Pirots 4

Pirots 4 Review

ELK Studios keeps circling back to its mischievous parrot crew, and Pirots 4 marks the next chapter in the series that began in 2023 with the original CollectR-based release. Since then, the feathered thieves have sailed the high seas, tampered with the Jurassic era, and played the role of Wild West outlaws – with the spin-off Pirots X briefly switching things up with cluster pays instead of the trademark collecting mechanic.

This time, the so-called Fearful Four go beyond the Earth’s borders. Fresh from their Wild West score, a space monster tears open a black hole, snatches their loot, and disappears into the void, leaving the birds no choice but to jump in after it. Pirots 4 picks up right at that moment, taking the familiar CollectR framework into deep space as the parrots chase down their stolen bounty among asteroids, alien critters, and unpredictable cosmic hazards.

Pirots 4 introduces something ELK Studios themselves call ‘time-based evolution’, and it genuinely feels like a fresh concept for slot games. We’ve all seen seasonal reskins before – Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, etc – but those are usually just cosmetic swaps with the exact same gameplay underneath. Here, it’s very different. The storyline progresses over time, and each update goes far beyond decorations and actually alters how the slot behaves, bringing new twists to the gameplay process.

Pirots 4 Slot – World Selection

Even better, players are not locked into any particular phase of the narrative. You can switch between these story parts whenever you want. Two clicks, a short trailer, and suddenly you’re in another stage of chaos with the Fearful Four. And yes – every location comes with its own little cinematic, explaining what just happened, why things escalated again, and how our birdies ended up in yet another outrageous situation.

When Pirots 4 first launched, it did so under the title Lost in Space, setting the stage for the birds drifting somewhere in deep cosmos after chasing their stolen treasure through a black hole. Then ELK pushed the first major update about a month later, introducing Frozen Fury – a freezing alien world wrapped in snowstorms and strange crystal-like vegetation. After that, a few more weeks passed, and the second expansion arrived – Inferno, a brutal scorched wasteland with obsidian landscapes, volcanoes, and hot magma everywhere.

The visual work carried across these worlds deserves real credit. Lost in Space places the action against deep cosmic backdrops, glowing planets, and clusters of asteroids floating around. Frozen Fury shifts the mood entirely with a harsh, icy environment, bizarre frozen plants, and a constant feel of biting cold. Then comes Inferno, where everything is lava, ash, cracked rock formations, and heat blasting from every corner of the screen. Each setting feels distinct, with its own flavour of chaos.

And I really like the touch that the Fearful Four actually dresses for the occasion. Spacesuits in Lost in Space, thick fur coats in Frozen Fury, and then heavy-duty outfits suited for scorching conditions in Inferno. Other symbols on the reels alter too, and it adds a ton of personality. Overall, it’s an immaculate job from the design team of ELK Studios here.

With all the storytelling and evolving worlds out of the way, it’s time to get practical. Pirots 4 is still very much built on the trademark CollectR mechanic that defined the entire series, and it doesn’t behave like a regular slot at all. Instead of traditional paylines or cluster wins, everything revolves around four mischievous birds roaming across the grid and literally collecting stuff.

Pirots 4 Slot – Base Game

The action starts on a 6x6 grid, although that layout isn’t fixed – it can expand during certain features, opening up even more room for chaos. Each bird is linked to a gem of the same colour, and their job is to swoop around and grab matching gems, coins, wilds, and various feature symbols. Movement is done step-by-step to adjacent tiles, so they physically walk their way through the grid.

Whenever a bird collects paying symbols, that’s when wins are created. Gems can also be levelled up individually, pushing their payout potential higher, up to level 7. Birds keep moving and collecting for as long as there’s something reachable. Once they run out of targets, collected symbols disappear, the remaining ones drop down to fill the gaps, and new symbols land in a cascade. If at least one bird can still move after that, the collection process kicks off again.

On the numbers side, the Pirots 4 slot machine is playable with anything between €0.20 to €100 per spin, not counting the various X-iter bonus buys that sit on top as separate options. The RTP is set at 94%, paired with a hit rate of 25%, so roughly one in four spins should produce some kind of return.

