Warrior Ways Free Play in Demo Mode by Hacksaw Gaming

Warrior Ways review

Theme and Style

Warrior Ways slot borrows its aesthetic from the Mortal Kombat games, creating a world in which warrior clans battle for supremacy in a world that is part feudal Japan and part mid-90s cartoon.

The story sees teams of ninjas, samurai, spearmen, and archers fighting for control of a neon red city.

Which of the four teams wins, will be down to you.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

This game, Warrior Ways, has some excellent graphics. The style is consistent, bringing to mind TV shows like The Power Rangers and games like Mortal Kombat.

The animations are slick and clean, helping the game to flow and making the complex bonuses clear by directing the player’s eyes to the right place.

The soundtrack is a little simple, but it adds to the atmosphere. Overall, the slot presents a solid front end that is only let down by the mathematics underpinning the gameplay.

Gameplay

Warrior Ways is a five-reel, four-row slot that uses an any-way wins system which means that winning combinations are formed by landing matching symbols anywhere on adjacent reels starting from reel one.

Symbols are split between four "clans" and a Versus symbol can trigger a feature called a Duel. Duels start when a spin ends up landing a Versus symbol between two symbols from different clans. Multipliers are added to the dueling symbols and the higher multiplier wins.

Symbols of the losing clan are then replaced by the High symbol of the winning clan.

The Duel feature along with the two different bonus features (for full details see below) provide a pleasant change of pace for players.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

The Wild symbol substitutes for all High and Low symbols. It does not substitute for the Versus symbol or either of the Bonus symbols — i.e. The Clash and Conquest symbols.

If a player lands three Clash symbols or three Conquest symbols on the reels, they will trigger the corresponding bonus.

When the Clash Bonus is triggered, the reels are reconfigured. Each clan gets one reel and the middle reel has a Clash counter added to it. A spin counter is added to the right of the reels and starts at three.

The clan reels can land multipliers while the Versus symbols on the middle reels are counted up and applied to the counters at the top of each reel. The Versus symbols determine the number of free spins.

Every time the reels spin, the spin counter is reduced by one. When a symbol lands on the reels, the spin counter resets to three.

When the spin counter reaches zero, the multipliers and Clash counter and collected up and applied to the next phase of the Clash Bonus.

The Clash bonus then proceeds with normal reels, using the number of spins collected in the Clash Counter. Any clashes that occur use the multipliers of each clan to calculate which clan wins and how great the winnings on that spin are.

The Conquest Bonus starts with ten free spins. Four clan banners are added at the side of the reels. When a clan loses a duel during the Conquest bonus, the banner is damaged. If a banner is damaged twice, then an additional free spin is awarded and that clan is entirely removed from the reels for the rest of the Conquest bonus.

Any Conquest symbols that land during the Conquest bonus award one extra free spin to the player.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

The return to player for the base game in Warrior Ways is an abysmal 92.30%. Our yardstick for average is roughly 96%, so this game falls a long way short of that.

The range of bets available on the site we tested started from a minimum bet per spin of $/£/€0.10 and rose to a maximum of $/£/€50.00 per spin.

Like many of Hacksaw Gaming’s products, Warrior Ways slot has high volatility. This would normally make this slot a good match for our preferred slot machine strategies, as our slot strategies tend to target the highest possible volatility. However, the poor RTP makes this game wholly unsuitable.

The RTP is slightly better if you buy directly into the bonuses. However, the best RTP is 92.40%, still much too low for a recommendation.

Conclusion

Although we like the art style and high-quality animation, the brutally low RTP of this slot is an insurmountable negative.

Some players might be able to ignore the RTP and engage with the visuals and interesting bonuses, but we cannot recommend this slot.