Athena Ascending

Athena Ascending, developed by Play'n GO, sets its reels against a temple scene rendered in a partially see-through grid, with smoky braziers, trimmed greenery and a hazy sky behind a stone backdrop, underscored by a vocal-led soundtrack. The presentation follows on from an earlier Play'n GO release built around the same Greek goddess, sharing a similar visual register while pushing the mathematics further.

The paytable runs from 10 through Ace styled as card royals for the low end, up through a helmet, an urn, a scroll, a Pegasus and Athena herself for the premiums; Athena alone can register a win from as few as two of a kind. Five of the lower symbols pays 1x the stake, while the top symbols pay between 2x and 50x for a full line of five.

Play takes place on a 5x3 grid across 20 fixed paylines, with wilds able to land on reels 2, 3 and 4 carrying their own multiplier of 1x to 4x. Where more than one wild contributes to a single win, their multipliers are multiplied together rather than added, up to a ceiling of 64x. An owl serves as the scatter symbol; landing three, four or five of them triggers five free spins along with an immediate payout of 1x, 20x or 500x the stake depending on the count. Inside the feature, wild multipliers stick to the grid and climb by one point with each subsequent spin until they reach 4x, at which point they drop off. Any sticky wilds still standing when the free spins run out trigger extra respins until the grid is clear, though scatters cannot appear during the bonus itself, so it cannot be retriggered.

Bet sizes run from 0.05 to 100 per spin on the 5x3 layout, and the game carries a maximum win of 10,000x the stake at a 7-out-of-10 volatility rating. The headline return to player is 96.2%, with four lower configurations available down to 84.2% depending on where the game is deployed. Athena Ascending was released in December 2022.