It seems like every developer eventually makes their way to the fertile Scandinavian plains for some Viking-themed action, and now it’s the turn of the Armenian company Peter & Sons. Again, they’ve done it in a way that’s all their own, populating the scene with an abundance of offbeat characters and setting the whole thing in a cartoon style that’s become almost their signature. They’ve combined a variety of innovative features—including a Way Multiplier, a wild gather and release mechanic, and free spins—to create some truly staggering payout figures.
Hammer of Gods has a number of out-of-the-ordinary features, one of which is its location. A Viking Longship has been beached high in the mountains of Durmir, and now it sits on the meadow among daisies, pine trees, and stone henges. No one knows how the boat got there, but it’s loaded to the gills with gold, so it’s not going away. Hammer of Gods also has a peculiar grid structure, with its six reels and three rows. When 3–6 matching symbols fall over them, there are 729 possible outcomes.
Hammer of the Gods is mobile-friendly, with betting options between 10 cents and £/€20 each spin. The game’s engine produces some hefty numerical output but is quite unstable. In spite of the amazing 51,000x potential, achieved over one billion simulated spins, the return value is pretty much correct on average at 96.06%.
There are a total of 11 different pay symbols, all of which have that distinct Peter & Sons style. Perhaps not so much for the first half, which are just regular 9-A card royals, but the five high payouts are unmistakably Norse Gods of varying descriptions, and can be identified with some certainty. The premium for a six of a kind victory is 20 times the initial wager on the tile that looks like one-eyed Odin; the premium for the other high-value tiles is from 3 to 5 times the initial wager. The wild card is represented by a hammer, and there are two of them. The blue one is a regular wild that stands in for any other pay icon. The other is a unique wild that activates bonus features throughout the game.
Slot Features in “Hammer of the Gods”
Free games are the ultimate prize in Hammer of Gods, but there’s also a Way Multiplier and a wild collect and release function to enjoy on the way there.
The Way Multiplier functions similarly to the xWays feature in Nolimit City. Small icons with a multiplier of 2x to 4x occur in both the regular and bonus games. When a Way Multiplier lands, it multiplies the number of occurrences of the symbol it is sitting on by the value it shows. It’s possible for Way Multipliers to land on any icon besides the scatter.
In addition to the common wild, occasionally golden wilds appear. When they do connect, they go into the leftmost meter. Once the meter is full, a respin is played with all three golden wilds added to the game panel. Following this, the meter will begin counting again.
The star shield scatter is the final symbol to examine. If you get 3, 4, 5, or 6, not only do you get 15 free spins, but you also win 2, 10, 100, or 500 times your initial wager. The rules of the game are, with a few exceptions, the same during free spins as they are during the main game. For one, symbols are always divided into four equal parts when using a Way Multiplier. In addition, you can always expect to see at least one wild on every spin, albeit it may not necessarily be a super wild. One more thing about the option to capture wild animals and then release them. If the meter still contains wilds after the allotted amount of free spins have been used up, the bonus round will keep going until the meter is full and the feature is enabled.
Gods’ Hammer Slots Review and Verdict
Peter & Sons deserves a round of applause for producing yet another entertaining slot machine in their own distinctive style. Some skeptics may try to poke fun by stating their games all look the same, yet they are of a high quality, have a unique design, and have good statistics. Players looking for a highly unpredictable slot with potentially rewarding potential to match the risk should check out Hammer of Gods.
Although Peter & Sons deserve praise for producing constantly inventive high-quality slots, they have not yet had their major breakthrough moment, and Hammer of the Gods doesn’t seem like it will be the one. We aren’t knocking the game in any way, shape, or form; we’re just saying that there’s room for improvement in the development house. It’s hard to imagine how they could pull it off. They’ve done a great job with the Viking concept, and it might be that they just went with a premade aesthetic.
Alternatively, may it be a result of the design? One reason is that Nolimit City’s implementation of xWays is more enjoyable than that of Way Multipliers. The visual effect of having more symbols on the reels is not achieved by using basic numbers to represent more symbols. In Nitropolis, ELK also brilliantly employed a similar idea. Perhaps it’s because the characters in Peter & Sons games are too sweet and lack any real bite because of it. The potential for remarkable outcomes, however, cannot be denied. Hammer of Gods has a record win during the studio’s simulations of 51,000 times the stake, proving that behind its distinctive graphics lurks enticing potential.
Hammer of Gods is another strong offering from the P&S stable, and we may have been too critical in the paragraphs above. There’s a lot for people who like high-performing slots to like about this one. While we await the release of Peter & Sons’ next world-beater, we’ll settle for the interim for enjoying titles like Hammer of Gods.