Wild Hike Slot Review

Wild Hike, an online slot game from Relax Gaming, invites players to explore the great outdoors and go hiking. While many slots feature nature-related themes, Wild Hike stands out for its focus on hiking. However, note that the game’s features are not particularly innovative compared to other games from Relax Gaming. Despite this, if you are interested in a hiking-themed slot game and are not deterred by the presence of dangerous animals, you may want to give Wild Hike a try.

The Wild Hike game is set in a remote, wooded area at night, with a burning campfire, and players can roast food. It’s a peaceful setting that allows players to escape the busyness of everyday life and relax in nature. When the free spins feature is activated, the camera shows a clear night sky with stars, indicating that the player is far from civilization and there is no light pollution.

Despite not being one of Relax Gaming’s most well-known releases, Wild Hike still offers a solid set of features. It is particularly suitable for players who enjoy high volatility slots, a specialty of Relax Gaming. The game has a variable return to player (RTP) rate depending on the approach taken. When betting a range of 10 p/c to £/€50 per spin, the RTP is 96.09%. This rate increases to 96.51% when purchasing standard free spins or 96.54% for Wild Free Spins.

The game comes with a 6×4 grid with 4,096 ways to win. Players win by landing matching symbols on at least three adjacent reels starting from the left. Payouts range from 1x the bet for six 10-A card symbols to 1.8-10x the stake for six owls, deer, boar, bear, or wolf symbols. The game also has howling wolf wild symbols on the central four reels, which can substitute for regular pay symbols.

Quick Info

Title: Wild Hike

Developer: Relax Gaming

Reels: 6

Rows: 4

Paylines: 4,096

RTP: 96.09%

Max Win: 20,000x

Volatility: High (5/5)

Min/Max Bet: 0.10/50

Release Date: February 8, 2023

Feature

In this game, the Expanding Wilds feature is less common than other features. When wild symbols appear on reels 3 or 4, they expand to cover the entire reel and trigger a Re-spin. The wilds also have multipliers that increase by +1 on each consecutive Re-spin. Re-spins continue as long as there is a win, and the Expanding Wilds remain in place throughout the Re-spins. Scatters also stay in place during Re-spins. The multipliers on the Expanding Wilds multiply with each other when applied to a win. The multipliers reset in the base game when the Re-spins end.

Free Spins

If 3 or 4 scatter symbols appear, the player is awarded 7 or 10 free spins, respectively. During free spins, multipliers created through the Expanding Wilds/Re-spins feature are saved until the round ends. The multiplier values are displayed above reels 3 and 4 when no Expanding Wilds are in view. Each additional scatter symbol during the bonus round awards an additional free spin. If free spins are triggered from a Re-spin round, any multipliers earned during the Re-spins are carried over to the free spins round.

Buy Feature

Players have the option to purchase free spins with two different options to choose from. The first option is a regular free spin round, activated by 3 or 4 scatters at the cost of 75x the bet. The second option is Wild Free spins, which cost 150x the bet and are activated by 3 or 4 scatters. The difference is that this option guarantees at least one win on double Expanding Wilds.

Verdict

It didn’t take much research to find out that hiking is the most popular outdoor activity in the United States and likely in other parts of the world. This popularity is likely why so many outdoor nature-themed slots are available, though few are tied explicitly to hiking. Wild Hike, for example, feels more like a camping slot than a hiking one. However, setting aside the theme for the moment, let’s focus on the gameplay of Wild Hike instead.

Wild Hike is not one of Relax Gaming’s most innovative slots. In the past, the studio has often taken a simple concept and developed it uniquely, like in the case of WildChapo 2. However, Wild Hike does not follow this trend, as its Expanding Wilds/increasing multiplier feature has already been used in the Expanding Wild free spins option in Iron Bank, along with other features. Like Iron Bank, the mechanic in Wild Hike can get quite wild and crazy, thanks to the ways to win pay system and the fact that Expanding Wild multipliers multiply each other. This potential for significant wins is why Wild Hike has a win cap of 20,000x the bet. Relax Gaming slots have a reputation for reaching their max wins, and Wild Hike will likely have the power to do so.

It’s generally a matter of probability whether a slot will reach its full potential. In theory, the more people who play a slot, the greater the chances of something special happening. For example, top-rated slots like Money Train 3 have many players trying their luck. In contrast, while Wild Hike is technically proficient, it is not one of Relax Gaming’s standout games, so it remains to be seen how popular it will be.