Playtech: The Walking Dead

Can you survive in Playtech’s The Walking Dead? This is the official slot game of the popular TV series The Walking Dead with 5 reels and 50 paylines. It offers a thrilling drama that is loved by those who are fans of zombie/apocalypse-themed games. Despite its lower RTP and maximum jackpot, it has an impressive set of features to check out.

The Walking Dead slot design

The Walking Dead is the official slot for The Walking Dead TV series that Playtech created in partnership with AMC Networks. This slot came to life in Alexandria with creepy and intense background audio that added to its apocalyptic theme. Furthermore, The Walking Dead has impressive visuals that made the characters look like they just came out from the TV series. So, expect to see them on the reels together with other standard symbols with a twist.

The Royal symbols A, K, Q, and J that have attached weapons make up the lower value symbols. Meanwhile, the main characters in the story make up for premium symbols Negan, Mechonne, Daryl, Carol, and Rick Grimes. The zombie’s hand with a WILD logo is the basic Wild symbol and the set of shields is the Scatter symbol. Other special symbols on the paytable include the coin, key coin, biohazard sign coin, and the Wild Walkers Wild Reel.

The Walking Dead features

The Walking Dead is a survival game that is played on a grid with 5 reels and 3 rows. This game offers plenty of in-game features that can come from different directions. There is Horde, Saviors, Alexandria, Whisperers, Wild Walkers, and The Tower. There are also special symbols that include the 2 types of Wild symbols, Bonus Games Scatter symbol, and more. Let’s check out the feast of bonuses in this game.

Wild Symbols

The hand with a WILD logo represents the Wild symbol. This symbol substitutes for other regular symbols except for the coin, Scatter, key coin, and biohazard sign coin symbols. If 2 or 3 basic Wild symbols landed on the same reel, the Wilds will transform into a zombie Wild.

These Wild symbols also become stacked Wilds if there are more than 1 on a single reel. Unlike the usual Wild symbols, The Walking Dead’s a winning combination of Wilds pay like Rick Grimes.

Scatter Symbol

Since this game is full of zombies, you will need some shields too. The Walking Dead got you covered with its riot shields with Bonus Games logo that represent the Scatter symbol. The riot shields Scatter appears anywhere around the grid. If the Wild can replace the regular symbols on the reels, the Scatter symbol is the key to activating the Bonus Games.

The Tower and Respin

The Tower is one of the major features in The Walking Dead that can trigger your adrenaline. But unlike the Bonus Games feature, the Scatter can’t activate The Tower feature. Instead, landing 6 or more coin symbols on a single spin is required to trigger it. Thus, the coin is one of the special symbols in The Walking Dead that can land anywhere.

After activating The Tower, all triggering coin symbols become sticky symbols and remain locked in their positions. As a reward, the symbols award 3 Respins that apply to all unlock positions on the reels. All unlocked positions spin independently while the triggering symbols are immobile. If new coin symbols are locked in position, and the number of Respins reset to 3 after the last Respin.

But the feature ends there since you can still unlock additional rows after collecting 2 key coin symbols. Except for the Biohazard signs, this feature also boosts the locked coins’ value on the 7th row after multiplying it by 2. The value of coin symbols is multiplied again by 5 this time if you also unlocked the 8th row. The coins with a biohazard sign are exempted again in this round.

Once the 9th row is unlocked, all coin symbols will become coins with a biohazard sign. However, there is no more Multiplier applied for the symbols on this row. The Respins will continue running until the grid is filled with coins or you run out of spins. Lastly, these are 4 fixed jackpots that you can land on after by the end of the feature:

• Mini Jackpot = this jackpot awards 20x your stake
• Minor Jackpot = this jackpot awards 50x your stake
• Major Jackpot = this jackpot awards 200x your stake
• Grand Jackpot = this jackpot awards 1,000x your stake

All coins with biohazard signs flip to reveal one of these jackpot prizes. The coin symbols with biohazard signs are not affected by the level 7 and 8 Multipliers but they can be won multiple times. Also, the sum of all coin wins and the jackpot are both paid at the end of the bonus round.

