Scattered Armenians Peter & Sons are an imaginative crew, and they show the same degree of individualism whether they’re working with familiar or unexpected topics. They have already dealt with the Wild West (Sheriff Colt), as have most other online slots developers. We could spend a few paragraphs arguing what keeps developers coming back to this area, but instead, let’s simply roll with the wind like a tumbleweed. Wild Duel is Peter & Sons’ first foray into the Western market, and it’s packed with their signature visual flair, including a wacky Wild Duel feature, respins, sticky wilds, growing wilds, multiplier wilds, and free games.
In addition to Peter & Sons’ distinctive style, Wild Duel also brings a fresh take to the familiar setting of a frontier town. A bird’s-eye perspective of the street, with buildings to the north and south of an active game panel, replaces the traditional setting of a dusty street outside a saloon. It’s arranged out this way not merely for novelty’s sake, but so that battles can break out between characters on the left and right sides of the screen. Sometimes this results in special sections. The theme from ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ plays as soon as players load the main menu, and it does a fine job of setting the tone.
It’s advertised as a highly volatile game due to the fact that it’s played on a 5-reel, 3-row panel with 10 set ways to win, and we have no reason to disagree. There are benefits, and the RTP is rather high at 96.1%. Players may fire up Wild Duel on any device and wager anywhere from 10 pence to £/€50 every spin.
When playing Wild Duel, winning combinations consist of at least three and up to five identical symbols in left-to-right order. Among the many icons are 10-cent jokers,Five cards pay 2–4 times the wager, while cactus, TNT, skulls, and bottles pay 7–11 times the wager. Wild Duel includes several types of wilds, as its name implies. In addition to their primary function—serving as a stand-in for any pay symbol—they also perform the ancillary tasks described below.
Slot Machine Wild Duel Functions
Wild Duel has a lot going on, yet it won’t overwhelm you. You’ll soon learn how important wild and scatter symbols are.
Feature Wild Duel
If you get two scatters in any position on the reels, you’ll activate the Wild Duel bonus and get a respin. The respin is accomplished by the addition of two 3-position reels, one on each side of the grid. One is known as the Marshal Reel, while the other is known as the Outlaw Reel. The multipliers for the outlaws on the Outlaw Reel range from x1 to x10, and the reel may also show blank spaces during the respin. There are vacant spaces and characters on the Marshall Reel, and these may be used to activate random wilds, complete reel expanding wilds, or sticky wilds. While respins are in effect, sticky wilds will remain in play.
When two figures face each other in the same row, a duel ensues. If the Marshall is victorious, he or she will receive the appropriate wild feature and the matching Outlaw multiplier. There might be many duels happening at once, and if you win one of them, you’ll get a respin. So long as Marshals keep taking the duels, the respins will keep going. The segment concludes after there are no more duels or Marshalls are defeated.
Absurdly Put There
There is a chance that the wild placement feature will activate on any spin in the base game that does not result in a victory and in which no duels are triggered. When this feature is activated, the reels will have three more wild symbols.
Bonus Turns
If you get three scatters while playing the regular game, you’ll win 10 bonus spins. During free games, you can use the Wild Duel option as much as you like. Duel wins result in respin awards, with 1 duel in a spin yielding +1 free spins and 2-3 duels in a spin yielding +2 free spins.
Battle in the Slots: The Winner
Really, what? One of the driest test runs in recent memory was given up by Wild Duel, and I’m not just referring to the arid western location. Dead reels churned out pay day moonshine, and features might tease. To be fair, any position may be challenging at times, so we’ll give Wild Duel a pass, but it really did kick our asses during testing. It may have fooled you into thinking it was just another P&S charming, but it wasn’t. The stagecoach not only rolled over you, your horse, your dog, and whatever else was laying about, but it also refused graciously to let you loot it if you caught Wild Duel on a dark day.
It rolled into town to make its presence known after we had been wondering if the game included a bonus round or if we had misread the regulations. Wild Duel’s bonus rounds were exciting, with many of duels and some genuine tension. When the correct wilds land, stay there, or attract enough multipliers, you might win up to 10,000 times your wager. When you stop to about it, the duel element is a little needless because the relevant Wilds and multipliers could have just as easily been put right on the reels. But that’s not Peter & Sons’ flashy style, and the Wild Duel approach they’ve embraced has an engaging aspect.
When combined, it makes for a hard game that lone wolves in the West would be interested in trying out. Because to Peter & Sons’ trademark cartoonish aesthetic, the setup and features of Wild Duel have a faintly Dead or Alive air to them, but without the down and gritty feel. Wild Duel, like NetEnt’s classics, is not a game that takes prisoners, so keep your weapon close at all times.