How long can the 3 free spins of the Dragon's Wrath Bonus Game last?
As long as the Roaming Wilds keep winning. Every free spin in which a wild is part of a paying line adds one spin, so the counter falls only on spins where no wild wins, and the round ends on the third of those. Our three purchases ran to 7, 8 and 11 free spins, and the one natural round in 750 paid spins to 5. A long round also builds bigger multipliers, because after each wild win that wild hands its multiplier to another wild, up to x50 apiece.
Horned emblems that add x2 apiece to a line
The Dragon Emblem, a red orb marked x2 inside a gold frame crowned with horns, is the only symbol on these reels with a multiplier. The rules make it the Bonus symbol and a wild for every other symbol in the base game, and several on one winning line add their multipliers together. Two on a line make x4, which happened 6 times in our log.
The horned dragon head tops the paytable at €50.00 for five on our €1.00 stake and €1.00 for a pair, and a gold dragon statuette follows, from €25.00 down to €0.50. Our capture of the rules stops there. Thunderkick's information sheet lists a ring, a helmet and a sword next, then card ranks from A to 9.
Lines pay from reel 1 rightwards without a gap, longest combination only, on 9 fixed lines. Our log of 750 paid spins has the emblem in 115 of 292 winning lines, worth €211.00 out of €337.00 returned by the base game, about 63%.
A counter that stands still while a wild keeps winning
Three Dragon Emblems anywhere on the reels are enough for the Bonus Game and its 3 free spins, and the rules name no larger award for four or five. Our capture of the next page breaks off at "included in 1 or more winning pay", and the server's answers and Thunderkick's sheet complete it with one extra free spin.
When a Roaming Wild joins a winning line, the spin uses one and gives one back, so the number left does not move. Any other spin takes one away, even one that pays on a line the wilds miss. However long the round has run, it ends on its third spin without a wild win.
Our second control buy shows the pattern: wild wins on each of the first 6 free spins with the counter at 3 throughout, a drop to 2 and to 1, two more winning spins at 1, and the end on spin 11. On screen the counter dips as each spin starts and climbs back when the extra spin is paid.
AboutSlots notes that earlier Beat the Beast games opened with 10 free spins. None of our four rounds here stopped at three, and the shortest, the natural one, ran to 5.
Wilds that move one cell and give their value away
Once the Bonus Game begins, each emblem becomes a Roaming Wild for the rest of the round. Before every free spin, including the first, it moves to an adjacent position, and no two wilds may share one. In our 69 logged moves they stepped up, down, sideways and diagonally, all eight directions.
Each wild starts at x2. After a spin in which one of them is part of a winning line, its multiplier is added to another wild picked at random, and the giver keeps its own: in free spin 1 of our first control buy, a winning x2 lifted another wild from x2 to x4 and stayed at x2 itself.
No wild goes past x50, and a gain that would take it beyond stops there. On a line the values add up, so three wilds at the ceiling give the x150 maximum in Thunderkick's sheet. Our highest was x78, wilds at x50 and x28 on a line of three 10s, worth €39.00. Wilds that win nothing pass nothing on, so the multipliers grow on the same spins that hold the counter up.
125x for a round that can stop after three spins
Nothing but the Bonus Game is for sale on the demo server, at 125x the bet or €125.00 on the default stake. Thunderkick's sheet says a purchase starts a spin whose outcome triggers the Bonus Game, and each of our three showed three emblems and 3 free spins.
The server rates the bought round at 96.44%, against 96.18% for spins played one at a time. Both numbers come from the build this demo runs, which matches Thunderkick's game page. The sheet also lists versions at 94.08% and 87.18%, so a casino's figure may differ, and markets that ban feature buys remove this one.
| Option | Price | At €1.00 | RTP of the buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bonus Game | 125x | €125.00 | 96.44% |
Bought twice more for control at €1.00, the Bonus Game returned €42.00 over 7 free spins, then €274.50 over 11. The first missed on free spin 3 and twice more later, its best wild stopping at x16, while the second strung six winning spins together and took all three wilds to x50.
