Rise of Merlin Slot Review

If you love wizards and English lore, you’ll love the Rise of Merlin slot – a relatively new (released in 2019) online slot machine by Play’n GO, one of the best gaming developers in the business. Rise of Merlin features many of the ideas and features that have made their previous slots, including the fabled Book of Dead, such incredible hits. For example, this game includes the expanding symbol mechanic that was so popular in the Book of Dead game. Can Rise of Merlin rise and be in the same league as these other top games? Let’s find out in this latest slot review!

Rise of Merlin Slot Theme

The Rise of Merlin slot derives its theme from Arthurian lore. In ancient English texts, Merlin was an enchanter (wizard), born of a mortal woman and a demon father. His demonic father is the reason why Merlin has supernatural abilities. The Merlin in the original stories is an influential figure that faces an unseemly fate. However, in Rise of Merlin, he is simply the most powerful figure in the game. You’ll go on a quest with Merlin and enter the world of dragons, enchanted owls, and other mythical creatures. Part of the Rise of Merlin theme’s attractiveness is how well the designers have done with the game. There are so many subtle details that make the game exciting. For example, the top “Rise of Merlin” text has a light that gracefully shines over it. The background is an enchanted room with wisps gracefully floating up to the sky. The detail on the symbols themselves is inviting and appealing.

It’s also impressive how color-coordinated everything is. In some slots, the symbols appear either too prominently or too subdued. In Rise of Merlin, the symbols appear floating in the wisps. The effect is quite stunning, especially as the reels spin. Unlike most slots where the background and foreground are remarkably distinct, Rise of Merlin features the symbols nicely but in a way that feels cohesively designed with the environment. The incredible artwork and a fun overarching theme (who doesn’t like fantasy?) make this slot one of the most visually appealing to play!

How to Play Rise of Merlin

There are no tricks or secrets necessary to play Rise of Merlin. Indeed, if you have played any other slot (especially if you have played any different Play’n GO slot), you’re probably already familiar with how this game works! There’s no secret to playing this game – hit the green “spin” button in the bottom-right corner, and the reels will turn. Once they land on a set of symbols, the game will automatically calculate your payout.

As with most Play’n GO games, Rise of Merlin has an autoplay feature. What’s nice about this particular game’s autoplay is that it has quite a bit of customizability. Some auto-spin features only let you set the number of spins, and that’s it. This one enables you to do that, but it can also stop the reels from spinning if you win anything, win free spins, if a single win exceeds a certain amount, or if your balance goes up or down by a threshold you set. This autoplay functionality lets you fine-tune when you want to take control. For example, if you have $100 in there, you could tell the autoplay feature to spin for 100 spins and stop if you hit the bonus feature, lose $50, or win more than $100. Rise of Merlin is an easy game to play, which makes it all that much more fun!

Rise of Merlin Symbols and Bonus Features

There are a total of ten symbols you will encounter in the Rise of Merlin slot:

• Wild/Scatter Symbol
• Merlin
• Red Dragon
• Blue Dragon
• Owl
• Ace
• King
• Queen
• Jack
• Ten

You can play two bonus features in this game – the Gamble or Collect feature and the Free Spins feature. Both can result in fantastic wins!

Gamble or Collect Feature

The Gamble or Collect feature is a simple mini-game that happens after every win. Whatever you win, you’ll have the opportunity to gamble it to win more money or collect it. Gambling simply involves drawing a virtual card. Guess it’s the correct colour, and you’ll double your money. Guess the proper suit, and you’ll quadruple your winnings. You can do this as many times in succession as you want. So, if you won $1, you could pick the right suit to turn that into $4 and then choose the right colour to turn that $4 into $8. Then, you could collect that $8 in winnings. It’s worth noting that there’s no house edge with this feature. The 1:1 and 3:1 payouts for colour and suits have no house edge.