The volatility sits firmly in the high bracket, which fits the 10,000x max win ceiling. Sessions can swing quite hard as the game waits for those stronger CollectR chains to land, but when things line up – upgraded gems, coins, and a grid full of movement – the math model clearly has room to push payouts into serious territory.

Bonuses And Special Features

Pirots 4 doesn’t just rely on its CollectR system to carry the gameplay. The slot is absolutely packed with bonus features and modifiers. There’s really a lot to talk about. Below, we’ll walk through the key features and explain what each of them actually does in action.

Pirots 4 Slot – Bonus Game

Collection Meter

Above the grid sits the Collection Meter, tracking how much the birds manage to scoop up during a sequence. Only gems and wilds contribute to it, and every symbol collected by any of the four birds adds to the meter. Once the birds run out of reachable targets, that round of collecting ends, and the meter stops counting.

When it reaches its limit, one pending Feature Symbol Release is awarded. You can store up to three of these releases, and when they trigger, they trigger together, unleashing multiple feature symbols simultaneously.

Corner Bombs

Each inner corner of the space station, which is the playing field, holds a Corner Bomb, and every bomb is tied to a random bird colour at the start of a round. When a bird collects a symbol that sits on top of a bomb matching its own colour, that bomb is armed and waits for the right moment to go off.

The detonation happens once the birds can’t collect any more symbols. All birds are temporarily removed from the grid, and the bomb clears a 3x3 area around itself, wiping out gems and blowing away the connected chunk of the space station frame. This expands the grid, up to a cap of 8 rows by 8 columns. Symbols then fall down to fill the gaps, new ones drop in, and the birds fly back onto the board ready for another collecting spree.

The space station frame surrounding the original grid is split into four sections, and once a bomb blows away one of them, that gap effectively turns into a tunnel. If a bird can collect symbols positioned at the tunnel’s entrance and exit, it will travel through it, picking up to two feature symbols hidden inside along the way.

Once the grid reaches its maximum expanded size, a space portal can appear there. If two or more portals are active and have collectable symbols sitting on them, the birds can teleport between them.

Feature Symbols

When a Feature Symbol Release triggers, which occurs on the first free drop in the bonus game as well as in regular play when the birds run out of moves, a bunch of regular gems are converted into special symbols. These symbols are scattered around the grid, collected by the birds like everything else, and each one brings its own perk. Here’s what each of them does.

• Bonus – contributes toward triggering the main Free Drops bonus game.
• Super Bonus – helps secure access to the enhanced version of the bonus game.
• Wild – substitutes for any gem at its current payout level. A bird can’t finish a collect on a wild, so if it ends on one, it will step into an empty tile instead.
• Coins – instantly pay their displayed value multiplied by the current bet level. There’s also a MAX WIN coin, which immediately awards the game’s win cap.
• Upgrade – increases the payout level of gems matching the bird that picked it up, boosting them by 1, 2, or 3 steps, up to level 7.
• Upgrade All – works the same way, but applies to all four gem colours at once, again up to level 7.
• Transform – changes a cluster of nearby gems into the colour of the collecting bird and may also convert some gems into feature symbols.
• Spacecorn – places special symbols in empty spaces, allowing birds to cross empty spaces once to reach otherwise inaccessible symbols.
• Black Hole – activates once the birds are out of moves. It sucks in every symbol and bird, then spits them back out in a new arrangement. One to three birds may disappear, and gems matching any removed bird can convert to the colours of those that return.
• Alien Invasion – is stored until the birds stop moving. During this, birds can’t collect, and the collection meter is disabled.

Alien Invasion

When triggered, a new character jumps in – the Space Bandit. This fella moves across the grid column by column in random order, hoovering up gems, birds, and feature symbols. The only things it ignores are Black Holes, Spacecorn, and Transform symbols, which are simply discarded. If it passes over a Corner Bomb position, it arms and detonates that bomb before the next symbol refill.

