I’m little confused, is he a knight or a king? I think the title implies that he is the king of knights, but if that were the case, wouldn’t that just make him the king? I’m probably exaggerating this again, aren’t I? The bottom line is that Pragmatic Game’s latest online slot is called “The King of Knights,” and I guess it’s just not up to us to question whether that’s somewhat ridiculous! Knights are a bit old-fashioned these days, so I think there is at least some logic to this being a rather ‘old school’ online slot! As for the main numbers, there are 20 paylines, an RTP of 96.05% and a maximum win of 5,000x the total bet.
What actually makes a slot old school? First, the wild symbols have a huge payout compared to the rest of the items on the paytable – you certainly don’t see that every day in other modern slots! Anything else? The Knight King has a somewhat limited feature set by Pragmatic Play standards – the base game includes a ‘money symbol’ feature, but aside from that, there is only a single free spin bonus round to keep you busy while you spin. Ah, I almost forgot – there’s also a bonus purchase facility available, if you’re one of the lucky people who isn’t forbidden to use such apparent works of the devil!
What do you think? Is he the king of knights or just a pretender to the throne? Maybe you should give our give free demo slot of The Knight King a few spins before you decide!
THE KNIGHT KING SLOT THEME, STAKES, PAYMENTS & SYMBOLS
Not everyone is aware that knights still exist to this day – when the British monarch awards titles “Order of the British Empire (OBE)” to people who have made an extraordinary contribution to some part of society, they are in fact knighthoods. Of course, being a knight in 2023 does not mean going to war on horseback, jousting with lances or wearing ridiculous chain mail – which is a good or a bad thing, depending on the exact recipient of the honor. However, you won’t find many slots based on this modern interpretation of a knighthood – games like Black Knight, Avalon gold and Templar tumbling wouldn’t be very exciting if their characters were nothing more than a typical member of the House of Lords, right?
I mentioned in the first paragraphs that this game was a big hit paytable – this is assigned to the game’s shield wild symbol and will pay you 300x the total bet for a full payline of five of a kind. Unfortunately, the rest of the paytable doesn’t do so well – the dragon’s head is the most valuable regular symbol with a return of 7.5x for all five symbols, while the Knight King itself only pays you 6x for a full payline, not a very ‘royal’ sum. There are two more well-paying symbols; the female character is worth 5x for all five of her symbols, while the horse is worth 3.5x less for a combination of five. I think it goes without saying that there’s not much in the way of separation between the ‘high’ and ‘low’ paying symbols – five aces are worth 2.5x the total bet, and from there it goes downhill until you hit 1x for a full set of jacks or tens. In my opinion, these are not great numbers, but don’t click away just yet – the ‘special money symbol’ feature can save the day!
Of course, there is no problem in terms of the betting range in this game – this is one thing Pragmatic Play always gets right. The lowest bet allowed is €0.20, and you can play any multiple of this until you reach the maximum limit of €100.00 per spin.
BASE GAME & MODIFICATIONS
The Knight King uses the classic video slot layout of five reels with tthree rows each, along with 20 fixed paylines that are active on every spin. The developer scored the game five out of five for volatility, so be prepared for long waits between winning spins. If you’re lucky, the amount should be greater than a comparable amount game with low volatility. However, the payout table certainly didn’t sound like that of a high-volatility game, so what’s going on here? It all comes down to one important feature that we have yet to discuss – read on …
SPECIAL MONEY SYMBOLS
Randomly at the beginning of a spin, one of the paying symbols – including the wild – can be selected as the special money symbol for the current round. When this happens, the selected symbol is assigned a new value from a predefined set and becomes a scatter-pay symbol.
During the base game, the possible values assigned to the special money symbol are 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 7x, 15x or 20x, the total bet. In addition, symbols can appear stacked on the reels, which in theory could mean winning 300x your normal line on the best possible spin.
THE KNIGHT KING SLOT’S BONUS FEATURES
Bonus scatter symbols appear only on reels one, three and five, and you need all three to trigger a set of seven free spins. While the free spins are in play, the scatter symbols go to reels two and four instead.
FREE SPINS
Before each free spins feature begins, a symbol from the paytable is selected as the special money symbol for the entire bonus round. This works the same way as the Special Money Symbols feature of the base game, except that it is the selected symbol that will be active during each free spin.
If a regular symbol is selected as the special money symbol, the maximum value it can be awarded during free spins is limited to 7x the total areT. If the wild is selected, the maximum value increases to the same 20x available during the base game.
Each time the special money symbol lands during a free spin, it’s value will be increased for the next spin. The limits mentioned above still apply, but at least this means you have a good chance of reaching the maximum value at some point during your bonus round. Two scatter symbols hitting on reels two and four will add four free spins to your remaining total.
BONUS PURCHASE
If you’d rather not wait for the free spins to activate naturally, The Knight King offers the choice to purchase a set of seven spins at the cost oaf 80x the regular price per spin. This seems like a good price, and I was surprised how often I made a profit with this option while testing the game for this review.
THE KNIGHT KING SLOT REVIEW FINAL THOUGHTS
The normal paytable is not that impressive, but the special money symbol feature just about makes this game worth checking out. It’s not Pragmatic Play’s best work of late – the developer has published some real corkscrews in the first weeks of 2023 – but I’ll still give it a spin or two when it goes live in the next two weeks.
