Great Wild Elk Slot

Evenk cosmology tells how the Sun was captured and carried about the sky by the cosmic Elk (Big Dipper constellation). The Elk and Her daughter (Little Dipper) were hunted by the Bear or Hunter (the bright star Arcturus and Bootes). The Elk, fled to the Sea and became Seli/Holi the Mammoth.

The 'Great Wild Elk' developed by NextGen Gaming, with a Highly-detailed fantasy theme upon 5 Reels/10 Paylines/Transparent Reels/Free Spins.

In overall, although its design looks detailed, it remains weak to deliver decent hits, regarding low Paytable. Maybe the multipliers could raise the bar of my interest!

Great Wild Elk is a game I discovered a few months ago when it got released. I don't play Nextgen games a lot in my daily life, but there are some of their games that I truly love. I was playing at Slotjoint casino when I accidentally noticed this game and the name sounded intriguing.

So this game is inspired by mythical theme where you have the chance to enter a completely imaginary world with elks, fairies and other mythical creatures. What also stood out for me was the fact that this game has 5 reels and only 10 pay lines so you can bet as little as 10 cents per spin which isn't too common for Nextgen slots.
What I really like about this game is the fact that there are more than one feature to look forward to. So first of all there is elk lights feature and when it appears, all rune symbols will turn into one of the higher paying symbols. From my experience this feature comes up quite often and it is possible to get some decent winnings from it, my best one has been around 50x bet. Also what is interesting is that this game has scatter symbols, but they don't trigger anything on base game, you only get paid for them, so that's nice too.

And now the star of the show, in my personal opinion, is the free spins bonus feature. Everything about it is interesting, even the way it is triggered. So when on base game you get a win with elk, you automatically get from 4- 10 free spins. But it's not that easy as elk appears only on 3rd reel. But what I love is that the win that you get on this triggering spin, is called the enduring win and for every free spin win you will get this win, combined with the new wins, so if all you get is empty free spins, at least you get the enduring wins. And my favorite thing- the elk is stacked on free spins on reel 3 and stays throughout the feature and then at the end there's a re spin for your final chance to win. So from my personal experience this feature can come up quite often, around once in 100 spins, but unfortunately that doesn't mean anything. I haven't had any wins over 100x bet so far and for me it seems that the payouts in general are quite low. My only time when I did get a win of 80x bet on this game, was thanks to a good enduring win and in the free games for every scatter I would get the enduring win, so for me it seems like the only way to get a good win.

But with that being said, I do think that this is a very beautiful game that could be a good option for you if you have low balance or you have some small wagering to meet because I have used this game for small bonuses and it has helped me to meet them, without big profits but at least with steady balance.

Lately “NextGen” has been producing really attractive video slots and definitely “Great Wild Elk” is no exception as this has a totally colorful design loaded with totally professional graphics.

The theme of this game is almost certainly originated in Norse mythology as, on it, they are symbols related to that culture such as runes, squirrels, auroras, a sacred tree and things like that; anyway, it is a visually inspiring game.

As for the game itself, this slot is 5 x 3 reels and has only 10 lines and you must pay double than usual for each of them, i.e. 2 credits per line for a total of 20 credits per spin. This extra value does not appear to be offset by setting high prices on the paytable, so then we must conclude that NextGen considers that special features of this slot are strong enough to justify the value that players must pay for each turn.

The two special features of this slot are quite novel and in the “i” section of the game you can find information in detail about how they work; I personally believe that the individual potential of each feature is quite modest considering that this game has a rather weak paytable, only 10 paylines, do not pay in both directions, wild symbol appears not so often because it is not a common wild and it does so only on reel 3, and additionally, you have to pay double credits per line.

As we can see, there are too many weaknesses concentrated in a single game; however, when you manage to combine the features Elk Light and Free Spins, then your winnings may rise to interesting levels since gains arising from the first feature become the basis for the settlement of awards given by the second feature, in other words, if you get a high “enduring win” during your first free spins thanks to Elk Light feature, then each tree that appears thereafter will replicate that win and your bag will fill up quickly.

In my first time with this slot, I had access to the round of free spins approximately on 6 occasions, but only in two of them I managed at some point to active both features at the same time, the first with a total gain of 322x and the other only 41x my total bet; anyway, I ended up giving back all my profits to the machine because I decided to extend my session after my best big win.

I think in “Great Wild Elk” slot, slumps are the rule and big win the exception, and ultimately, I cannot like math of this game, and especially the fact of having to pay twice credits per spin; fortunately there are other several slots within NextGen’s portfolio that I consider fairer and even generous at times.

NextGen games can be fun to play, nice to look at, and do have nice good graphics, but I seldom win on them, except on two games, namely Cash Stampede and Medusa 2. Even so, those were the one and only win on the two games so far. This Great Wild Elk is the latest offering for NextGen. My first ever play on it was through some free spins to try it out, was quite impressed with its graphics and its overall presentation, but didn't win anything then. I have since played it a few more times, on separate occasions, with real money deposits, but has yet to win from it.

This Great Wild Elk game does not play like any other games that we are used to. It has an innovative gameplay but with only 10 paylines, with a minimum starting bet of $0.20 per spin. Nope, it doesn't pay both ways as one would expect from its double cost per spin on a 10- paylines game, but paying both ways left-to-right and right-to-left would have been so much better for this new Great Wild Elk game. Why NextGen chose to fixed it at $0.20 bet per spin I have no idea. Personally, I think that a $0.10 starting bet would create much more interest amongst players to try this game out, especially to those who prefer playing with small minimum starting bets. But I guess only time will tell.

Looking at the paytable, The Great Wild Elk is the Wild symbol, appearing only on reel 3 in both the base game and in the 'Enduring Win Free Games'. It doesn't pay for itself, it doesn't double any wins with it, but it becomes a fully expanded Wild Reel on reel 3 during the Free Games feature. Any win with this Elk symbol in the base game activates the Enduring Win Free Games feature, awarding randomly from 4 up to 10 free spins, but without any win multiplier attached. Every win with the Elk symbol contributes to the 'Enduring Win' amount, and the collected current amount becomes the win value for each 'Tree' Scatter symbol appearing anywhere on the reels. This Tree Scatter symbol only appears on reels 1, 2 and 4. The active symbols in the game pay from a very low 250x to 15x the line bet for 5 of each kind.

At the end of every Enduring Win Free Games feature, one 'Call Of The Elk Respin' is awarded, whereby only the Tree Scatter symbols come into play, and each appearing Tree Scatter gets paid the total collected 'Enduring Win' value, plus triggering one more respin. This respin continues until no new Tree Scatter symbol appears, and this is the only special difference this game offers from any other games. Innovative, interesting, and looks very promising, but its merits have yet to be proven. All that I've got so far, after several game plays, was only 1 Tree Scatter in the Call Of The Elk Respin feature, and that was very disappointing indeed, to say the very least.

In the base game, there is also another special randomly activated feature, called the 'Elk's Light Feature', whereby all Runes symbols are transformed into one randomly selected high paying symbol, for more winning chances. This feature can be triggered at any time in the base game but cannot be triggered in the Enduring Win Free Games or in the Call Of The Elk Respin feature.

The paytable is unfortunately very low to contribute any sizeable big wins, the Enduring Win Free Games tend to award mostly 4 free spins only, with up to 6 free spins that I've got so far, none of the 10 free spins, the Call Of The Elk Respin feature gave only 1 Tree Scatter symbol so far, and there aren't any win multipliers to provide for bigger win possibilities. All in all, a good game but with poor payouts.