Pirots 4 Slot – Alien Invasion

Whenever the Bandit runs into one of the birds, a space duel plays out. If the Bandit wins, the spaceship multiplier increases, and that bird is removed from the grid for the rest of the feature, while the Bandit picks a new column and keeps going. If the bird wins instead, Alien Invasion ends, and the current spaceship multiplier is applied to the accumulated haul before being paid. If the Bandit manages to defeat all four birds, it sweeps up every remaining symbol, applies the final multiplier to the total, and only then wraps things up.

Lost in Space

If the birds manage to clear absolutely every collectable symbol on the expanded grid while Spacecorn is active, the Lost in Space feature kicks in. This moves the action to a dedicated 8x8 grid and places one bird in each corner. You get 3 drops to begin with, and every time coins or bridge symbols land, the drop counter resets back to 3.

Once no drops remain, the birds finally get to move – they can only collect horizontally or vertically adjacent coins, and can use bridges to reach further ones. If birds are linked by the same coins, that coin value becomes collectable again for the next bird in line, effectively recycling its payout potential. The round continues until there’s nothing more to collect.

Random Modifiers

The game can throw in a handful of random modifiers that shake things up – revive a dying sequence or snowball an already strong setup into something even more ridiculous:

• Charlie’s Extra Chance can randomly trigger when the birds can’t collect anything else. One to four Corner Bombs are activated at the same time, the birds temporarily leave the grid, the explosion clears a chunk of symbols, everything drops down, new ones fall in, and then the birds return to see if there’s anything worth chasing again.
• Space Switcheroo is another little bit of chaos that may trigger when two birds end up next to each other. One of them is relocated either to the edge of the grid or to the next symbol it can collect, while any useless gems in its way are simply wiped out and don’t count toward the meter.
• Power Clash appears when three or more birds get stuck together horizontally or vertically and can’t pick up anything else. All those birds collide into a single position, instantly nuking a 5x5 area of gems around the clash point. Then they blast off in different directions – horizontally, vertically, or diagonally – automatically triggering or collecting any Corner Bombs, Alien Invasions, Black Holes, coins, or bonus symbols in their flight paths.

Bonus Game

The bonus game is triggered when three bonus symbols are collected during the same round, awarding five free drops to get things going. This mode doesn’t reset your progress – whatever you’ve already built up on the collection meter, as well as the current payout level of the gems, carries straight into the bonus.

Bonus symbols remain useful here too, as collecting one during the feature adds an extra free drop. The regular bonus round starts on the current grid size you’ve managed to unlock, but there’s also a stronger version. If at least one of the triggering symbols is a Super Bonus, you’re thrown into the Super Bonus game instead, which always begins on a full 8x8 grid and makes every Upgrade symbol boost all gems at once.

Any pending feature also joins the party. If an Alien Invasion, Corner Bomb, or Feature Symbol Release was waiting to fire when the bonus triggered, it’s executed as part of the very first free drop. The feature continues until you run out of drops or reach the win cap.

Frozen Fury Expansion

The Frozen Fury expansion swaps out the Alien Invasion feature for a different one built around new Yeti horn symbols. Collecting a horn adds the Yeti snack time feature to the queue – when it finally kicks in, a 4x4 freeze zone appears in the middle of an 8x8 grid with a 2x2 Yeti in its centre. Birds that stray into this frozen zone are removed, and each removal doubles a special Yeti win multiplier that can later apply to that bird’s collected value.

Pirots 4 Slot – Yeti Snack Time

Frozen Fury also replaces the Lost in Space coin game with its own version. Here, birds start in the corners of the enlarged grid while coins and icy bridges drop in. Players get 3 drops, and landing coins, birds, or bridges resets the counter to 3 again. Birds move along horizontally or vertically adjacent bridges to scoop up coins, and any bird eliminated in the freeze zone both doubles the Yeti multiplier and has its accumulated value added to the total win before it can reappear on a later drop.

Lastly, snowballs add another modifier to Frozen Fury. When the Fearful Four can’t collect any more symbols, there’s a random chance that the snowball feature will trigger, detonating between one and four corner bombs at once.

Inferno Expansion

Just like Frozen Fury shook things up with icy mechanics, the Inferno expansion takes things in the opposite direction. This version introduces Fire Minions instead of Alien Invasion effects, replaces the Lost in Space coin game with an Inferno coin game, and adds a random Fireball modifier.

