Snow Slingers

Snow Slingers Review

Hacksaw has taken a sharp turn from the Wild West with their 2024 Christmas slot, Snow Slingers. This festive release might seem worlds apart from the gritty 2 Wild 2 Die, but under the hood, they're practically twins. Instead of dodging bullets, you'll be lobbing snowballs in a frozen winter world, complete with penguins Ruth and Rupert cheering you on. Don't be fooled by the jolly music and cute characters though, because this holiday reskin still packs a solid punch.

First things first, Snow Slingers slot offers a wide range of bets, from a casual €0.10 up to a solid €100 per spin. Wins come your way when you land 3 or more matching symbols on any of the 14 paylines, and with a boosted hit rate of 35 %, you can expect to see those winning combinations more often. The premium symbols, consisting of bells, Xmas trees, stockings, teddy bears, and candy canes, award between 5x and 10x your stake for 5-of-a-kind wins.

Snow Slingers Slot - Reels Screen

The real fun starts whenever the Snow-volver symbols land, especially when you get more than one at the same time. These bad boys lob up to 6 snowballs onto the grid per instance, creating upgradable wilds and multiplier wilds that can seriously boost your winnings. In the top-tier You Reap What You Snow bonus round, these multiplier wilds become sticky, meaning they stay frozen in place for even more multiplier upgrades.

Snow Slingers slot also features the Throw Snow! Bonus, a hold-and-win style feature with sticky prize symbols and collector symbols that can be upgraded in different ways. Both bonus rounds offer the chance to crack the 10,000x max win, which admittedly is a bit lower than in the original game. However, Snow Slingers compensates with a less brutal medium volatility (3 out of 5), a top-tier 96.29 % RTP that’s a tad higher, and overall more frequent wins.

Snow Slingers Features

Though the features may be familiar to some players, the theme of Snow Slingers game gives them a completely different feel. Let’s check out how it all works!

Snow-volver Symbols

Snow-volver symbols land loaded with 1 to 6 snowballs, and these are thrown onto random positions across the reels. Each position that’s hit turns Wild the first time and is upgraded with a wild multiplier between x2 and x200 the second time. The multiplier increases to random higher values if the multiplier wild is hit by more snowballs. Wilds substitute for pay symbols and multiplier wilds boost any win they partake in.

The Epic Snow-volver symbol turns positions into multiplier wilds on the first hit, and it always does its thing before the regular Snow-volver symbols. Both regular and epic snow-volver symbols become wild after releasing their snowballs, and all snowball wild multipliers are added together when part of the same win.

Throw Snow! Free Spins

The Throw Snow! Bonus Round triggers from 3 FS scatters in view, and only blanks, snow-volver, and reload symbols appear during this feature. The free spins tally resets to 3 each time you land a non-blank symbol, and the feature ends when you run out of respins or fill the grid with non-blank symbols.

Snow-volver symbols throw their snowballs at random Gift Boxes above the reels, revealing a value. This value of the snow-volver is either increased or multiplied by the revealed gift box value. The additive values range from +2x to +500x, while the multiplier values range from x2 to x20. All regular Snow-volver symbols are sticky, while Epic Snow-volver symbols add their value to all sticky Snow-volver symbols currently present before being removed.

Reload symbols are also sticky, triggering their modifier after the regular snow-volvers. This symbol collects the bet multiplier value from all regular snow-volvers in view, while also reloading the snow-volvers with 1 to 6 snowballs. The snowballs are then thrown at the gift boxes as usual. All snow-volver and reload symbol bet multiplier values are summed up and awarded when the bonus round ends.

Snow Slingers Slot - Free Spins

You Reap What You Snow

This Bonus Round triggers from 4 FS scatters in view, awarding 10 free spins. It plays out just like the base game, with the important distinction that all multiplier wilds are sticky for the duration of the bonus round. You win 2 or 4 extra free spins from 2 or 3 FS scatters in view, respectively.

Snow Slingers Slot - Bonus Game

Snow Slingers Bonus Buy (not UK)

Eligible players will find the bonus buy menu down to the left, and it comes with the following options in Snow Slingers Hacksaw:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins - pay 2x your stake to boost your bonus round chances by 3x.
• Snow Day FeatureSpins (50x the bet) - lands 3+ snow-volvers per spin.
• Throw Snow! Bonus - is priced at 100x your stake.
• You Reap What You Snow Bonus - pay 200x your stake for this bonus round.

Pros and Cons of Snow Slingers

Our Verdict

It’s astonishing what a difference a theme can make sometimes. Although I've played tons of reskins over the years, Snow Slingers Hacksaw somehow really made that clear. Perhaps it's because 2 Wild 2 Die is so extremely different from the cozy winter wonderland you get here, I don't know. The two themes really couldn't be further apart, with the fierce gunslinger's hail of bullets replaced by two charming penguin characters. I do like that Hacksaw has avoided most of the typical Christmas clichés, keeping things more subtle and low-key.

The core mechanic is as effective in delivering out-of-the-blue base game wins as before, but feels less impactful thanks to the snowball visuals. To be fair, it’s not only the visuals that have changed, as the math model is significantly less brutal as well. Going from high to medium volatility makes a difference, and the increased hit rate adds to that. These are wise decisions for a Christmas makeover, as many players simply want to enjoy themselves during the holidays, instead of being robbed blind by ruthless outlaws.

The snowball animations are charming, but I really wish the 2 penguin characters would’ve been more involved. They just stand there moving their bodies rhythmically, instead of actually engaging in the snowball war. The female gunslinger is highly active in firing bullets in the original game, and not having Ruth and Rupert slinging the snowballs feels like a massive missed opportunity. This “laziness” is understandable, given that this game will most likely not be played year-round.

That being said, both bonus rounds are highly engaging when things go your way, but there is less of an edge in this medium volatile Xmas version. The max win has been lowered from 15,000x to 10,000x your stake, which is still more than solid enough, making Snow Slingers a more forgiving affair in harmony with the Christmas spirit. All in all, Hacksaw has delivered a solid alternative for the Holiday season, and it’s well worth checking out.