Wanted Dead or a Wild: Slot Overview
Hacksaw Gaming's saddling up, hatting up, loading
revolvers, and doing whatever else they used💶 to do back in the day when rounding up
cattle or outlaws. The resulting Wild West themed slot is titled💶 Wanted Dead or a Wild
and includes Hacksaw Gaming's unique blend of looks, sounds, features, and fiendish
gameplay. The Wild💶 West proved irresistible for countless cowboys, gold rushers, saloon
owners, gamblers, bandits, and other fortune seekers. So, it is amongst💶 online slot
developers who regularly reach into its rich cultural offering to colour their games.
With that, let's take a💶 look at how Hacksaw's piece fares.
It starts dark, where a 5x5
game grid has been left outdoors as the sun💶 smoulders over twisted trees and a
barbed-wire fence. It's not the typical Wild West slot scene, Hacksaw shunning the
dusty💶 one-horse town setting in favour of one more unsettling. It makes you wonder
where exactly we are and how the💶 hay we ended up here? Perhaps we are waiting in the
countryside to hijack a train which appears in one💶 of the bonus games. Or running from
the law? The good thing is players can choose which scenario matches their💶 Wild West
fantasies the best. Whatever the situation, Wanted Dead or a Wild has a heavier vibe
than most Western💶 slots have, and the majority of games in Hacksaw's back catalogue for
that matter, though it shares a lot of💶 similarities with their 2024 smash hit Chaos
Crew.
Wanted Dead or a Wild is available on any device and comes with💶 a stake range of
20 p/c toR$/€100. While volatility overall has been rated as 4 out of 5, so rather
💶 high, the three bonus rounds have individual volatilities that range from medium to
very high; this is clearly labelled if💶 players choose to buy one of them. Default RTP
has a value of 96.38% - be aware it is configurable,💶 so it may be set at a lower level,
while the theoretical return varies when buying the bonus game, from💶 96.27% to
96.43%.
There was talk that Wanted Dead or a Wild would be a cluster paying slot, the
sort which💶 has been flying off Hacksaw's production line recently, but they switched
this to a payline system, providing 15 fixed ways💶 to win. In total, ten regular pay
symbols appear in the game. These are 10-A card ranks, skulls, outlaw getups,💶 money
bags, liquor bottles, and bullet chambers. A five premium picture symbol combination is
worth a payout of 5 to💶 20 times the stake. On a last note, wilds land in any position,
replacing pay symbols, plus they are worth💶 20x the bet when a line of five wilds
hit.
Wanted Dead or a Wild: Slot Features
Wanted Dead or a Wild's💶 features include full
reel wild multiplier symbols and three bonus rounds that players can trigger from the
base game when💶 certain symbols hit, or buy if the option is available.
VS symbols
appear in the base game or in the Duel💶 at Dawn feature. When they land, they expand to
cover all positions on the reel, and turn wild. These symbols💶 also display a win
multiplier of x2 to x100, and if more than one VS symbol is in view, the💶 multipliers
are added before being applied to any winning combination.
When 3 or more Train Robbery
symbols land in the base💶 game, The Great Train Robbery feature launches. This game
awards 10 free spins, and all landed wilds remain sticky for💶 the remainder of the
feature. Hacksaw rates the volatility of this bonus as medium.
Landing 3 or more Duel
symbols triggers💶 the Duel at Dawn bonus feature, awarding 10 free spins. The key
difference between this bonus and the base game💶 is that more VS symbols are loaded.
This game is rated very highly volatile.
Also highly volatile, the Dead Man's Hand
💶 bonus is triggered when 3 or more DEAD symbols land. This feature is split into two
parts. In part one,💶 3 spins are awarded, and only wild symbols, multiplier symbols or
placeholder symbols land. When wilds or multipliers hit, they💶 are collected and reset
the number of spins back to 3. It is possible to collect up to 20 wilds💶 and a win
multiplier of x31 from this phase. When 3 consecutive non-winning spins occur, this
phase ends, and play💶 moves to the Showdown, where 3 spins are awarded. The collected
number of wilds is added to the grid on💶 each spin, and the multiplier is applied to any
wins.
That brings us to the feature buy section, where you can💶 buy The Great Train
Robbery, Duel at Dawn, or Dead Man's Hand for 80x, 200x, or 400x the bet,
respectively.
Wanted💶 Dead or a Wild: Slot Verdict
Wanted Dead or a Wild follows a neat
line from what Hacksaw has done in💶 the past, while conspicuously hardening the edges.
There's no sushi, fruity, friendly hugging it out here. With the exception of💶 games
like El Paso Gunfight, few Westerns come across as bleakly as Wanted Dead or a Wild
does. Instead of💶 swaggering into a friendly saloon for moonshine and companionship, the
team has used the opportunity to let a grittier side💶 of their psyche take
over.
Mathematically, Hacksaw games tend to be rather high-strung and Wanted Dead or a
Wild continues this💶 tradition. Bonus games bucked all over the place during testing,
regardless of the official volatility rating. The biggest surprises came💶 during the
Dead Man's Hand when a good number of wilds and multipliers had been collected. In our
case, this💶 maxed out at 10 wilds, with an x27 multiplier. Collecting those modifiers is
a tense process already but unloading them💶 on the grid for the three Showdown spins can
be a real blast.
The other eye-opener was Duel at Dawn, when💶 two or more VS symbols
hit, covering the grid with full reel wild multipliers. This bonus round was the least
💶 predictable of the three and could leave you hanging or drop a bunch of VS symbols out
of nowhere to💶 turn things around. The Great Train Robbery proved to be the less peaky
of the three bonus games and possibly💶 a suitable choice for players who prefer a
technically smoother ride.
If you've been following Hacksaw, then you might notice
iterations💶 of these features have appeared in various guises in the past. Sticky wilds
go with Wild West slots like saddles💶 and chaffing, while Forest Fortune had a similar
feature to the Dead Man's Hand, though not the same by any💶 measure. Hacksaw continues
to prove they are masters at refining their suite of features and reusing them in
tweaked form,💶 although one could argue Wanted is a continuation of Chaos Crew of
sorts.
For players who prefer to buy features, Wanted💶 Dead or a Wild's shopping list of
bonus rounds could well be irresistible. Each one does something different while all
💶 having what it takes to pop. Wrap it all up in a unique vision of the Wild West, and
you've💶 got another top-shelf Hacksaw release.
Don't Miss
If you're into history-related
themes, don't miss The Bowery Boys, which is a slot based💶 on the story of a criminal
gang that was based in the Bowery neighbourhood of Manhattan back in the early-mid-19th
💶 century.
