Introduction to Hell Butcher
Hell Butcher is a casino slot from Pragmatic Play that descends to a lava-flowing underworld to show you what punishment awaits sinners in the afterlife. Stepping away from its usual direction, filled with shimmering gems, delicious sweets, and mighty gods, the studio explores a darker side of its imagination, introducing a hellish tormentor. His razor-sharp, curved blade is always hungry, and there's a never-ending supply of terrified souls to satisfy its appetite. With them come multipliers, which empower the wild demon, along with the wins he creates by substituting for other symbols. As heads roll, used multipliers are replaced with higher ones to maintain momentum and let the cluster wins flow. The action culminates in the Free Spins charging the butcher with ultimate powers, making him strike true every time and banish used multipliers into the abyss.
To find out how the game can turn the tormented sinners' suffering into prizes up to 20,000x the bet, read on or try the risk-free demo mode at the top of the page.
Theme, Gameplay & Payouts
Hell Butcher is a video slot from Pragmatic Play with 6 reels, 6 rows, and a cluster-pays win evaluation, requiring 5+ symbols to land vertically and/or horizontally adjacent. You can choose your stake from a range of options, starting from a Min.bet of 0.2, which makes the game quite affordable, up to a Max.bet of 240, suitable for high rollers. This value can grow even further with the use of the Ante Bet option, up to 2,400 per spin. The math offers a default RTP of 96.55%, with two lower variants of 95.53% and 94.48% also released for the operators, so be sure to keep an eye on what version you're playing. Because of the medium volatility rating, you should experience a relatively even balance between the size and frequency of wins. There's a base hit frequency of 28.32%, with a max win of 20,000x the bet achievable at an average rate of 1 in 21,367,521 spins. It takes roughly 243.94 spins to trigger the bonus round.
Hell is undoubtedly the last place any mortal would like to end up in, but it can be presented in various ways. Pragmatic Play decided on a lighter version of the inferno to soften the blow, dressing its creation in a sleek, cartoony artwork. It makes the leading motif of the game feel not so dramatic and charges the entire scene with a dark humour vibe rather than depicting it as a gruesome warning. A vibrant colour palette has been used to paint the symbols, while the characters sport a modern, polished, 3D design of an animated movie. The setup is also fully responsive, making the game adapt seamlessly to most modern devices, such as desktops, smartphones, and tablets.
In the paytable, two distinct sets of symbols form the payout hierarchy, where you need at least 5 forming a cluster to score a win. Among the low-paying icons, you'll recognise shackles, a ring with an eye, a hatchet, and a mug filled with blood, awarding from 20x to 40x the bet for a cluster of 15 or more. A skull with exposed brain, a heart pierced with a dagger, and a blood-filled cauldron represent the premium symbols, delivering payouts of between 60x and 150x the bet when you combine at least 15 matching instances into a cluster. Alongside regular icons, there are also Wilds represented by the butcher, substituting for all regular symbols. Reels also hold three types of Scatters in the form of portals inside a blue, green, and red demon skull.
Special Features & Slot Mechanics
What is the max win in the slot Hell Butcher?
You can win up to 20,000x the bet.
What features are available in the slot Hell Butcher?
The features are Tumbling, Wild Multiplier, Free Spins, Ante Bets, Super Bets, and Bonus Buys.
Tumbling
Thanks to the tumbling mechanism (also known as cascading), you'll have a chance to score multiple consecutive wins within a single game round. Every initial combination is removed from the grid, causing the remaining symbols to drop and new ones to populate the board. This can potentially lead to more hits, thus extending the sequence until no new combinations can be formed.
Wild Multiplier
Under the grid, four multipliers are present at the beginning of every new spin: x2, x4, x8, and x16. Whenever the Wild symbol lands on the grid, it can randomly pick one of the values and apply it to itself. The collected multiplier will be replaced by a new one, which is double the value of the highest multiplier currently on the screen. The maximum it can reach is x512.
Free Spins
Depending on the combination of Scatters you hit during a single base game round, you can trigger Free Spins in four different variants. Hitting a total of 3, 4, 5, or 6 Scatters awards 12, 15, 20, or 30 Free Spins, respectively. Retriggers are possible by hitting the same combination during the bonus game.
Standard Free Spins (3 or more Scatters) = the Wild Multiplier behaves like in the base game.
No Miss Free Spins (2 or more Scatters & at least 1 No Miss Scatter) = the Wild Multiplier always strikes after landing.
Madness Free Spins (2 or more Scatters & at least 1 Madness Scatter) = the used multipliers are banished and cannot appear anymore until the end of the bonus.
No Miss Madness Free Spins (1 or more Scatter, 1 No Miss Scatter & 1 Madness Scatter) = a combination of both above modes, where Wild Multiplier always strikes and used multipliers are removed.
Ante Bets
4x = Ante Bet 1, with an 8-times higher chance to trigger any Free Spins.
5x = Ante Bet 2, with a 160-times higher chance to trigger No Miss Free Spins.
5x = Ante Bet 3, with a 160-times higher chance to trigger Madness Free Spins.
10x = Ante Bet 4, with a 360-times higher chance to trigger No Miss Madness Free Spins.
Super Bets
5x = Super Spin 1, guaranteeing a standard Wild.
10x = Super Spin 2, guaranteeing a No Miss Wild.
250x = Super Spin 3, guaranteeing a standard Wild and all multipliers at x512.
500x = Super Spin 4, guaranteeing a No Miss Wild and all multipliers at x512.
Bonus Buys
100x = Standard Free Spins.
300x = No Miss Free Spins.
300x = Madness Free Spins.
750x = No Miss Madness Free Spins.
Final Thoughts on Hell Butcher
Hell Butcher is definitely a surprising game coming from Pragmatic Play. Not so much in terms of features, but more from the audiovisual and narrative standpoint. The overwhelming amount of generic candy, gem, and adventure releases from the studio accustomed us not to expect much variety. While launching Hell Butcher and seeing a comically gruesome preloader depicting a severed head dragged by a chain, we had to double-check if we indeed started the correct game. Whether it's a new product owner on board or an entirely new team formed to go a different direction, it's good to see the team branching out. Not that the subject of hell is anything unprecedented in slots, but the humorously dark execution in this case is undoubtedly an original angle within Pragmatic's catalogue.
At the same time, the visuals seamlessly mesh with the central feature, imbuing the game with an even more consistent feel. Hacking off heads to award multipliers may seem utterly brutal, but it perfectly fits the premise. The feature itself bears marks of inspiration from other slots, yet it's not a direct copy of anything in particular. The closest connection we can make is the DoubleMax mechanism from Yggdrasil, although without the linear approach to the multiplier growth. On top of the unpredictability of acquired boosters, there are also some tasty extras during Free Spins, empowering the core function by introducing guaranteed hits by the Wild and disabling used multipliers. All these elements result in an uncomplicated yet effective loop with a solid max win potential of 20,000x the bet.
Hell Butcher surprises with its original audiovisual execution and tightly-knit relation between the theme and the mechanics, while operating on robust, increasing multipliers.
