Stormforged Slot by Hacksaw Gaming 🎰 Free Demo and Review

Stormforged Review

Being well-versed in Norse mythology from countless vikings-themed slots, and whatnot, we have to admit that we learned something new from Hacksaw with this installment. Stormforged pits the primal forces of fire and ice against each other, and the giant, Surtur, is the ruler of Muspelheim which is the land of fire. You get to open portals to this realm, as well as to Midgard itself, and these portals act as stacked wilds that can be upgraded with multipliers.

This happens when the portal wilds tear through regular wilds, and they can also open treasure chests with prizes up to 2,500x your stake. The prizes can even be boosted by the wild multiplier, and you get more of the same with sticky wilds in the Surtur’s Vengeance Bonus Round. The top-tier Warriors of the Storm feature comes with walking and multiplier wild reels, and you can win up to a solid 12,500x your stake.

Stormforged Slot - Reels Screen

Stormforged Slot Features

The premium symbols pay between 10 and 50 x your stake for 5 of a kind wins, and there are several different kinds of Wild symbols in this game. What they all have in common is that they step in for pay symbols to help complete and/or improve wins.

The regular 1x1 sized wild pays 100x the stake for 5 on a payline, and the same goes for Hand of Surtur Wilds. The Ice Brand Scatter pays 100x for 5 anywhere in view during the bonus round. Treasure Chest symbols pay 4x the stake for the same, and we’ll take a closer look at how these symbols come into play below.

The Portals of Muspelheim triggers when the Hand of Surtur symbol appears, and it creates a rift in time/space that opens up a portal to Muspelheim. These portals act as stacked wilds, but the feature only triggers when the created portal wild is bound to create a win. If the portal tears through an existing wild, a multiplier value between x2 and x200 is revealed. It will boost any line win that passes through it, and multipliers are added together if more than one is part of the same line win.

If the portal tears through a Treasure Chest symbol, the chest reveals a cash prize between 5 and 2,500 x your stake. If the Hand of Surtur tears through both a wild and a treasure chest when opening the portal, the multiplier from the wild will be applied to whatever instant cash prize the chest reveals.

Stormforged Slot - Surtur’s Vengeance Feature

The Surtur’s Vengeance Bonus Round triggers when you land 3, 4, or 5 Surtur symbols in view, and this gives you 10, 12, or 14 free spins, respectively. The first wild you land on any reel during the feature becomes sticky for the rest of the feature, and base game wilds on the triggering spin are carried over to become sticky in the same way. To be clear, you can only have one sticky wild symbol per reel.

The Ice Brand scatter tears open a Portal to Midgard when it appears, and the sword will slice through both wilds and treasure chests on its way to the bottom of the grid. In essence, it works like the Portal to Muspelheim feature described above, and you win 2, 4, 6, or 8 extra spins when you land 2, 3, 4, or 5 Surtur symbols, respectively.

You need 3, 4, or 5 Viking symbols in view to trigger the Warriors of the Storm Bonus Round, and this gives you 10, 12, or 14 free spins, respectively. The Hammer of Thor symbol will transform whatever reel it appears on into a Storm Reel for the rest of the bonus round. These act as full wild reels, and they reveal either a Viking Warrior or a Storm per spin that follows.

If the Storm is revealed, the wild reel moves one step to the left. This also pushes other Storm Reels one step to the left, but the storm wilds will not move if there is no empty space to move to. If a viking warrior is revealed, however, the wild reel is upgraded with a multiplier between x2 and x200. The multiplier will boost all wins that the wild partakes in, and multipliers are added together if more than one is part of the same win. You get 2-8 extra spins from 2-5 viking symbols, respectively.

The Buy Bonus Menu is available in some jurisdictions, but not in the UK for sure. It comes with 6 options, and below is an overview together with the top-tier RTP per feature buy:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins (very high volatility and 96.27 % RTP) - pay 3x your stake to increase your bonus round chances by 5x.
• 2 Hands of Surtur FeatureSpins (very high volatility and 96.35 % RTP) - pay 20x your stake to get at least 2 Hand of Surtur symbols per spin.
• 3 Hands of Surtur FeatureSpins (high volatility and 96.43 % RTP) - pay 50x your stake to get at least 3 Hand of Surtur symbols per spin.
• Surtur’s Vengeance (high volatility and 96.24 % RTP) - pay 100x your stake to get a minimum of 10 free spins.
• Warrior of the Storm (very high volatility and 96.34 % RTP) - pay 200x your stake to get at least 10 free spins.

The 200 Spins Stormforged Slot Experience

You get a brief taste of the base game, but enough to see a Portal of Muspelheim being torn open, before we purchase the top-tier Warrior of the Storm bonus round. This happens around 0:25 into the 3:15-minute highlights video. We then purchase the Surtur’s Vengeance bonus round right after, and it triggers at 1:32 to be precise. You can check it all out for yourself by hitting the play button below.

Review Summary

There is no doubt that Hacksaw has poured their heart and soul into this thing, and Stormforged does come across as an epic release in most regards. The bleep winning sound doesn’t really fit the bill though, as it gives you fruit machine vibes. While some games like this have a tangible heaviness to the symbols and the grid, you don’t get that here. Instead, it comes across as a redressing of one of Hacksaw’s “light side” releases. The dramatic soundtrack certainly helps though, and the animations are stunning as well.

It also helps that the game is jam-packed with solid features, and it’s kind of cool to open up portals to other dimensions. Stormforged is a virtual display of Hacksaw’s love for different combinations of wilds and multipliers, with the chest prizes thrown into the mix for good measure. You’ve got 2 unique bonus rounds to look forward to as well, and overall we had a pretty good time testing this game. It didn’t hit as hard as we thought it would at first glance to be fair, even though the 12,500x potential is a bit above average for this developer.