The filmed round paid least of the three. Its first three spins won only €1.00 each, and the sixth began with wilds at x6, x2 and x10; after the €7.00 win there, the x10 became x18, its own value plus the x6 and x2 that had won. Two blank spins followed, leaving €13.00, or 13x the stake, against a 125x price.
Four spins above the starting balance, then 746 below it
This was a cold session. Over 750 paid spins at €1.00, €750.00 went in and €342.00 came back, 45.6% of the stakes against a listed 96.18%. The balance stood above its €5,000.00 start only for the first 4 spins and hit its low on the final spin, at €4,592.00. Volatility is rated very high, and 750 spins are far too few to judge the long run.
- 750paid spins at €1.00 in the demo
- 45.6%of the stakes paid back
- 14xbest single spin
- 1free spins round triggered
Wins were frequent and small: 216 spins paid (28.8%), the median win was 1x the stake, 86 wins returned half of it, and only 2 reached 10x. The best, spin 478, paid 14x: two emblems side by side on the bottom row of reels 2 and 3 turned three statuettes into €12.00 and three Queens into €2.00 at x4.
One Bonus Game came, on spin 543, while 30 other spins showed two emblems and stopped there. Its wilds missed on free spin 1, won €3.00 on the second and €2.00 on the fourth, and the round closed after 5 spins with €5.00, 5x the stake. Its top wild reached x8 on the fourth spin and missed on the fifth.
The sixth beast beside the three reviewed here
The launch press release called this the sixth Beat the Beast, after five titles from 2020, and all four reviewed here build their base game on five reels, three rows and nine lines. Kraken's Lair opened the series in February 2020 and lists 96.12%, with a 7,777x cap and no buy.
Neither does Cerberus' Inferno, from June 2020, offer a buy. It lists 96.15% and caps at 6,666x. Mighty Sphinx and Quetzalcoatl's Trial are not covered here.
Roaming wilds also drive Griffin's Gold, reviewed in its Reborn build: 96.14%, a 22,222x cap, plus a 125x buy rated 96.50%. The dragon's 11,111x is exactly half that cap at the same price, and its 96.18% is the highest of the four by hundredths of a point.
Little in the base game, a lot riding on the opening free spins
For us the base game pays often and little, with 63% of its money in our log coming through the x2 emblem. The 11,111x cap lives in the Bonus Game, whose length depends on the same wild wins that lift the multipliers: three early misses end it at x2, and a run of wins can carry three x50 wilds into the last spin.
That makes the 125x price a wager on the first few free spins. In the demo a bought round is the quickest way to see the wilds at work, where our log needed 543 paid spins for one natural round.
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Each answer rests on the rules screens, our logs or a source it names.
Do two Dragon Emblems start anything?
No. The rules ask for 3 anywhere in the base game. In our 750 paid spins 30 showed exactly two and paid only through their lines, although one listing says two are enough.
Can a fourth wild join the Bonus Game?
Not in the rounds we logged in full. Every free spin of the natural round and both control buys carried exactly the three wilds the trigger emblems became, and the game page's retrigger is one extra spin.
Are two wild multipliers on one line added or multiplied?
Added. The rules say a line adds up the multipliers of its wilds, and the server paid wilds at x50 and x28 on one line at x78. Three wilds at the x50 ceiling make x150.
Why did a round with three x50 wilds end on a blank spin?
The wilds still need a winning line. In our second control buy all three were at x50 after free spin 10, with one spin left on the counter, and the eleventh paid nothing, closing the round at €274.50.
Does the Dragon Emblem pay as a scatter?
The rules pages we captured give it two jobs only, Bonus symbol and x2 wild, and list no scatter pay. The trigger spin of our natural round paid nothing, and neither did the opening spin of either control buy.
Is the bought Bonus Game rated above ordinary spins?
Slightly. The demo server gives the 125x purchase 96.44% against 96.18% for ordinary spins, both for the version on Thunderkick's page. Our three purchases cost €375.00 together and returned €329.50.