Dead or Alive II Slot Review

Dead or Alive II is a video slot from NetEnt with 5 reels and 9 paylines. Released in April 2019, you can play this slot at online casinos such as Guts, PlayOjo or Maria Casino.

Theme and basic information

Welcome back to the wild, wild West. Dead or Alive II is the long-awaited sequel to one of NetEnt’s most popular casino slots Dead or Alive. A game known for its high volatility, generous RTP and big wins.

We’re once again in the Wild West, where five notorious bandits pose as the wilds. They’re all worth 1,500 coins for 5 on a payline and therefore the most valuable symbols in the game. The wilds show us two hardened male criminals, two women just as tough and a youth with a mean streak.

NetEnt has mostly improved the sound and the graphics of the original slot but kept most of the mechanics. Thus, we now get a very good-looking slots that might soon replace the original.

On the reels we get the Sheriff’s badge, a revolver, a hat, boots and a bottle of liquor. The Sheriff’s badge is worth 1,000 coins for 5 on a payline, the revolver is worth 750 coins for such a win and the hat is still worth 400 coins.

The remaining, somewhat uninspiring symbols, are the playing card symbols from 10 to A.

The two pistols crossing each other is the scatter symbol, which already pays out for 2 anywhere on the reels. Should you get 5 on the reels, you’d receive a bonus of 2,500 coins.

You can play this game from 0.09 to 18.00, making it suitable to the budget conscious.

All about the free spin features

During the base game, you will hope for the occasional big win, but mostly you’ll be looking out for the scatters to trigger the free spins. And make no mistakes, big wins are absolutely possible in the base game. We’ve had sessions, where we won more in the base game than in the free spins. We’ve made 33x to 55x our bet in the base game on occasion.

But ultimately, this game is all about the free spins. You need at least three scatters to trigger 12 free spins. And then you get to choose which feature spins you want to play.

• Train Heist Free Spins – The volatility is lowest here and the wins tend to be smaller but more frequent. For each wild that lands on the reels, you increase your multiplier by 1x and you receive one additional spin. Once your multiplier reaches 16x, you will receive five more spins automatically. In theory, you could play for a very long time.
• Old Saloon Free Spins – Here all wins are multiplied by 2x automatically. All wilds landing on the reels will become sticky. If you get one of each on the five reels, you’ll receive another 5 free spins. Here bigger wins are possible.
• High Noon Saloon Free Spins – The free spins with the highest volatility also comes with sticky wilds. But if you get more than one wild on a reel, all wilds on the reel get a 2x and then a 3x multiplier. With one sticky wild on every reel, you will once again get 5 additional free spins. You can win 40,500x your stake on a single spin here, though the maximum payout during this feature is capped at 111,111x your stake.

Conclusion: As good as the original – perhaps better

The theoretical RTP (Return to Player) of Dead and Alive II is 96.8%, which is a great value and just as good as the original. And the game is just as volatile as the original. It’s just as well that you can’t bet huge sums here, but given its volatility, it will sometimes feel as if someone’s burning right through your budget.

We’ve played several sessions of this game to get a realistic impression of what to expect. The first time around we managed to win over 400x our bet in the Old Saloon Free Spins. We’ve never repeated such a result, though. We did play all three free spin features multiple times and had the best wins indeed with the Old Saloon Free Spins. They give us a good mix of volatility and decent wins, whereas the High Noon Saloon Free Spins have great potential but didn’t deliver.

Dead or Alive II doesn’t disappoint, however, and we enjoyed playing it a lot. Overall, even with more big wins in the base game than during the free spins, we were rarely disappointed and finally stopped playing, when we’d won plenty to walk away and simply enjoy.