Elysian Gold

Kane, the wandering adventurer from Elk Studios' back catalogue, trades Old Norse mythology for Ancient Greece in Elysian Gold, following on from 2023's Valhall Gold. Marble columns, sunbeams and golden plant life sit behind the reels, meant to evoke Elysium, the mythological resting place of the blessed.

The base game runs on a 6x4 grid with 4,096 ways to win, though avalanches that add extra rows after each winning tumble push that figure far higher as the grid grows toward eight rows, with a ninth opening up if an overflowing symbol lands. Card ranks J through A pay 0.3x the stake for six of a kind, tridents and wreaths move that up to 0.8x-1x, and lightning bolts, helms, birds, owls and bulls reach 2x-5x, with Kane himself acting as the wild and carrying the highest symbol value on the grid. Symbols can also land as oversized 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4 blocks, each counted as the equivalent number of standard symbols for line-forming purposes.

Two symbols drive most of Elysian Gold's mechanical depth. Icarus appears with a chance to replace the symbols above and including itself with fresh paying symbols whenever a spin produces no further wins, and a big 2x2 Icarus fills the space beneath it with wilds. Pandora's Box collects every symbol involved in a win as the round plays out, then opens once wins stop appearing, refilling the grid starting with whichever symbol type it collected the most of. Split symbols duplicate every matching symbol on screen into two when they land as part of a win, and the Wild Forge symbol locks in place, dropping wilds into any space that opens beneath it after an avalanche.

Landing 3, 4, 5 or 6 scatters opens the bonus game with 10, 15, 20 or 25 free spins respectively. Each winning spin during the round raises a safety level by one row, meaning the grid drops further with every hit, and 3 or more scatters landing mid-round retriggers the same number of spins as a fresh entry would have paid. Wild Forges carry over between free spins, and any wild that appears during the round stays locked in place for its duration.

Players can also buy into different states through the X-iter menu: a 2.5x stake Bonus Hunt purchase triples the odds of triggering the free spins naturally, a 10x buy guarantees a Wild Forge hit, a 25x purchase starts the round at 8 rows with a Split symbol already in play, and the bonus game itself can be bought outright for 100x or, in its Super Bonus form with Pandora's Box already active on the first spin, for 500x.

Elysian Gold pays out at 94% RTP with high volatility rated 7 out of 10, a 21% hit frequency, and a maximum win of 25,000x the stake across bets from 0.20 to 100.