| Le Viking | |
|---|---|
| Launched in | January 16, 2025 |
| Developer | Hacksaw Gaming |
| Theme | Vikings |
| Reels | 6 |
| Rows | 5 |
| Bet Levels | 0.10 - 100 |
| Max Win/Jackpot | 10,000x |
| RTP | 96.32% |
| Volatility | Medium-high |
| Bonus Features | Buy Bonus, 5 Respin Modes, Modifiers, Collectors, Multipliers, FS Scatters |
| Availability | Stake.us, MyPrize.us, The Money Factory, Fortune Coins |
| Similar Games | Le Bandit, Le Pharaoh, Ze Zeus |
As one of Hacksaw Gaming’s adorable mascots, Smokey emerged as Le Bandit in 2023, became Le Pharaoh in September of the following year, and is ready to storm sweepstakes casinos as Le Viking from January 2025.
Four Bonus Buy options, close to a dozen special symbols, and an impressive base RTP of 96.32% are why you should try the Le Viking slot for free at reputable sweepstakes casinos like Stake.us. In this guide, I’ll break down how the slot works, take Le Viking for a test drive, and underpin its main draws and flaws.
Le Viking is the first multiway slot in this trilogy, offering up to 15,625 ways to win up to 10,000x of your bet. The bet size starts as low as 0.10 and goes up to 100, meaning you can win up to a whopping million coins per round.
The RTP of this game is 96.32% in the base game; it ramps up to 96.35% if you’re using the Bonushunt Featurespins to improve the odds of Coins appearing but drops down to 96.27% if you’re purchasing the bonus game directly.
Thematically, Le Viking puts Smokey in a Viking village, armed with a wooden shortsword and a horned helmet, ready to embark on a conquest in his longship. The playing field is riddled with arrows, axe cuts, and runic etchings, which gave me a wonderfully immersive experience in my first playthrough. Like Le Bandit and Le Pharaoh, the Le Viking slot has 10 paying symbols, including 5 minor card-inspired ones and 5 Viking-themed weapons and armor symbols.
The standout feature of this slot is the Raid Respins hold & win-style bonus feature with three refillable respins, a big departure from “flat” free spins bonuses offered by the game’s predecessor. Raid Respins appropriates upgraded mechanics depending on how it’s triggered and can ultimately evolve into “Journey to Valhalla” if you hit six Free Spins scatter symbols where you’ll find the best grid multipliers in the game.
Even though it follows a different paying system, Le Viking shares the same moderately high volatility rating with Le Bandit and Le Pharaoh. The Coins, clovers, and pot symbols can easily clutter the 6×5 grid; the hit frequency is solid, and the base game payouts are moderate.
You’ll have 6 reels and 5 rows to line up your swords and hammers, or if you’re lucky enough, you’ll have enough Coins to start a raid. This is the same grid layout as you’ll find in all Hacksaw Games where Smokey appears. The theoretical return-to-player of Le Viking is 96.32%, which is above the industry’s average.
Le Viking has the same paytable as Le Pharaoh – Bows, Helmets, Axes, and Swords are major symbols that pay up to 1.5x for six-of-a-kind combos, while the rune-inscribed Hammers offer up to 3x of your bets for the same deal.
Bet levels range from 0.10 to 100 Coins, which is a standard setup for Hacksaw Gaming slots. As illustrated below, use the plus and minus icons on the side to adjust the bet size.
Le Viking has five bonus features, all of which revolve around refillable respins. There are no Wilds, and you’ll need Coins or FS symbols to trigger the bonuses.
Only 3 out of 5 bonuses can be purchased via the Buy Bonus store – you’ll need to get lucky to trigger Valkyrie Free Spins or Journey to Valhalla.
Below, I’ll explain how these features work, so let’s start from the top.
This is the basic bonus feature in Le Viking. It’s the only feature that can be triggered by having at least 6 Coins of any type anywhere on the grid and the only bonus without grid multipliers.
While Smokey prepares for a raid, he’ll stow all weapons and base game symbols away from the board; you can only draw blanks and Coin cash symbols during this time with the following values:
Look at the Heart symbols on the left side; they represent how many respins you currently have. Each spin where no new Coins land expends one Heart while landing any new symbol, including Coins or Clovers, refills the meter to 3.
Clovers multiply Coin values by x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, or x20. Green Clovers are common and only affect adjacent symbols, while the elusive Gold Clovers affect all Coins on the board. The bonus game ends when Smokey runs out of Hearts, during which time the values of all Coins will be summed and awarded as a win.
If you land precisely 3 FS symbols on the board (or pay 100x of your bet in the in-game Bonus Shop), Smokey will eat a red mushroom and enter a Berserk state. His eyes will glow red, and he’ll stand atop a barrel in his longship, braving a raging storm.
This bonus round follows the same rules as Raid Respins – you get 3 refillable lives, draw Coins (or duds), and get instant prizes at the end.
What’s different is that you’ll start the game with three grid multipliers; the spots where you previously drew FS symbols will be highlighted in green and carry an x2 multiplier. The final value of any Coin inside this field will be multiplied by 2 (after all Clovers apply their respective multipliers first).
You’ll occasionally land Heart symbols, which expand your respin counter by +1, up to 5. I can’t imagine seeing a full screen of Coins without this neat feature, but it landed only twice in my tests.
