Dead, Dead or Deader

Dead, Dead or Deader Review

As if Nolimit City hadn’t released enough volatile Wild West slots lately, they’ve added another one to the pile with Dead, Dead or Deader. With a rough-around-the-edges presentation that blends comic book-style visuals with a red and black color scheme, this game pulls you in from the get-go with its Morricone-inspired soundtrack and blood-splattered backdrop. We have seen both hanging and xNudge Wilds before from NLC though, but not quite like what you get here.

However, before we get to all the good stuff, let’s cover the nitty gritty. You can play with bet levels ranging from €0.2 to €100 per spin, catering to both penny punters and high rollers, as usual. The game plays out on a 5x3 grid, and you win by landing matching symbols across up to 243 win ways starting from the leftmost reel. The symbols are painted in black against the red backdrop, with premiums consisting of gunslingers, pistols, sheriff stars, jugs, and handcuffs.

Dead, Dead or Deader Slot - Reels Screen

These symbols award between 0.75x and 1.2x your stake for 5 of a kind, while the royal symbols pay between 0.3x and 0.4x your stake for the same. Not exactly eye-watering values, which is why the xNudge Wild is the symbol to look out for in Dead, Dead or Deader slot. Appearing on the 3 middle reels, this stacked wild nudges in place while increasing the win multiplier. It also comes with possible respins that double the multiplier, which is the big innovation in this game.

You can land regular multiplier wilds of up to x5 also, and both the Dead and Deader free spin rounds play out similarly. The xNudge Wild respin feature is guaranteed with each xNudge Wild that lands in both bonus rounds, doubling or tripling the multiplier, respectively. With its extreme volatility (10 out of 10) and top-tier RTP of 96.09 %, Dead, Dead or Deader offers a decent max win of 19,349x your stake. Eligible players can take advantage of the bonus buy menu, and the xBet may be worth considering as it significantly increases the hit rate of the Dead Spins bonus.

Dead, Dead or Deader Features

The familiar xNudge Wilds have been upgraded in interesting ways in Dead, Dead or Deader NoLimit City, and there are 2 bonus round tiers to cover as well. Let’s check it all out!

Multiplier Wilds

Wild symbols appear with a multiplier equal to the reel number when counting from the left towards the right, meaning reel 1 lands x1 multiplier wilds and reel 5 lands x5 multiplier wilds. You can land up to multiple multiplier wilds on the same reel, and they combine to boost all wins the wilds partake in. Wilds substitute for any pay symbol, as usual, while also paying the same as the top-tier premium symbol if you land 5 wilds on a payline.

xNudge Wilds

You can land the xNudge Wild on reels 2, 3, and 4 only, and this stacked wild always nudges fully in place to cover the whole reel. The win multiplier increases by +1 per nudge, boosting all wins on the current spin. All present xNudge Wilds add their multiplier value to the win multiplier, and xNudge Wilds can also trigger the following respin modifiers:

• The Hanging - after a successful hanging animation, you get a respin with the xNudge Wild sticky.
• The Deadlock - another respin can be awarded with the win multiplier doubled.
• The Dropout - means the hanging fails and no respin is awarded. This can also happen on the second respin, reverting the multiplier and canceling the extra spin.

Scatters

Landing exactly 2 scatter symbols in the base game turns the symbols wild, while 3 or 4 scatters in view trigger the bonus rounds described below.

Dead Spins Bonus Round

Landing 3 scatters in the base game triggers the Dead Spins Bonus, awarding 12 free spins. During this bonus round, xNudge Wilds are always sticky for an extra respin with the multiplier doubled. If you land a scatter symbol on reel 5, the feature is upgraded to the Deader Spins Bonus with +2 extra free spins added to your tally.

Deader Spins Bonus Round

Plays out similarly to the Dead Spins Bonus, but the xNudge Wild respin multiplier is tripled instead of doubled. Keep in mind that the Deader Spins Bonus Round can also trigger from the base game, and this happens when you land 4 scatters in view on the same spin.

NoLimit Booster & Bonus Buy (not UK)

If available in your jurisdiction, the red button above the spin button with a yellow lightning icon opens the Booster and Bonus Buy menu. It comes with the following options in Dead, Dead or Deader slot:

• Pay 1.5x your stake to always land a scatter on reel 2, increasing your bonus round chances from 1 in 337 spins to 1 in 135 spins (Dead Spins) and 1 in 13,800 spins to 1 in 12,500 spins (Deader Spins), respectively.
• Pay 7x your stake to land at least one Xnudge Wild per spin.
• Pay 799x your stake to land 3 xNudge Wilds on the 3 middle reels.
• Pay 99x your stake to get the Dead Spins Bonus.
• Pay 499x your stake to trigger the Deader Spins Bonus.
• Pay 299x your stake for the Lucky Draw option with a 50/50 chance to trigger either of the bonus rounds.

Theme & Graphics

The Dead, Dead or Deader game may depict hanging on the xNudge Wilds, but the cartoonish visuals are far from the grotesque realism we’ve seen in other Wild West slots from NoLimit City. The red and black color scheme has historic associations with a certain totalitarian regime, and the blood splattered across the backdrop looks like a watercolor painting gone wrong. The whistling soundtrack is a highlight as well, and the humorous Just Die Already Win Story takes the edge off with its bizarre twists (both literally and figuratively speaking).

Pros and Cons of Dead, Dead or Deader

Our Verdict

Dead, Dead or Deader is hardly the most original Wild West release we’ve seen from NoLimit City, both thematically and in the feature department. The title connects well with the rather unusual Just Die Already win story though, which is one of the highlights of this game. It starts like a regular showdown between two gunslingers until one of them says: “Hey man, do you think I can borrow some money,” just to get shot by the other one. Lying on the ground and refusing to die as he gets shot repetitively, the penniless pistoleer keeps shooting his mouth off in hilarious ways.

It’s unpredictable stuff like this that sets NoLimit City apart, always adding humor when you least expect it, which balances out an otherwise grim and dark theme with some lighthearted fun. The graphics of this game are simpler and less detailed than usual though, with rough textures and blood splatter dominating the stylized comic-book artwork. That being said, Dead, Dead or Deader seems a tad less inspired than the NLC standard we’ve come to expect. With so many other gritty Wild West releases to choose from, this is hardly the best alternative in their catalog.

Don’t get us wrong, Dead, Dead or Deader is still a highly playable game, not least if you’re a fan of the xNudge Wilds. The respins and doubling of the multiplier is a neat innovation that definitely adds to the fun, although you’ll seldom see several of them in action at the same time without coughing up a hefty 799x your stake to get all 3 (if eligible). This tells you something about their potency, but the extreme volatility combined with the low bonus round hit rate makes this a rather unforgiving adventure if you’re unwilling or unable to switch on the xBet.

The top-tier Deader Spins feature comes about only once every 13,800 spins on average, while the usually less lucrative Dead Spins bonus triggers every 337 spins. The 19,349x max win, while solid compared to most slots, is at the lower end of what we’ve come to expect from NoLimit City games, not least in the Wild West genre. The 1 in 802,000 spins win cap hit rate is pretty solid though, but expect plenty of ‘dead spins’ before you get even close to anything substantial in this game.