Circle of Life Slot Review

The Circle of Life Slot Game

This new game reminds me of Life and Death, created by Hacksaw Gaming in early 2025, because both of them venture into the same subject matter. Like the earlier release, this new game also wears a monochromatic design, which, although it may feel dull to some, is unique. At least you’ll spend more time focusing on the gameplay than admiring colours.

Regardless, the Circle of Life is designed with high-quality visuals, featuring a 5x4 gameboard flanked by two faceless entities on either side. Two massive hands support the entities. Then, there’s also a tree imagery and a light-to-dark transition in the back. Finally, a soundtrack with soft, contemplative, and ambient tones adds a ritual-like quality to the design.

Symbols and Payouts

Even the symbols in this game adhere to the monochromatic design. They include 10 regular symbols split into low and high-paying categories, determined by their payout values. In this section, I’ll break down all the symbols and their values here.

The Circle of Life runs on 14 paylines only. It means that winning combinations happen when matching symbols appear along a predefined payline and on adjacent reels from left to right, beginning from the leftmost reel.

This game features the typical 10 to A playing cards as its low-paying symbols. All of them award 0.2x, 0.5x, and 1x the bet for 3+ of the same. Then, the high-paying symbols include the following:

• Root Vegetable & Sun: 0.5x, 1x, and 2x the bet.
• Snake Encircling An Eye & Apple: 0.8x, 1.5x, and 3x the stake.
• Face Surrounded by Wings: 1x, 2x, and 5x the bet.

The Circle of Life also features many special symbols, including the wild symbol, but I’ll discuss all of them in the next section.

Circle of Life Slot Bonus Features

The game leans heavily into features, including wild multipliers, respins, and bonus rounds that let you climb through metaphorical life cycles for greater action.

Tree of Life

The Tree symbol is wild, and when it lands, it substitutes for all the paytable symbols and reveals between 2x and 100x additive multipliers. If it’s part of a Circle of Life win, it triggers a respin and expands into a Tree of Life. The Tree symbol multiplier multiplies the winning combination that the Tree symbol is a part of.

The values of multiple Tree symbols that are in the same winning combination will be added before being applied to the win.

After the wins are awarded, a respin is awarded, where the winning Tree symbols will stick to the grid and expand upward by a row into a Tree of Life while everything else respins. The respin sequence continues when new wins occur on the Tree of Life or other Tree symbols on the grid.

Once fully expanded, the Tree of Life will be removed from the reels on the next respin or spin.

Circle of Life

After the Tree of Life fully expands, the Circle of Life will be triggered on it before the reels stop during the respin. It spins and lands on a multiplier or a Skull. The multiplied will be combined with the Tree of Life’s multiplier, multiplying it by x2 or adding between x2 and x100.

The Circle of Life continues spinning and landing on multipliers until the arrow lands on the skull, which ends it.

Spreading FS Symbols

When at least 3 FS symbols appear, each one will expand across the corresponding reel after all wins have been awarded. Every position the FS symbol covers represents a certain number of free spins between +1 and +3.

The total free spins for the bonus is determined by adding all the numbers on the positions covered by each FS symbol. When triggering and buying a bonus, some positions on expanding FS symbols may become Upgrade symbols and upgrade you to a higher bonus.

Landing 3 expanding FS symbols with 1 Upgrade moves you to the Eternal bonus, and 3 expanding FS symbols with 2 Upgrade symbols or 4 expanding FS symbols with 1 Upgrade symbol takes you to the Rebirth.  

Origin Bonus

Manage 3 expanding FS symbols in the Circle of Life base game to trigger this feature. It retains the base game mechanics. When the Tree symbol is part of a win, the Tree of Life will become sticky in the next free spin until it’s no longer a part of any wins.

A fully expanded Tree of Life is removed for the next spin, and respins can’t be triggered here. Every expanding FS symbol that lands here and in the Eternal bonus awards between +4 and +12 free spins.

Eternal Bonus

This feature starts when you land 4 expanding FS symbols simultaneously in the base game. It keeps the Origin bonus mechanics and activates a reel when a Circle of Life is triggered on it. The activated reel remains so throughout the bonus and guarantees a Tree symbol on it per spin, unless the column already has a Tree symbol or a Tree of Life.

Hidden Epic Bonus - Rebirth

This bonus starts when you manage 5 expanding FS symbols in the base game. It keeps the Eternal bonus mechanics, in addition to the 2nd and 4th reels being active from the beginning. This feature cannot be retriggered.

Feature Buys

The Circle of Life allows you to buy different features:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins: Every spin is 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus for 5x the bet.
• Life of Death FeatureSpins: Every spin guarantees at least 2 Tree symbols for 70x the stake.
• Origin bonus: 100x the bet.
• Eternal bonus: 300x the stake.

How to Win at Circle of Life Slot

This video slot features 5 reels and 4 rows, which is a conventional slot layout. However, it only packs 14 paylines, which may feel somewhat restrictive.

It means that to win, you must hit identical symbols along the predefined paylines, beginning from the furthest left column. Then, multiple winning combinations that happen simultaneously are combined.

The least amount you can bet in the Circle of Life is €0.10, and the highest is €50.

After picking a preferred amount, push the Spacebar or use the Spin button to ignite a single round. Otherwise, you can use Autoplay to preselect and ignite several auto-spins. The game also has Turbo and Super Turbo for charging the reel spins to go faster.

Circle of Life Slot RTP & Volatility

This game has a theoretical RTP of 96.33%. But you must endure its high volatility to win up to 15,000 times your bet potentially.

Conclusion

Only a few gaming studios dare to poke at themes that the majority of game developers politely avoid. Hacksaw Gaming is one of the few bold ones, even as it leans into the fragility of life in this new creation. And honestly, this game called the Circle of Life is a quiet reminder that, yes, everything really does come and go.   

Surprisingly, the developer tackles the delicate subject matter without turning it into doom and gloom. Part of why it stands out. Then again, the charm proceeds into the bonus features, where wild multipliers and respins are like the cycle’s backbone. These are backed up with three interesting bonus rounds and a generous lineup of feature buys. But not all the bonus buys are gentle on the pockets.

Away from the goodness, it has quirks you’ll either tolerate or instantly dislike. First, the visuals lean so monochrome that they sometimes feel like the game forgot to switch out of draft mode. Also, the 14 paylines don’t leave much room for creativity, and the high volatility means you’ll experience frequent dry spells.

Therefore, if you like games that try something different and don’t mind the occasional bankroll drought, then yes, there’s something oddly compelling here.