Out of the Woods Slot Review

Pragmatic Play is really on a horror kick lately. Just two weeks after dropping Hell Butcher, they're back with Out of the Woods. But where Hell Butcher was all about cluster pays, this one dials it back to a classic payline setup. Honestly, if you've played their older game Cult, you already know the skeleton of this game, it has the same layout and the same stacked wilds. But instead of collecting coins, this game is all about building up a big multiplier by hitting back-to-back wins.

Don't let the "horror" tag fool you; this game is straight-up cartoon comedy. You're looking at a wooden grid set deep in a spooky, dusk-lit forest, watched over by a carved owl totem. The high-paying symbols are four campers wearing ridiculous animal-head onesies (a rabbit, bird, bear, and deer), and they all share the exact same look of absolute terror. Even the low-paying card symbols play into the joke, they're made out of traps, like a lasso or a bear trap. It's a fun, goofy setup that doesn't get annoying, even if you're spinning for a few hours.

For the stat nerds: it's a medium volatility game with a max win of 10,000x your bet. The RTP (Return to Player) is decent at 96.52%, though keep an eye out because some casinos might run lower versions. You can bet anywhere from 0.25 to 250 a spin.

Here's the deal with the gameplay: it is completely dependent on the multiplier wild.

The multiplier wild always lands as a full stack covering a whole reel. Each spot on the stack has a multiplier, starting at 1x at the bottom and going up to 4x at the top. If you get a win that passes through the stack, your payout gets multiplied, and the game gives you a free respin. On that respin, the stack slides down a spot, and the multipliers go up. As long as you keep winning, the stack keeps sliding and the multipliers keep climbing.

You are going to need these multipliers. The base payouts are pretty weak, three of the lower campers won't even get your money back. I spun it a couple dozen times in the base game and basically just walked away with a handful of pennies.

One wild in the stack can carry a golden rim. If that specific spot hits the bottom of the reel and a respin is due, the stack doesn't just slide one spot: it jumps a random two to ten spots, and every multiplier on it climbs by the same amount.

If you're impatient, you can buy your way into the action:

• Ante Bet (5x your bet): Makes it way easier to naturally trigger the free spins.
• Super Spin (10x your bet): Guarantees a wild stack on every spin, but turns off the bonus round entirely.
• Bonus Buy (100x your bet): Buys you straight into the standard Free Spins.
• Super Bonus Buy (500x your bet): Buys you into a juiced-up version of the Free Spins.

The real magic happens in those Free Spins. Why? Because your multipliers don't reset. If you get a wild up to a 10x multiplier on spin three, the next stack that lands on spin four carries 10x at the top. (If you buy the crazy expensive 500x Super Bonus, your multipliers start at 10x on the first stack).

It has a real high point, and a major catch.

When this game goes off, it goes off. During my bonus round, I had a multiplier in the thirties, and a late spin hit for over 1,000x my bet in a single chain reaction. It feels amazing.

But man, it can be frustrating. That wild stack only does something if it actually connects to a win. Five times in my session a stack landed, some of them loaded with double-digit multipliers, and paid nothing, because nothing else on the board lined up with it. This is brutal if you're paying 10x your bet for the Super Spins, watching the guaranteed stack land and do nothing at that price hurts.

Also, a note on the pacing: every time you get a respin win in the bonus, an annoying full-screen pop-up stops the game to count up your money, which really drags the game down.

A 10,000x max win on a medium volatility game is awesome, but you're going to need a lot of luck, and a wild stack that refuses to quit, to get anywhere near it.