl: Features

Feature-wise, the base game is fairly sparse, so it’s worth knowing there’s some assistance available for reaching the bonus via the Scatter Adder feature, which can trigger randomly during regular play. When Scatter Adder activates, it drops 2 to 4 random scatter symbols onto the reels.

Unsurprisingly, Wolf Howl really revolves around its bonus game, triggered when 3, 4, or 5 moon scatters land anywhere in the same spin. This awards 8, 15, or 30 free spins respectively. From here, things start to heat up. Scatters can also appear during the bonus, giving you the chance to retrigger—landing 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 visible scatters grants 2, 5, 8, 15, or 30 extra free spins respectively.

The key difference between free spins and the base game is the Wild Call feature. Each moon scatter on the screen converts all adjacent pay symbols into 1x multiplier wilds. If a wild is already next to the scatter, it receives +1 to its multiplier—up to x5 maximum. Symbols can be improved multiple times when they sit adjacent to more than one scatter.

One vital detail about this mechanic is important to understand. Wins are worked out and paid before the Wild Call feature activates. In other words, any newly created or upgraded wild multipliers remain on the reels for upcoming spins. They do not affect the spin that generated them.

If the base game starts to feel like a grind, you can skip straight to the action with the bonus buy option. The three available choices are 8, 15, or 30 free spins for 90x, 159x, or 314x the current bet respectively. Buying in also increases the RTP to 96.42%.

Wolf Howl: Verdict

To borrow the old tune: you say Wolf Howl and I say Wolf Gold? Sure, there’s some overlap in the visuals, but anyone who loves wolf-themed slots should know these two deliver clearly different experiences. Most notably, Just for the Win really cranked up the ceiling—Wolf Howl can pay up to 25,000 times the stake, which makes Wolf Gold feel irrelevant if your main priority is big-money potential.

Of course, whether that’s what you care about or not, it helps if you like straightforward gameplay and high volatility, because the base game doesn’t throw much at you. The wild multipliers provide the occasional jolt, while Scatter Adder adds a few tense moments. Visually, Wolf Howl also holds up well, combining a modern presentation with classic slot touches like punchy sound effects.

Where Wolf Howl truly goes off the rails is in the bonus. In testing, scatters showed up frequently during free spins, and it wasn’t uncommon to double—or even more than double—the initial free spins total. The only slight letdown was discovering that Wild Call places wilds for future spins rather than applying them immediately to the current one. Even so, the wilds build up over time and can become very useful later in the feature.

Overall, if you’re not bothered about reel modifiers or a long list of mechanics, Wolf Howl is a solid pick. It looks sharp, sounds strong, plays smoothly, and can produce the kind of extended bonus rounds that end up as highlight material.