Thunderkick is a Swedish provider that has been around since 2012 and has consistently produced decent online reel spinners. It has never been talked about as one of the sector’s most prestigious game suppliers, but it has held its own as a respected brand. It now seems to be making some big moves, as it recently entered the US market via a High 5 Casino (social casino) deal, and it launched in Ontario through a partnership agreement with LeoVegas and PokerStars.
In 2024, Thunderkick also expanded in some other markets, like Romania, and released one title per month. The one Thunderkick distributed in June 2024 was Sword of Arthur, which does not seem to be doing too well anywhere outside of Scandinavia and South Africa. For some reason, Thunderkick has not gotten much attention on BTCGOSU, and we wanted to cast some more light on this company and its creations, so we selected to review their latest product, Sword of Arthur. Hence, let us dive into this title and see if it unjustifiably is doing unimpressive numbers or if its early underwhelming run is justified.
Theme & Design
Of course, the theme here is the Legend of King Arthur. The tale of the British king who drew the mythical sword named Excalibur from a stone, which no one else could pull. According to historians, this story most likely originated from Wales, and it features the wizard Merlin, which we have mentioned loads of times on our site, primarily because we have reviewed more than a few titles that use him as their motif, many from Play’n GO’s series that feature him. There are over four hundred Middle Ages spinners in the online gambling realm and many of these feature Arthur’s legend. Some of the more popular ones right now are Just For the Win’s Book of King Arthur, Play’n GO’s The Sword and the Grail, and Tales of Camelot from Spinomenal. So, this story is a pretty mainstay inspiration for game studios as it is one that people the world over know, and they do not have to pay any rights for.
In general, Thunderkick has a rep for creating some pretty Okay-looking games. That is the case here as well, as Sword of Arthur has some nice painterly graphics that have a good sense of polish. They are nothing spectacular but satisfy the middle-of-the-road soothing presentation vibe standard Thunderkick has set. The reels in this game spin inside a golden ornamented frame in the form of two pillars in a castle overlooking another castle.
Excalibur sits stuck in a stone left of the reel grid, under the game logo, and the gaming action here gets accompanied by a light medieval tune that acts as background fodder and only gets interrupted by your entry in the free spins round. When you accomplish the latter, the sword gets pulled from the stone, with Arthur awarding it to you, and the scenery turns golden. The music also gets more dramatic. The presentation in Sword of Arthur is acceptable. But we were not fans of the sword-pulling animation, as it was not super smooth and kind of cheapened the overall style of this game because it did not fit well with the graphics, in our opinion.
We also did not like that you have the spin button in the bottom right corner, but the auto-play one is two buttons away. We found that a bit counter-intuitive that the feature buy one and the bet selector are before it. We feel that the spin and auto-spin should be next to each other. After playing it for a while, we thought the presentation here had a slight Book Of vibe, and it turned out that this game could get classified in that genre.
Specs & Gameplay
Sword of Arthur is a 5×3 reel-spinning gaming product with ten paylines that comes in two RTP versions, an 87.15% one and a more standardized iteration with a return-to-player setting of 94.34%. The variance in this slot is high. The hit frequency stands at 29.85, the betting range moves from $0.10 to $100, and the max exposure is x10,000, which is more than respectable. We just wished the RTP was higher here.
You get rewards in Sword of Arthur when you line up three (sometimes two) to five matching symbols on a payline with no gaps between them. Only the longest win per line gets a payout, with your prize sequences formed left to right. There are five low-pay royals here producing wins of x5 to x10 for five identical royals hitting on the same spin on a payline. The premiums in this spinner are a shield, armor, a helmet, and Arthur. Getting five from this group to land in the same gaming round will yield wins of x15 to x100. The helmet and Arthur will also generate rewards of x0.50 and x1.5, respectively, when they appear only twice on a payline.
Excalibur is both a wild and scatter in Sword of Arthur, paying out rewards of x200 when it pops in five times on the same spin on a payline for a scatter-pay win. It can also generate a x100 payline win.
Bonus Features
Getting at least three swords on the grid will activate the free spins bonus, awarding up to five on-the-house spins. In this mode, a random symbol gets picked as the expanding one. It begins carrying an x1 multiplier, expanding to cover its entire reel, helping you create winning combos. Following an expanding win, the multiplier grows by one, and the number of given complimentary reel rotations resets to the initial value.
You can activate this bonus round via the feature purchase button for a price of x125 or pay x200 for five bonus spins. There is also an option for you to purchase your way inside this round for a cost of x500, which will guarantee you a high-pay Arthur symbol in this mode. Depending on your choice, the RTP setting will get tweaked a bit. It will be either 94.45%, 94.47%, or 94.5%. So, not much of a difference.
GOSU Verdict
For a Book Of slot, this one is not too bad, but aside from its alluring max win, we did not get enticed by anything else here. There are better options from this sub-genre, but given that most of these are super similar, in our eyes, the key things you need to look into with these games are their specs. The RTP here is low, and if you find the top prize compelling, go for Sword of Arthur and try your luck with this spinner.
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