Arctic Magic

Travel to a winter wonderland for a stunning display of the Aurora Borealis on the slot from Microgaming. Arctic Magic will take you up North to experience the natural phenomenon that occurs during the Arctic winter period. Wild substitutions, scatter pays and a free spins round with an x3 multiplier can lead to wins of up to 3,333 times your stake in a single spin.

The game is yet another reskin of the tried and tested 9-liners that made the developer popular around the turn of the century. Veteran players will have fond memories of Thunderstruck, Spring Break, Ladies Night and other similar slots that made up the bulk of games during that period.

As its release is scheduled for December 2019, we assume Arctic Magic to be an addition to the other festive slot, Festive Indulgence, Microgaming will be blessing us this joyuous season. The funny part is that both games have the exact same layout, math model, features, RTP and payouts which leads us to believe that the studio is on a quest to revive the good ol’ 9-liners. Time will tell if the current generation of gamers will fall for the trick and add the slots to their playing lists.

Slot Details

Arctic Magic is a video slot with five reels, three rows and 9 fixed pay lines. Wins are awarded for two to five matching symbols on a line from left to right only. You can witness the polar lights on desktop or mobile from 0.09 to 45 credits per spin. The game has high volatility with an RTP of 96.10%.

Opening the game will take you to a serene Nordic scene with wintery valley and snow-capped mountain peaks in the background. The fully transparent game window is populated by a range of Arctic wild animals such as hares and polar bears while a peaceful acoustic soundtrack is inviting you to chill out and have a few spins.

The pay symbols start at the low end with ice-carved card royals from 9 through to A, awarding 11.11x to 13.88x times your bet. They are complemented by snow rabbits, snow foxes, deers, snow wolves and polar bears. Hit five on a line to win 27.77x to 83.33x your stake.

The slot logo with a snowcapped mountain in the background is the wild symbol, substituting for all regular symbols and yielding 1,111.11x your bet when five land on a line. It will double a win when it is part of a combo. Lastly, an icon with an ice crystal acts as the scatter.

Arctic Magic Slot Features

While the title implies a magical reel session with a frenzy of surprising features, turns out the game is as already mentioned more or less a clone of classic 9-liners with a simple free spins round. Cue in Thunderstruck or Ladies Night and you won’t be far off from what Arctic Magic has to offer.

The only feature on the game is triggered when you hit three or more ice crystal scatters in one spin. It will get you 15 free spins which can be retriggered, plus a coin win of 5x, 20x and 500x your stake for three, four and five scatters respectively. Landing two scatters will award 2x your bet only. The round is played with x3 multiplier for all wins and that’s it.

Final Verdict

For years, Microgaming has rested on its laureates and hardly ever released an own slot as they relied on a range of small partner studios to do the hard work. The games were mostly mediocre and subsequently, none has made it into the top lists of player favourites. Well, it looks like they are now waking up to try and salvage what is left of their reputation as one of the industry’s giants.

Although, reskinning a decade-old slot design with no additional surprises and features is hardly a “wake-up” moment. One can only hope, that one day they will return to their old glory and bring us some new entertaining cliffhanger games such as Immortal Romance or Thunderstruck II. Until then, all we have are good memories and some poor copies. Which is also the reason, we gave it a 2-star rating.

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