Developed by Pragmatic Play, North Guardians is an engaging online slot game that features a 5x5 grid layout and offers players 50 different ways to win. This layout enhances players' opportunities to achieve significant wins, with a potential maximum payout of up to 5,000 times their initial stake, depending on their luck and the game's outcome.
The game boasts eleven regular symbols that pay from left to right on adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost reel. The low-value symbols in North Guardians are represented by five distinct runic objects. These symbols have a unique payout range, offering players 0.48 to 0.8 times their stake for combinations of five identical symbols. Following these are the mid-value symbols, which include axes, horseshoes, horns, and coins. These symbols provide a slightly higher payout, rewarding players with 1.2 to 3.6 times their stake for landing five of a kind.
Additionally, North Guardians features two premium symbols, depicted as a female and a male Viking character. These symbols are the most valuable in the game, offering payouts of 6 to 10 times the player's stake for a combination of five. Another key symbol in the game is the wild, symbolised by a character resembling Odin. The wild symbol can land in any position on the reels and has the ability to substitute for all regular pay symbols. Achieving a line of five wilds results in a notable payout of 15 times the bet.
One of the most distinctive features of North Guardians is the Wild Pattern Wheel. In the base game, players will notice two halves of a 'marking rectangle' appearing beneath the regular symbols on the main grid. These halves change positions with each spin. When both halves align in the same position, the adjacent wheel is activated. This wheel can either land on 'Level Up', prompting another spin at a higher level, or it can land on a specific pattern.
Scatter symbols are another important aspect of North Guardians. Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols on the reels awards players with 5 free spins, along with a cash win of 2x, 10x, or 100x the bet, respectively. During the free spins bonus round, the Wild Pattern Wheel feature is active on every spin. The wheel starts at level 1, and if a 'Level Up' result is achieved, it progresses without resetting.