5 Lions Megaways 2 Slot by Pragmatic Play

Choose Your Risk, Then Live With It

5 Lions Megaways 2 is the Megaways sequel built around a single interesting idea: you pick your own free spins volatility. Eight options range from 25 spins with mild 2x-8x wild multipliers down to 5 spins with 20x, 30x, 40x, and 100x wilds. The fewer spins you take, the higher the multipliers get. Six reels, 2-8 rows per reel, up to 262,144 ways to win. Tumble mechanic clears winning symbols and drops new ones in.

The 96.50% top-tier RTP sits at the higher end of Pragmatic Play's range, with operator options at 95.50% and 94.50%. Max win is 8,000x total bet. The original 5 Lions Megaways hit 50,000x, so this sequel's ceiling is a noticeable step down.

Wild Multipliers in Every Spin

Wild symbols land on all six reels and carry random multipliers even in the base game. The range runs from 1x to 100x. A 100x wild on a full Megaways payline during base play is unlikely but not impossible, and it's the kind of thing that keeps normal spins from feeling completely dead between bonus triggers.

The Gold Lion tops the paytable at 500x for six-of-a-kind. Dragon and Fish pay 100x for six. Card values fill the lower positions, with 9 through Ace spanning 20x-25x for six symbols. With 262,144 potential ways, even mid-tier symbols add up across multiple combinations when the tumble chain runs deep.

Eight Options, One Decision

Three or more Scatters (regular or Super) trigger the free spins selection screen. Each option shows the spin count and multiplier set:

• 25 spins: 2x, 3x, 5x, 8x
• 20 spins: 3x, 5x, 8x, 10x
• 15 spins: 5x, 8x, 10x, 15x
• 13 spins: 8x, 10x, 15x, 20x
• 10 spins: 10x, 15x, 20x, 30x
• 7 spins: 15x, 20x, 30x, 40x
• 5 spins: 20x, 30x, 40x, 100x
• Mystery: random from any of the above

Option 7 with 5 spins and 100x as the top multiplier looks like the obvious pick for max win chasers. But 5 spins is thin. You need wilds to land, tumbles to connect, and the level-up coins to appear, all in a compressed window. The 25-spin option gives more room for the level-up system to work, but caps your multipliers at 8x. There's genuine tension in this choice, which is rare for a slot selection screen.

Level Up: Stripping the Floor

During free spins, Level Up Coin symbols appear and fill a meter. Every 3 coins collected triggers a level jump: +3 free spins added and the lowest multiplier in your set gets removed permanently.

Take the 25-spin option with 2x/3x/5x/8x multipliers. Hit Level 2 and the 2x drops off, leaving 3x/5x/8x. Level 3 removes the 3x, leaving 5x/8x. Level 4 strips the 5x, so every wild for the rest of the round is 8x guaranteed. After Level 4, each additional 3 coins still adds 3 spins but no further multiplier removal.

Now apply this to the 5-spin option. Start with 20x/30x/40x/100x. Level 2 removes 20x. Level 3 removes 30x, leaving 40x/100x. Level 4 means every wild is 100x. Getting to Level 4 from 5 starting spins requires 9 coins total, plus the +9 bonus spins from levels, so you'd actually have 14+ spins to work with if the coins cooperate.

Super Scatter and Buy Options

If any Super Scatter appears among your trigger symbols, you get Super Free Spins instead. These add 1-10 random extra spins and give a chance to start at Level 2 rather than Level 1. A small but meaningful boost, especially on the lower-spin options where every extra spin matters.

Three buy tiers: regular Free Spins, Super Free Spins (with the extra spins and random level start), and Mystery Free Spins (random tier, or 35 spins with only the 100x wild multiplier). The Mystery buy is the high-ceiling option, though its price reflects that.

What Went Wrong

Player reception has been rough. The original 5 Lions Megaways offered a 50,000x ceiling. Cutting that to 8,000x in the sequel feels like a downgrade regardless of the new mechanics. The max simulated round win sits at 3,200x in the game data, which suggests the 8,000x cap requires multiple tumble chains and stacked multipliers just to approach it.

The choice mechanic is smart. The level-up system adds strategic depth. But when the ceiling is 8,000x on a Megaways grid with wild multipliers up to 100x, the math feels constrained. A 100x wild on a decent payline should produce explosive results, and the cap cuts that short. The ante bet (50% cost increase for higher Scatter frequency) and the buy features help with access to the bonus, but they don't fix the ceiling issue that most critics point to.