Bison Moon Megaways

Bison Moon Megaways Review

Welcome to the untamed Wild West prairie once again with another online slot crafted by Northern Lights Gaming. Bison Moon Megaways comes as a 4th installment of the series to offer diverse gameplay, modern mechanics, and up to 10,000 reasons to join. Get yourself ready for a mighty adventure, and come with me!

In the beginning of 2023, Northern Lights Gaming released Bison Moon and about 10 months later, a sequel - Bison Moon Ultra Link&Win. The Stockholm-based developer is one of the key European studios that supply Games Global with premium-quality content exclusively. This series is exactly in the style of the industry-renowned provider.

As expected, the Bison Moon Megaways slot follows the Wildlife theme once again, but is based on a much more complex payout system. And not only that, but the provider has made sure to include enough number of modifiers and bonus minigames to attract all fans of modern gambling.

The slot uses Megaways mechanics with Rolling Reels and Extra Reel that generate up to 117,649 ways to win. The base grid has 6 reels with 2 to 7 symbol positions each and an additional horizontal reel on top that complements reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. It rolls from right to left, while payouts are calculated on the entire board from left to right.

Combinations always start from the leftmost reel and continue to the right on adjacent columns, according to the Paytable. The interface offers Autoplay, Turbo Spin, Bonus Buy, and several other screens and settings. As you can see, a special Bonus Wheel is displayed on the grid's left side, which activates during the Bison Stampede feature.

Essentially, Bison Moon Megaways stands solid in terms of visual and audio appearance. Exciting animal-like sounds are common on every spin, and a nice female voiceover compensates for any flaws. The picturesque landscape in the background and well-developed animations add a finishing touch to the game in a way that the prequel titles failed to.

Bison Moon Megaways Slot - Reels Screen

The mighty Bison continues to be the wild symbol in the game and it substitutes for all regular symbols. It can land on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5, including on the Extra Reel. The other basic symbols pay for 3 to 6 of a kind on adjacent reel positions. Payouts are not particularly attractive, but you can collect multiple prizes per spin.

Deer pay from 0.50x to 4x, Bears - 0.40x to 1x, Wolves - 0.30x to 0.75x, Eagles - 0.25x to 0.50x, and Raccoons award 0.20x to 0.40x the bet. The low-valued figures are A, K, Q, J, 10, and 9, and they bring between 0.05x to 0.25x the stake.

The Bison Moon Megaways default RTP is 96.10%, while the expected variance is high. However, the provider is known for releasing alternative variants with adjustable payout rates, so we did some digging on our own. At least 3 different versions will be released with coefficients of 94.17%, 92.12%, and 86.86%.

The ranging RTP might sound troublesome, but the aim of the provider is to simply improve its market reach. Therefore, you only need to check this indicator before signing up for a new online casino. Bison Moon Megaways is packed with several stake levels between €0.20 and €20 per spin, and the max win is capped at 10,000x the bet.

Bison Moon Megaways Features

Bison Moon Megaways is packed with several amazing base game modifiers during the random feature and a couple of bonus minigames - Free Spins and Link&Win. Both can be bought via the Buy Feature tool, but that might not be necessary since the bonuses are not too hard to trigger, at least from my experience with the slot.

Rolling Reels Wins

Rolling Reels is a mechanic that allows multiple payouts within the same round. Symbols participating in winning combinations disappear, activating chain reactions. The other symbols fall down to fill the gaps, if any, and new ones come from above to complete the grid. These cascades continue until no more winning combos are available.

Bison Stampede

Bison Stampede is a random feature that may trigger at the beginning of any base game spin. It leads to a Bonus Wheel activation and one of the following modifiers:

• Max Ways - a maximum number of 117,649 ways to win is guaranteed for the current spin.
• Bison Wilds - one low-valued symbol is randomly selected, and all instances on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5 are turned into wilds.
• No Lows - low-valued symbols won't land on the initial spin. However, such may refill the reels after the first Rolling Reels chain reaction.
• Wild Reels - four wild symbols completely fill out the Extra Reel.

Link&Win Bonus

Link&Win activates if 6 or more Link&Win symbols land at the same time during the base game only! Each of them carries a cash reward from 0.20x to 10x the bet. Red Moons turn into Blue Moons at the start of the feature if they carry prizes of equal or higher than 1.20x the bet.

All triggering symbols are held on the grid and reels 1 and 6 are locked. Players get 3 respins to find more Moon symbols or Special symbols on the Extra Reel. Every successful hit resets the counter back to 3. The minigame ends when the whole board is filled with symbols or the number of respins hits zero.

• Key - unlocks reel 1 first and then reel 6 on its second appearance.
• Double Arrow - collect all cash rewards on the respective reel in a special pot.
• Multiplier - it can be x2, x3, x5, or x10. It multiplies all cash values in view of the respective reel.
• Up-Down Arrow - increases the symbol positions on the respective reel to the maximum of 7.

Bison Moon Megaways Slot - Hold and Win Bonus Gameplay Screen

Free Spins Bonus

Scatters activate the second bonus minigame, and 3, 4, or 5 of them simultaneously trigger 10, 15, or 20 free spins. The bonus is played with a persistent multiplier that starts from x1 and increases by +1 for every chain reaction win. Dynamite may land on the Extra Reel, and it activates the following modifiers in the displayed order:

• Multiplier Boost - boosts the current Multiplier value by +5.
• More Ways - increases the minimum number of ways to win.
• Double Multiplier - the Multiplier increment is doubled. Every win increases it by +2 instead of +1.
• Bison Wild - a random wild symbol is transformed into wilds on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. The effect is for the remaining free spins.
• Extra Spins - awards 5 extra free spins.

Bison Moon Megaways Slot - Free Spins Gameplay Screen

Buy Feature

If available, the Bonus Buy feature allows players to instantly trigger one of the two bonus minigames. Each option comes at a fixed price of 100x the bet. The Free Spins bonus comes with high volatility and an RTP rate of 96.21%, while the Link&Win bonus will be played with medium levels of volatility and an RTP of 96.27%.

Pros And Cons Of Bison Moon Megaways Slot

Our Verdict

Sooner or later, all Buffalo-themed online slots get a Megaways version with different sub-mechanics, features, and bonuses. Buffalo King Untamed Megaways and Buffalo Blitz Megaways are two excellent examples, and actually, the complex engine revived the glory of the series in both cases!

Well, the series powered by Northern Lights Gaming does not need such an intervention for the moment because it is rather new. Bison Moon Megaways, however, brings it to an entirely different level. I must mention Bison Boom, which was released in July 2024 as a slightly different sequel to Bison Moon and Bison Moon Ultra Link&Win.

The game brought several new features to the table - Bison Wild Boom, Feature Upgrade, and Bison Spins with Upsizer. They increased the Hit Frequency potential to a new record high for the series of 33.55%, and the coefficient remained rather the same in Bison Moon Megaways (33%).

In conclusion, the newest game by Northern Lights is definitely worth the spin if you like games with Buffaloes, wild animals, Moons, and Hold & Win minigames. There are plenty of them indeed, and a whole new category has been established in recent years. Anyway, this one hardly offers something new, but the gameplay is dynamic and excellently backed with popular features!