Cursed Seas (Hacksaw Gaming) Slot Review

Cursed Seas: Slot Overview

In this online slot review we will sail the seven seas. No, not on a cruise ship, but on a pirate ship. Together with Hacksaw Gaming, we will explore the dark tides, that have sent many outlaws to Davy Jones’ locker. And some of them haunt the oceans to this day. Are you brave enough to set sail and discover the Cursed Seas?

Playing Board

Cursed Seas is played on 5 reels with 4 rows and 26 set paylines. The game received a 4 out of 5 volatility rating by Hacksaw Gaming themselves, making Cursed Seas a highly volatile slot. Bet sizes range from 0.10€ to 100€ (or equivalent), but may vary depending on where you play.

Winning Symbols

Hacksaw Gaming have got very creative with their winning symbols in Cursed Seas. There are 10 winning symbols in total, with 6 of them on the lower paying end and another 4 high-tier premium symbols. Let’s start off with the lower end. This end is occupied by many winning symbols that perfectly fit the dark pirate theme and are all held in black and white. They are actually pretty similar in payouts. So first you will encounter the anchor and the compass, both paying you 1 time your bet size per full line. Next are the pirate flag and the guns, coming in at 1.2 times your bet size. And the last lower paying symbol is the skull with two crossed bones, clocking in at 1.5 times your bet size per full line.

On the higher end you will find various pirates. We will do our best to describe them to you. The first two symbols, the pirate with a red bandana and the green piratess, actually share a payout with 3 times your bet size per full line. Second to last already is the piratess with a skull face painting, netting you 5 times your bet size. And lastly, the pirate with a voluminous beard will pay you 10 times your bet size for a full line of him.

Cursed Seas: Special Symbols and Stats

While on your journey on the seven seas, you will encounter a few Special symbols that will help you keep sanity.

Scatter Symbol

Cursed Seas features a Scatter symbol in the form of a ghostly lantern. Landing 3 or 4 of them in the same spin will let you enter either the Sunken Treasure bonus game or the Dead Men Tell No Tales bonus game. What exactly these features do will be covered in our Feature Overview section of this online slot review.

Wild Symbol

On your journeys you will come across various treasure chests. If you find one with a big „W“ painted on, then you have encountered a Wild symbol. This symbol will substitue for any winning symbol except Scatter symbols. They also have their own payout, but only for a full line. Getting 5 in one single line will net you 50 times your bet size, making Wild symbols our top symbol. This payout is shared with Cursed Chests.

Cursed Chests

Speaking of Cursed Chests, these are portrayed just like the Wild symbol, with the difference that there is a ghostly glow coming out of them. Cursed Chests have a very special interaction when they land on reels. What exactly this interaction is will be covered later on. These chests will also count as Wild symbols.

Feature Exclusive Symbols

In Cursed Seas, there are 2 Special symbols, that are only relevant in a specific feature. Once we will get to that feature, we will cover these symbols as well, as they play no role in any other way.

Stats

Unfortunately there is not a whole lot we can give you about Cursed Seas. Hacksaw Gaming did not publish a lot of information about their game. Cursed Seas comes with a base RTP of 96.22%. The highest win possible is limited to 12,500 times your bet size, pretty standard for Hacksaw Gaming. And the last thing we can give you, the game’s hit frequency is set to 37%, which means that you will get a win round about every 3rd spin.

Cursed Seas: Feature Overview

Special symbols are done, now let’s see how they help us in achieving big wins. Here’s an overview over all of the features Cursed Seas has to offer.

Cursed Chest Multipliers

We mentioned before that Cursed Chests have a special interaction. Whenever a Cursed Chest lands, it will open up and cover all of the positions above and on it with a cursed area. This area will then receive a multiplier. Any winning combination, that passes this area, will receive that multiplier. Though the Cursed Chests will only open, if a winning combination will pass them. If a winning combination passes multiple cursed areas, the multipliers will add to each other and then be applied to the winning combination. The possible multiplier values range from 2x to 200x.

Sunken Treasure Feature

3 Scatter symbols in the same spin will let you enter the Sunken Treasure feature and grant you 10 free spins. This feature is pretty similar to the base game, but it has a huge twist. You see, whenever a Cursed Chest lands, it will always open and curse the positions where it’s on and the ones above them. But instead of having different multipliers for every cursed area, the multipliers of the Cursed Chests will add to each other and apply to all cursed areas. The combined multiplier will then be applied to all wins that pass a cursed area in any way, shape or form.

You can even retrigger this feature, landing 2, 3 or 4 Scatter symbols will reward you with 2, 4 or 6 free spins respectively. More free spins can be extremely valueable, especially in later stages of this feature. The feature will end once all of your free spins have been used or the max win potential of 12,500 times your base bet size has been reached.

Dead Men Tell No Tales Feature

If you manage to land 4 Scatter symbols in the same spin, you will be allowed entry to the Dead Men Tell No Tales feature. This feature is completely different to the Sunken Treasure feature and the base game. Instead of free spins you will be granted 3 respins. Every reel will get a multiplier, starting at 1x. To increase this multiplier, you will need to land the feature exclusive Special symbols.

• Cursed Skulls (green glow) – Adds a multiplier to the reel it landed on. Additionally, it will curse the area it landed on and any positions above it. Possible multiplier values range from x2 to x25.
• Tormented Skulls (orange glow) – Multiplies the current value of the reel with a random value between x2 and x25.
• Kraken symbol – Adds a multiplier to the current value of all reels, ranging from x1 to x500.

Every landed symbol will reset your remaining respins back to 3.

Cursed areas are more important than ever in this feature. This is because the values of the reels are worth nothing without them. For any cursed position on a reel, you will collect the current multiplier of this reel once. So for example, if a reel has a 10x multiplier, and the reel has 3 cursed areas, you will collect the 10x multiplier 3 times, for a total of 30x. If you have run out of respins, the feature will end. All cursed area multipliers will then be added together and multiplied with your current bet size.

Bonus Buy Options

As with many Hacksaw Gaming releases, Cursed Seas comes with a few bonus buy options. Here is a list of all of them with their corresponding prices and features.

Cursed Seas: Conclusion

Shiver me timbers if this game isn’t something else. Hacksaw Gaming have proven once again that they have sheer endless ideas for their games. Cursed Seas is a beautifully designed slot that is almost guaranteed to fill you with excitement and thrill with every single feature, and even in the base game. Although the latter can be a bit rough and stale from time to time, it is definitely possible to get some very good wins through it.

The addition of bonus buy options, although not really surprising, is something we really appreciate and love to see. If the base game gets too boring, you can easily skip this part and head right for a bonus. Be careful though, Cursed Seas is a very volatile game, meaning that features often pay next to nothing.

In the end, Cursed Seas is another great example of how games should be designed. Beautiful atmosphere, great and fresh game mechanics, what else could you ask for? We had a blast testing the game and we are pretty sure that you will have too.