Grizzly Gold Slot Review

Grizzly Gold is a video slot from Blueprint Gaming with 5 reels, 4 rows and 1,024 ways to win. This slot was originally released exclusively to Casumo Casino in October 2018 but will be made more widely available to all Blueprint Gaming casinos as of January 2019.

Theme and basic information

With Grizzly Gold we get a wintry wilderness theme, which include gives us a few beautifully drawn predators roaming the wintry forests. That includes the grizzly bear (clearly not hibernating), wolf, lynx, owl and elk (who’s obviously not a predator). Snow falls in the background and quiet music plays, suggesting blowing winds and perhaps even howling wolfs with a little bit of occasional bird chatter.

Inasmuch as you can make anything of a wilderness theme with animals on the reels, Blueprint Gaming has given it everything and it’s a slot well done. Alas, we would have preferred some other symbols than those generic playing card symbols from 9 to A. They’re rather lacklustre and not our favourites by a long shot.

The grizzly, who can show up stacked up to three symbols high and pays out with only two symbols on the first two reels, pays 6.25x our bet for a 5-of-a-kind win. Elk and wolf follow with 5x our stake for such a winning combination and lynx and owl still pay out 3.75x for such a win.

A simple base game with stacked symbols

Grizzly Gold is a simple slot. We get 1,024 ways to win, which means any three (or two in case of the grizzly) matching symbols on adjacent reels from left to right will pay out a win. Since this slot tends to be on the more volatile side of things, this doesn’t happen very often, and bigger wins are quite rare.

The main advantage during the base game is that mostly all symbols come stacked. That’s not always the case and it doesn’t mean you’ll win big every time, but it does increase your chance at evening out your budget every once in a while.

In fact, you’ll be mostly hoping for the bonus symbols to make an appearance, which tends to happen once every 100 spins.

You can play this slot from €0.20 to €200, which makes it suitable for a wide range of budgets.

Unlimited free spins in the bonus game – if you’re lucky

The bonus game is triggered once you collect at least three bonus symbols. In that case you’ll receive 8 free spins. Four bonus symbols will trigger 15 free spins and five scatters will give you 20 free spins.

The good thing is, you can collect more free spins and the more you get, the better your chance at keeping playing – indefinitely if you’re lucky. Two more scatters will give you 5 more free spins, three get you 8 spins, four another 15 spins and five more scatters will give you 20 free spins on top.

The main highlight during the free spins, however, is the added multiplier on the wild symbols. On every spin that includes a winning combination with a wild symbol, a random 2x or 3x multiplier will be applied. If you have more than one wild as part of the winning combination, those multipliers will then be multiplied with each other. The highest multiplier you can get this way is 27x.

Conclusion: A simple slot with 1,024 ways to win

The theoretical RTP (Return to Player) for Grizzly Gold is 96%, which is a firmly average value. Since this slot is rather volatile, that RTP cannot surprise. Big wins will be rare, and you will probably not end up with unlimited free spins, even though they are technically an option.

The main draw are the multipliers in the bonus game and thankfully the bonus game is triggered with fair frequency. You may still only walk away with 80x your bet or less, but more is possible. Grizzly Bear isn’t the best or most exciting game in the Blueprint Gaming portfolio. It’s also not the most original game in terms of mechanics. It’s pretty enough, it’s well done, and it will keep you entertained for a few rounds of that bonus game. Eventually, you’ll be moving on to something a little more interesting, however.