Bonus Games

Landing 3 or more Bonus Games Scatter symbols activate The Walking Dead’s Bonus Games. A Scatter win pays 1x, 10x, or 50x the stake for landing 3, 4, or 5 Bonus Games Scatter symbols. At the same time, 6 Bonus Spins are awarded and the Jackpot Wheel appears on the screen. This wheel determines the kind of feature that you will play from The Walking Dead’s list of Bonus Games below:

• Horde Bonus Games = this feature expands all Wild and Coin symbols that land on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th reels to fill the entire grid. Also, landing coin symbols during this feature will trigger The Tower feature.
• Saviors Bonus Games = this feature attaches a random Multiplier on each Wild and coin symbol that appears on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th reels. If more than 1 Wild symbol appears on a payline, the Wilds are added together before they’re applied to the wins.
• Alexandria Respins = this feature starts the Respin if a stack of coin symbols appears to fill a reel. The stack of coin symbols gradually moves from one reel to the left on each Respin before leaving the grid. This increases the possibility of landing 3 more coins that can trigger The Tower and Respin feature. Moreover, these Respins don’t reduce the number of spins in the Bonus Games.
• Whisperers Bonus Games = this feature randomly picks 3 from the 5 reels as “special reels” with a unique style of graphics. These special reels are filled with Wild and coin symbols only to increase your chances of winning. Landing 6 or more coin symbols during this feature can simultaneously trigger The Tower feature. 
• Wild Walkers Respins = this feature transforms any stack of Wild symbols that appear anywhere into Wild Walkers. At the same time, the Respins begin to add more action to the game. The stack of Wild Walkers moves 1 position to the left on each Respin while the Bonus Spins counter is frozen.

The Respins during this feature will continue until all stacks of Wild Walkers are out of the grid. Moreover, any coin symbol that appears will become a Wild symbol while a stack of coin symbols will become Wild Walkers. Lastly, landing 6 or more coin symbols again in this feature will lead to The Tower.

If you land 3 or more Scatter symbols during any of these features, you will get 6 more Bonus Spins.

The Walking Dead RTP, betting and prizes

The Walking Dead is played on a grid with 50 fixed pay lines. All winning symbols in a winning cluster are paid from left to right. At the same time, all wins are multiplied by line bet wherein the highest win only is paid on each line. A line bet is equal to the total bet that is divided by 50 except for the Bonus Games Scatter symbols.

All Scatter wins are multiplied by the total bet. You just need 3, 4, or 5 matching symbols to create a winning cluster. But first, you need to bet a minimum of £0.10 or increase it up to £500 on each spin to play. Simply click the coins icon on the right side of the reels to adjust the size of your bet. The Autoplay and Turbo mode can be available too in other territories to play auto spins or speed up the spins.

The Walking Dead has 95.73% RTP which is lower than most average slots with 96% RTP. Still, this return rate is not that bad for a branded game since it also has a medium variance. It has a 28.81% hit frequency so a winning combination can land in over a quarter of your spins. The exciting wins in this game are available both in the base game and bonus features.

It takes 272,331 spins to win more than 1,000x the stake in The Walking Dead. However, the maximum payout you can win is up to 2,198x your stake. This is possible if you trigger The Tower which contains the fixed jackpots. Now, let’s take a look at the paytable to see which symbol gives the biggest payout.

The lower value Royals pay 0.1x to 1.5x the stake with J as the least paying symbol for 3 to 5 matching symbols. The higher value symbols pay 0.1x to 3x the stake for matching 3 to 5 similar symbols. Rick Grimes is the most valuable character on the paytable that pays 0.2x, 1x, or 3x the stake for 3 to 5 matching symbols.

The standard Wild symbol pays like Rick Grimes once it replaces symbols and becomes a part of winning combinations. Other special symbols on the grid don’t indicate their value but they come in handy when activating the bonus features. 

Conclusion

The Walking Dead is a very popular TV series worldwide so it catches players’ attention easily unlike other slots. It features the main characters in the series with great graphics and imagery which is cool. Even the sound effects suit the game’s looks but its gameplay is the best part of this game.

This slot offers major and minor features that are not only entertaining but also generous with jackpot prizes. Thus, The Walking Dead is perfect for the fans of The Walking Dead and other slots with zombie/apocalypse themes. Its features are great but Playtech could have increased its RTP and maximum wins more to improve the players’ experience.