The Fire Minions feature is triggered when a bird collects a rocket symbol. One to four Fire Minions appear on random grid positions in an inactive pending state, waiting until the birds can no longer collect symbols and all other features have resolved. Once active, any bird that ends up adjacent to a Fire Minion ignites and begins a fire marathon. The burning parrot then runs a random number of horizontal or vertical steps in random directions. When its fire marathon ends, the bird is removed from the grid, and it can later drop back in during a refill. If a burning bird finishes its run adjacent to another bird, that bird also ignites and starts its own marathon.

Every position the burning bird runs across is marked with mystery fire. When the fire marathon ends, all marked positions reveal either gems or coins. If a position is crossed multiple times, its mystery fire level increases up to a maximum of four, and higher levels reveal higher-valued coins. A Fire Minion also burns all currently adjacent birds before disappearing. If no bird ever reaches a Fire Minion during the feature, the minion simply vanishes before the next drop.

The Inferno coin game is the fiery equivalent of Frozen Fury. It triggers if all collectable symbols on the grid are collected during the Spacecorn feature. Played on a 9x9 grid, it begins with a bird in each corner, four Fire Minions, and a ‘don’t press’ button in the center. You receive 3 drops, and landing new coins, birds, or Fire Minions resets the counter back to 3. Coins can be collected instantly when they land horizontally or vertically adjacent to a bird, and every collected coin adds to the total win counter. If an existing coin is run over during a fire marathon, its value increases each time. If a burning bird reaches the ‘don’t press’ button by collecting coins, the Charlie feature activates – all birds on screen ignite and begin fire marathons at once, with a chance of retrigger when no drops remain.

Pirots 4 Slot – Inferno

Finally, there’s the fireball random modifier. When birds can no longer collect symbols, there is a chance for one, two, three, or four corner bombs to detonate simultaneously. Birds temporarily exit the grid while remaining symbols collapse downward, new ones drop in, and the birds return – setting up a fresh chance to continue the round.

X-iter Feature

The X-iter feature gives players access to a range of bonus bets and bonus buys, allowing them to jump straight into enhanced gameplay modes with guaranteed features, instant access to special rounds, or increased chances of triggering the bonus:

• Super Bonus – Guarantees entry to the super bonus game for 500x the bet.
• Bonus – Guarantees entry to the regular bonus game for 100x the bet.
• Lost in Space / Frozen Fury / Inferno – Guarantees entry to the coin game for 50x the bet.
• Alien Invasion / Yeti Snack Time / Fire Minions – Guarantees one drop where the corresponding feature is triggered. If this leads to the bonus game, the super bonus is guaranteed. Comes at a cost of 50x the bet.
• Bonus Hunt – Quadruples the chances of triggering the bonus gamefor 3x the current bet per spin.

Pirots 4 Free Play

If you’re jumping into the game for the first time, or the Pirots franchise especially, starting with the Pirots 4 free play version is definitely the smartest move. The Pirots 4 demo is available right on the SlotCatalog website, loads instantly, and lets you try everything without putting any money on the line. Since this game is packed with action and offers three different ‘editions’ that actually change how it plays, testing it in demo mode is a great way to get comfortable with the mechanics, features, and overall pace before you spin for real.

Pros And Cons Of Pirots 4 Slot

Final Thoughts

Pirots 4 feels like a project where ELK Studios really went all-in. The CollectR foundation is still the heart of the experience, but the time-based evolution concept takes the series somewhere new. Instead of being ‘just another sequel’, it genuinely plays like three different follow-ups wrapped into one release, each with its own flavour, personality, and gameplay shake-ups.

You can clearly sense the amount of effort poured into this slot – from the evolving worlds and detailed presentation to the layers of mechanics stacked on top of each other. Even the promotional phase with countdowns and staged reveals helped build the sense that this wasn’t a throwaway update but something remarkable.

Pirots has always been one of the more innovative slot series out there, and this entry keeps that reputation intact. If ELK keeps pushing the concept forward with this kind of ambition, I can’t wait to see what Pirots 5 is going to be like.