The Magic Cauldron is the most important symbol that can appear in Berserk Free Spins (and all other upgraded versions). Similar to how Pots Of Gold work in Le Bandit, Magic Cauldrons will trigger all present symbols on the field and collect them, making room for new Coins. It’s great that Cauldrons count as special symbols because they refill the life bar back to 3.
There are only two differences between Berserk and Valkyrie Free Spins – you can’t purchase Valkyrie Free Spins via Buy Bonus, and you’ll get a sticky 3x multiplier (instead of x2) in spots where the 4 FS symbols fell. The Coin values remain the same, and you’ll encounter Clovers and Cauldrons that work the same as in Berserk Free Spins mode.
If you’re lucky enough, you’ll get to witness the Twilight of the Gods if you manage to draw 5 FS symbols in one go.
Ragnarök Free Spins is a purchasable bonus that costs twice as much as the Berserk Free Spins round (200x). What makes it especially attractive is that it brings five 5x grid multipliers to the board, which can lead to massive wins when combined with Clovers and Magic Cauldrons. Otherwise, this bonus has the same mechanics as the previous two.
The ultimate bonus in Le Viking is Journey to Valhalla. The only way to trigger it is by landing 6 FS symbols in a single spin, rewarding you with 3 refillable respins and six 10x grid multipliers. Moreover, only Gold Coins and Emeralds can drop during this time, ensuring the multipliers are as efficient as possible.
Hacksaw stated that they had run 10 billion simulated spins to calculate the 96.32% payout rate. Even though I spun Le Viking some 1,000-odd times in my initial tests, my total playtime with this game confirmed that its RTP is valid.
Additionally, Hacksaw Gaming rated the volatility of Le Viking 3 out of 5 stars. It’s a game where you’re bound to experience consistent returns over longer gaming sessions; base game wins aren’t colossal, and the bonus hit frequency hovers at about 4%.
Keep in mind that Hacksaw provides its games with lower RTP configurations too, and the 96.32% is the highest version. Our approved casinos for this game always provide the best RTP you can find for Le Viking slot in the US.
I documented my demo playthrough of Le Viking two weeks before its official release. My starting balance was 5,000 credits, and I used different wagers while testing strategies.
I scored minor wins during my first 30 spins, but that wasn’t enough to cover my wagers, let alone achieve anything concrete. With a bet size of 1 coin, I landed 6 Bronze Coins and triggered a Raid Bonus.
As the Raid ended, I bagged 14.10 coins, leaving me with 4,992.10 out of the starting 5,000. I decided to spice things up by activating the Ante Bet; my bet size was the same, but the cost of individual wagers jumped to 3 coins. Fifteen spins later, I landed 4 FS symbols, boarded the longship, and prepared for the Valkyrie Free Spins round.
With a few Silver Coins, a Clover, and a Magic Cauldron, I won 160 credits.
Considering I was 115.30 coins ahead of my initial bankroll, I disabled the Ante bet and raised my wager to 5. I was 70 spins in when I broke even and decided to buy the Raid Bonus for 150x with the same bet size.
I won only 40.5 coins, less than a third of what I wagered, but I had another strategy in mind. I doubled my bet to 10 coins per spin. By the time I was 100 spins in, I was mostly losing my wagers and ended up with 4,668.30. I rolled my wager back to 5 coins, and merely five spins later, I got 62 coins back from the Raid Bonus.
I was now 150 spins in, scoring small victories along the way, but not enough to get me back to the starting point. I then raised my bet to 20 coins and paid 2,000 for the Ragnarok Free Spins, as I was expecting a big hit. With five Clovers and an almost full screen of Coins, I bagged a whopping 3,260 win.
I wanted to test the base game a bit more, so I kept my wager at 20 coins and continued with the final 50 spins.
I hit the Raid Bonus, had one major win (roughly 400), and ended the session with 6,374 credits in my balance. That’s a profit of 1,374 coins with wagers ranging from 1 to 20, which I was quite pleased with.
Le Viking is a great slot if you’re into multi-faceted games or prefer purchasable bonuses over random triggers. Even as a moderately volatile game, it tends to feel a bit too random at times, but it offers a solid degree of consistency.
While the theme isn’t exactly new, the graphics look good, the gameplay is smooth, and there aren’t many features I’d want to see changed.
| Le Viking | Rankings | Our Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | 85% | All major symbols are designed after Viking-inspired items. The unique landscape in the bonus round is a nice touch, but Vikings as a slot category is a fairly populated space. |
| Gameplay | 80% | Not the easiest slot due to the sheer number of bonus features, but its learning curve isn’t too steep. The multi-line mechanics and 6x5 reel structure help it stand out from other slots in the series, but it doesn’t deviate much from standard Megaways games. A decent betting range unless you’re a high roller. |
| Metrics | 80% | The top win of 10,000x is good for a non-jackpot slot. Le Viking’s RTP of 96.32% is good but not superb. Its moderate volatility makes it a solid choice for most players. |
| Bonus Features | 90% | Five bonus features, most of which are purchasable, are present. Although they look and feel similar, these bonuses have a massive payout potential. Using the Bonushunt Featurespins is a cheap way to skyrocket your odds of triggering special features. |
| Mobile Compatibility | 85% | Vertical orientation ensures smooth gameplay. However, the playing board covers over half of the screen and hides nearly all graphical elements. The “Spin” and “Bet Size” buttons are relocated to the bottom. |
Author: Alex Windsor
Updated:
