Pandemic Rising Slot Review

The Pandemic Rising Slot Game

It’s not very clear as to what caused the pandemic in this Pragmatic Play release. Going by some of its visuals, it could be our ancestral siblings, the primates. But in all fairness, every global catastrophe is marred by conspiracy theories, so it may as well not be the ape family.

Anyway, the Pandemic Rising slot happens at night in a city with towering skyscrapers in the distance. However, the semi-transparent 5x4 gameboard floats above what appears to be a yard filled with shipping containers. During the bonus round, the backdrop changes into a parade of people standing in front of several police cars in the rain.

Although the design is impressive, the mood isn’t all cheery, as evidenced by the eerie background melody.

Symbols and Payouts

Several characters and a collection of traditional poker symbols complete this slot’s paytable. They include 11 regular symbols ranked as low or high-paying, while you get 40 paylines to complete winning combinations.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, you’ll win when you manage identical symbols along a predefined payline from the leftmost side. All the wins in the Pandemic Rising are based on the currently selected stake!

The low-paying symbols include the nailed-down 10, J, Q, K, and A royals. The first three give out between 0.1x and 1x, while the others pay 0.15x to 1.5x the bet. The Monkey gives out 0.15x to 2.5x the stake.

Five characters stamped onto different frames are the high-paying symbols, as follows:

• Purple - 0.35x, 0.75x, and 3.75x the bet.

• Pink - 0.5x, 1.25x, 5x the stake.

• Yellow - 0.75x, 2x, and 7.5x the bet.

• Blue - 1.25x, 3.75x, and 12.5x the stake.

• Red - 1.5x, 5x, and 20x the bet.

The Pandemic Rising slot also features a wild symbol, which I’ll discuss more in a short while.

Pandemic Rising Slot Bonus Features

Although there’s a pandemic, you’re fortunate enough to get wild multipliers, a free spins bonus, an ante bet, and a bonus buy.

Wild Symbol

The wild symbol in Pandemic Rising only appears on the three middle reels and substitutes for all the paytable symbols. Whenever the wild hits, it can have and apply a random multiplier of 1x to 10x to all wins that pass through it. Multiple wild multipliers that appear in a winning combination will be added.

Free Spins

The Bonus symbol can appear on the odd-numbered reels and pay 2x for three of its kind. Furthermore, 3 Bonus symbols trigger 8 free spins, where all wilds that hit remain sticky until the feature ends. The bonus also features a general multiplier that starts at 1x and increases by you collect Virus symbols.

The pandemic Rising includes a collection Virus symbol during the bonus, depicted as a meter. The meter shows multipliers starting from 1x and increasing sequentially to 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 7x, 10x, 20x, 50x, and 100x.

Every 3rd Virus symbol you collect increases the general multiplier to the next level and adds an extra spin. Changes in the appearance of high-paying symbols represent the increase in the multiplier.

Ante Bet & Bonus Buy

Any player can change their multiplier for the game to behave differently, as follows:

• Super Spin - it increases the bet by 10x, and guarantees at least one wild to hit in a random position with a random multiplier on every spin.
• Ante Bet - increases the bet by 4x, and boosts the odds of hitting the free spins naturally by 10 times.

Finally, the Pandemic Rising slot has two ways of triggering the free spins:

• Pay 100x bet for the regular free spins.
• Pay 500x bet for the super free spins. This mode guarantees 2 wild symbols in random positions and with a random multiplier at the start.

How to Win at Pandemic Rising Slot

Playing this pandemic-themed slot takes place on a 5x4 matrix, fueled by 40 paylines. As a payline-based slot, you must aim for identical symbols along its predefined lines from the leftmost column to the right.

Coinciding wins across multiple lines are added, and all payouts in this game are multiplied by the selected bet (between €0.20 and €240).

You must pick an ideal bet before spinning the Pandemic Rising reels. Using the Spin button or the Spacebar ignites a single round, while the Autoplay allows you to gamble several preselected auto-spins.

The user interface also features Turbo and Quickspin options to speed up the reels, as well as an “info” button to access the paytable and game rules.

Pandemic Rising Slot RTP & Volatility

This slot’s theoretical RTP of 96.51% changes when you’re using the ante bet and buy options. Furthermore, the gameplay is highly volatile and features a win cap of 14,000 times the stake.

Concluding Thoughts

It’s always a good idea to reflect on the past and remember what didn’t break you. And the COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly left many scars and resulted in massive global changes, including the widespread adoption of remote work. As such, it was such a reminiscent experience playing this Pragmatic Play game.

However, I’m unsure whether most of those who still suffer from the virus's effects would want to engage with this triggering release.

The Pandemic Rising features well-done visuals and sounds; I almost thought I was interacting with a Nolimit City creation. Moreover, the gameplay was equally engaging, from the wild multipliers that made the base game fun to the free spins that featured up to x100 multiplier increases.

Even better, it boasts a significant winning potential of up to 14,000 times the bet, which gets easier to unlock during the free spins. All in all, even though it doesn’t introduce anything unique, it’s a worthy Pragmatic addition, featuring sticky wild multipliers, like in The Dog House Dice Show.