Free Spins Feature

You’ll activate the free spins feature if you receive three scatter symbols. Players receive eight free spins to start but have the opportunity to earn more as the bonus game progresses. Before the game starts, the slot will randomly pick one special expanding symbol. This symbol will “expand” to fill the entire reel if you get it during the bonus round. If you get five expanding symbols – one on each reel – the whole board will fill up with that symbol, and you’d win with it on every single pay line! You can retrigger the feature and give an additional eight free spins plus another expanding symbol if you get three additional scatters on any spin in the bonus game. It’s technically possible to retrigger eight times to set all nine non-wild symbols as expanding ones! Although this feature is conceptually simple (it is just free spins, after all), the addition of the expanding wilds makes these spins an absolute joy to experience! This feature is one of the high points in our Rise of Merlin review!

Rise of Merlin Odds and Payouts

For each of the symbols, the paytables are as follows:

• The wild symbol and Merlin have the highest payouts, each winning 5000x the line bet for five in a row and 10x the line bet for two in a row.
• The red dragon has the next highest payout with 1600x the line bet for five symbols in a row and 5x the line bet for two.
• The blue dragon and the owl receive 600x the line bet for five symbols in a row and 5x the line bet for two.
• Ace and King each receive 120x the bet for five symbols in a row while getting 5x the wager for two.
• Lastly, Queen, Jack, and 10 receive 80x the line wager for five symbols in a row and 5x the bet for two.

As you might imagine, the wild and Merlin symbols are the least frequent in the game. Any time you receive those symbols, you might have a chance to win some significant money!

Rise of Merlin RTP and Volatility

There has been a somewhat unfortunate trend in the online casino community to offer operators the ability to adjust the return-to-player rates. Land-based casinos do this, but historically, online casinos have been able to offer better returns because they don’t have the same overhead, and game providers have set the RTP rates, not the casinos. Play’n GO slots now have the ability for providers to tweak the RTP. There’s a version that has 96.58% RTP. This rate is quite good! However, there’s also a version with a 94.51% RTP which is quite a bit less overall. As such, if you are playing Rise of Merlin, you might be playing the 96.58% version, or you might be playing the 94.51% version. Look in the help file to know which one you are playing. If you’re playing the lower return version, you may wish to consider trying this game at another casino. Still, given that many land-based casino slots top out at 93% RTP, Rise of Merlin is better than what you’ll find in the physical world. However, if you can play the higher RTP version at one of our best slot casinos, that’s the best option, statistically!

Play’n GO classifies this slot as having very high volatility. This slot has a max win of 250,000 coins. That’s 5,000x your bet if you’re betting the maximum on all lines, or 250,000x your bet if you’re betting the minimum coins on the minimum number of lines. The high volatility, excitement, and excellent RTP (with the 96.58% version) all combine to make this slot an exciting one to play!

Who Makes the Rise of Merlin Slot?

Play’n GO is the studio responsible for the development of Rise of Merlin. Play’n GO has a long history in the industry. Founded in 2005, Play’n GO can even trace its roots back further than that. 2005 was when the formal company came to be, but the co-founders were techies in the industry for about a decade before they launched Play’n GO. Given that this company has been around for about two decades, it should be no surprise that they have numerous hit games under their belt! These are the developers behind hit Play’n GO slots like Rich Wilde and the Tome of Madness, the Reactoonz series, Piggy Bank Farm, Leprechaun Goes Wild and many more. Indeed, if you have played any online casino slots, you have probably seen or even tried one of Play’n GO’s games – they are that ubiquitous!

Can the Rise of Merlin Slot Be Played on Mobile?

Yes! Players should have no issues spinning the reels in Rise of Merlin on their mobile devices. Indeed, the entire game’s user interface makes it relatively easy to play on any device size because the symbols are bright, large, and colourful. Mobile users won’t have any issues discerning what is going on in the game when playing at their favourite most played slots casino!

Our Verdict: Rise of Merlin it’s an Entertaining Slot and One to Try!

There’s no question that Rise of Merlin is an entertaining slot, as should be evident by this Rise of Merlin review. It gets so many of the little things right, from the quality of the artwork to the overall theme, and the gameplay itself is spot-on – especially with the expanding symbols! Fundamentally, it has a high RTP (if you play the 96.58% version) and some advanced auto-play capabilities that make this game a joy to play. Rise of Merlin checks most of the right boxes if you are looking for a new slot to try in your favourite best slots casino. Check out our Play’n GO most played slots casinos to ensure you play the 96.58% RTP version!