Wild West Duels (Pragmatic Play) Slot Review

Wild West Duels: Slot Overview

Once again it is High Noon for Pragmatic Play. They picked up the western theme once more for one of their slot games, which actually has a lot to offer. Lots of entertainment, thrill and fun awaits you in Wild West Duels.

Wild West Duels is played on 5 reels with 5 rows and with 15 set paylines. The bet sizes range from 0.20€ to 100€ (or equivalent). Bet sizes may vary depending on where you play.

Wild West Duels uses 10 different symbols to determine a win, with 5 of them on the lower end and another 5 on the higher end. These all perfectly fit a western theme. The lower tier symbols all actually share the exact same payout. Here we have the Wanted poster, the red Bandana, the drinking bottle, the cowboy boots and the cowboy hat, all clocking in at 1-time your total bet for a full line.

On the higher end we have actual cowboys, which also share similar payouts. We will refer to their background colour because it is easier to describe them this way. First we have the Light Blue/Teal cowboy and the Yellow cowboy, clocking in at 5-times your bet size for a full line. Next up we have the Purple and Green cowboy for 10-times your bet size. And last but not least we have the Blue cowboy, our top symbol, coming in at 20-times your bet size for a full line.

You might now think „These payouts don’t really look that great, how do you actually win big here?“ Don’t worry, it will all make sense once we will explain all of the features.

Wild West Duels: Special Symbols and Stats

Wild West Duels features a lot of different special symbols that we would like to explain to you.

There are 3 different Scatter symbols. First up we have the Beer Game Scatter, portrayed by 2 kegs of beer and the label „BEER GAME“. Hit 3 or more of them on the same spin to enter the Beer Game.

Next up we have the Duel Scatter, portrayed by two guns and the label „DUEL“. Hitting 3 or more of these in the same spin will put you in the Duel Free Spins.

Last but not least is the Lost Relic Scatter. This one is portrayed by two shovels and the label „LOST RELIC“. Getting 3 or more of them in the same spin will put you, you guessed it, in the Lost Relics Free Spins.

Besides the Scatters we also have the Wild symbol, displayed by a sack of coins with a „W“ on it. These actually play a vital role in winning on Wild West Duels. They will substitute for any winning symbols except Scatter symbols of course. They come with one additional feature though, which we will explain in detail in our Feature Overview section.

Now it’s time for some stats again. Wild West Duels comes with a base RTP of 96.00%, which is barely average. The max win potential had us surprised, given it is capped at 20,000-times your bet size, which is very unusual for Pragmatic Play, but still a great potential. The chances of every seeing it are slim though. On average you will need 10,500,000 spins to ever get it. Although we are pretty sure that this max win potential will be possible in the base game as well. You will see why. On average you will get a win once roughly every 3 to 4 spins. The chances to enter a Free Spin Feature are once every 401 spins, although we think that this is only the chance for the Lost Relics feature. Last but not least, the chances of hitting 1,000-times your bet size or higher are once in every 16,300 spins, which is actually still quite the low chance.

Wild West Duels: Feature Overview

Wild West Duels has some interesting features to offer. We will try to explain them to you as best as we can. One thing we want to mention first up: None of the Free Spins can be retriggered in any way, shape or form.

• Expanding Wilds

Wild symbols in the base game have a random chance to expand, filling up the whole reel and giving a multiplier to that reel. This multiplier can range from 2x to 100x. Everything that connects through any position of that reel will make use of the multiplier to multiply the win. If more Wild symbols expand and are used to determine a winning combination, multipliers will be added and then applied to the win.

• Beer Game Free Spins

Hit 3 or more Beer Game Scatters to enter the Beer Game Feature. While in the Beer Game Feature you will be granted 10 Free Spins, regardless of how many Scatters you have landed.  In this Feature special symbols are used. The regular Wild symbol is replaced by Beer Wilds, that actually look the same like the Beer Game Scatter. What makes these Beer Wilds special is the fact that they are sticky, which means that once they landed they will stay on their position for the remainder of the Feature. The second thing that makes them special is their multiplier. Beer Wilds can carry a random multiplier of 2x or 3x. If more multipliers are part of a winning combination, they will add up and then be applied to the win.

• Duel Free Spins

The Duel Free Spins are triggered by landing at least 3 Duel Scatters in the same spin. Regardless of how many you have triggered with, you will get 10 Free Spins. During the Duel Feature, you will get at least one Wild Symbol guaranteed in every spin, which has a chance to expand and reveal a multiplier from 2x to 100x. If more multipliers are used for a win, they will add up and then be applied to the win.

• Lost Relics Free Spins

In the Lost Relics Feature you will be able to pick shovels. You can pick 9 shovels, regardless of how many Scatters you triggered with. These shovels will reveal Wilds or Multipliers. These Wilds and Multipliers are added up until you have made all of your picks. Once that’s done, we’re going to the actual game. You will now be granted 3 Free Spins with the setup you picked. The amount of Wilds you have revealed will be guaranteed to be on the screen on every spin. The multiplier you have revealed will be applied to any win. Wild Symbols cannot expand during this feature.

• Bonus Buy Feature

Wild West Duels comes with a Bonus Buy option, as many Pragmatic Play games do these days. You can buy every single feature. The Beer Game feature is available for 100-times your bet size. The Duel Free Spins already clock in at 200-times your bet size. And the Lost Relics feature is the most prizey one with 400-times your bet size. Interestingly, they all have the same RTP. The RTP, whether it is base game, bonus game or Bonus Buy, is set to 96.00%. This is quite unusual, especially for an online slot game that has multiple Bonus Buy options.

Wild West Duels: Conclusion

We’re sure you already noticed, but Wild West Duels is a clone of Hacksaw Gaming’s Wanted: Dead or a Wild. And to be honest, it is a very impressive clone. Pragmatic Play took many aspects of the game and gave them their own touch. So at least it’s not a 1 to 1 clone, which we appreciate very much.

Come to think of it, this might be the first decent clone of Hacksaw Gaming’s most famous online slot game. At least the first one that we know of. And Pragmatic Play did a very good job with it. The features are pretty much the same in core, but how they play out is different. This shows to us that they actually put thought in it rather than just copy it entirely with a different theme. And we were actually surprised that it can tease with two Scatters. For those of you unaware: in Wanted you will never be teased. If you get a teaser with two Scatters, it’s in, 100% of the time.

What we are sceptical about is the max win potential, or rather the chance of getting it. While Wanted has only around half the max win potential, we are pretty sure that you will get it more than twice in the same amount of spins that you would need on Wild West Duels. So in terms of that it probably would be wiser to stick to Hacksaw’s game if you care about that.

Other than that we can’t really say a negative thing about Wild West Duels. It is a well designed slot game, it’s fun, it’s thrilling, what else can we say? This concludes our slot review about Wild West Duels. It was fun trying it out for you. Hopefully we left no question unanswered and we hope you will have lots of fun with it.