ELK Studios is back with a magical release
ELK Studios is a valued partner of AboutSlots, known for delivering excellent gaming experiences since 2012. Many times over, we’ve collaborated with them through our CasinoDaddy livestreams and Q&As for hyped-up releases. Just last year, we got to hold an exclusive livestream of the release of Pirots 4 in mid-2025, as well as get an insight from a former AboutSlots writer and CasinoDaddy streamer, Sebastian “Sebbe” Lindström. He is now a Product Owner at ELK Studios, and his first project, Phoenix Graveyard 2, is the subject of the interview we had with him. So, after we’ve seen a fantastic lineup of sequels of 2025 from ELK Studios, they now deliver their latest original release, Arcanum, a magic-fueled slot adventure with spell slinging and mystic powers, which you can read more about in our Arcanum slot review.
We were pleasantly surprised to hear that Sebbe is behind this new ELK Studios release and are eager to see what Arcanum has to offer. Sebbe’s long-standing passion for iGaming has been his motivation for years, making him the perfect person to interview about the development of Arcanum. So, without further ado, let’s dive into this Q&A with Sebastian “Sebbe” Lindström at the helm.
1.Hello, and thank you for joining AboutSlots in this Q&A of the soon-to-be-released game Arcanum! Where did the inspiration for this game come from?
SL: Hey, thanks for having me on! I’ve always loved the game Lost Relics from NetEnt, where you reveal features behind the symbols that you win on. For some reason, it’s a mechanic that hasn’t appeared in many other games (if any) after it, and I felt like it had great potential!
2. As soon as we started the game and started spinning, we fell in love with its vibes and magical effects, especially those coming from the various spells and features. Was this something you had in mind when developing the game?
SL: Most definitely! I’ve played World of Warcraft since I was 7 years old, and played as a Mage for a lot of that time. So that’s really where I found inspiration for the theme. The Wizard (whom I haven’t named, let’s call him Jeff), resembles an Arcane Mage in many ways. And while magic and wizardry are not uncommon themes in slots, few have put a lot of effort into making the animations actually feel cool and video game-like.
3. One of the more interesting mechanics that stood out to us was the Spell Inventory, as it feels like such a natural feature to be part of games, but also felt strangely new. How did you go about creating this feature?
SL: Yeah I agree. Gathering features to then trigger them all at once has of course been done in various ways before, but it felt quite perfect to have these features be spells that a wizard conjures and casts. Sometimes you come up with the mechanics of a game first, and sometimes the theme. In this case it was the latter, so the features appeared quite naturally as it felt obvious that the wizard had to cast spells!
4. Were there any memorable moments during the development of Arcanum that you’d like to share?
SL: The first time I got to see the Wizard expand to a 6x6, covering almost the entire grid. I thought; damn, this is one of the coolest visual representations of a slot feature ever.
5. Which game in the ELK Studios portfolio would you say resembles Arcanum the most, either in its gameplay or theme?
SL: We do have a very old game called The Wiz, which also is themed around a wizard. But the goal was to create the sort of magical, fantasy setting that the Cygnus series has. The industry is flooded with these bright fishing and fruit slots. What makes Cygnus so epic is that the theme is more serious and “dark”, without being horror or anything like that. So that’s what we set out to accomplish, and the team did an incredible job.
6. Lastly, are there any exciting new games from ELK Studios that we should keep an eye out for in the coming months?
SL: We have some fantastic releases coming up in 2026. Probably our strongest roster of games ever. In the near future, I’d like to highlight two sequels, Ryze II and Bushido Gold, as Ryze and Kane make their returns in very epic fashion.
We would like to thank Sebbe, Product Owner at ELK Studios, for participating in this interview and for his insightful answers. We wish the best of luck with the upcoming release of Arcanum!
