Gates of Hades Slot Review

We have a long history of reviewing Pragmatic Play slots, and some of our readers have expressed displeasure regarding our focus on games from this provider. But this Malta-based company keeps churning out games that dominate the charts, even if, in all honesty, they are not the most impressive or best spinners on the market. We looked at the Knight King a few weeks ago, and now we shall examine another of the six Pragmatic Play releases that hit online casinos in March 2023, Gates of Hades. We chose to analyze this product because Gates of Olympus from Pragmatic is one of the most popular slots around, charting in the top five in many regions.

Gates of Hades is essentially a reskin of that game, and it is one that debuted worldwide on March 28th to a lukewarm first-week reception. Let us see if it has the quality necessary to remain a viable competitor in the slot realm for years to come.

Theme & Design

Anyone that has watched movies, cartoons, or played video games religiously has likely come across Hades at some point, the Greek king of the underworld and the god of the dead. He is the eldest son of Rhea and Cronus, a brother of Poseidon and Zeus.

Though no one has managed to track down the origin of the name Hades, its meaning since antiquity has gotten associated with the unseen one. Multiple Ancient Greek-themed slots feature this god as a title character, and among the most famous ones from that list are Hades Gigablox from Yggdrasil, Greentube’s Haul of Hades, Titan Thunder: Wrath of Hades by Quickspin, and Wazdan’s Power of Gods: Hades. We estimate that around nine hundred reel-spinning games have a god character in them, and that number stems from almost two thousand slots that feature an ancient civilization motif.

We reviewed Gates of Olympus in November 2021. Many of the things said concerning the presentation of that game are also valid here. You have Hades, with flaming blue hair, gripping his staff, standing right of the reel grid, with the game logo above his head and the 6×5 layout to his left. Unlike most Pragmatic Play games, this one has a 3D vibe, with a super similar presentation style to its predecessor. It is richer in color, and the music used is a bit darker. Though, it is hard to call the atmosphere here spooky or scary. To us, it just feels repetitive, as we have already seen it. What we can say that we hated about the presentation here were the big win animations, which have flowing coins, and game-show sound effects, which are not at all in tune with the theme of this spinner.

The game’s buttons are in the regular Pragmatic Play setup, with the spin functions and the bet adjuster in the bottom right, while the mute/info/settings options are on the left. The win, credit, and bet info is in the middle of these in the semi-transparent panel.

Specs & Gameplay

What are the specs of the Gates of Hades, and how do they stack up to the ones in the Gates of Olympus? Well, the RTP here is 95.5% by default, the same as Olympus, and that also applies to the max exposure, which is x5,000 in these two releases. However, the variance of Hades is medium-high, while in Olympus, it is just high. Both games implement the pay-anywhere system and have a betting range moving from $0.2 to $100.

The low-pay tokens of Gates of Hades are differing colored gems, producing wins of x2 to x10 for combos consisting of twelve or more symbols appearing on screen. Pay anywhere means that only a specific number of identical tokens need to pop up in view for the slot to produce a win. The high-pay ones are four objects, a crown/mask, a sand clock, a ring, and a chalice. These yield wins from x12 (the chalice) to x50 (the crown/mask) when more than twelve instances of matching symbols from this batch appear on the grid on the same spin.

There are no wilds in the Gates of Hades and Hades himself is the scatter, with six instances of him on any position coming into view generating an x100 prize. Note that this is a cascading slot, so when winning combos form of at least eight matching symbols, these explode, leaving their positions open for new tokens to fall into place and potentially create new rewards. That gets called the tumble feature here. Some also refer to it as the avalanche mechanic.

Bonus Features

Aside from the cascading feature, Hades can add multipliers (winged gems) onto the 6×5 layout, which come with values of up to x500. Also, you must hit four to six scatters, the Hades tokens, to activate the bonus round of this game, which supplies you with fifteen on-the-house spins, regardless of the number of activating scatters, and an upfront payout of x3, x5, or x 100, depending on the number of triggering scatters. In this mode, hit multipliers get added to a global win multiplier that does not reset until the round concludes. Landing three or more scatters in this feature gives you five extra free spins.

Gates of Hades has an ante bet option that doubles your chances to enter the free spins round, and it has a bonus buy one with a price tag of x100.

GOSU Verdict

If you read our Gates of Olympus review, you would know that we called that game a reskin of Pragmatic Play’s Sweet Bonanza. So, this is a reskin of a reskin. Nevertheless, the specs here have gotten slightly modified from those in Sweet Bonanza, and the audio-visual feel is also different. We made a substantially inaccurate prediction in our Gates of Olympus analysis, estimating that game would have no staying power. Well, it has proven us wrong. So, we will not make the same claim regarding the Gates of Hades slot.

We found this game boring, as we have played it more than a few times in different clothing, but who knows, maybe changing the façade of an established game will work again for Pragmatic. I guess we will have to wait and see.

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