Pirots X Slot Review

ELK Studios dropped Pirots X in October 2024, and if you've played the original Pirots, you'll feel right at home with the cartoon pirate vibe. However, instead of upgrading individual gem colors like the first game, this one simplifies things by using a single global multiplier. It's a slightly different flavor of cluster-pays action.

The main goal is hitting three bonus symbols to trigger five "free drops" (free spins). In the base game, the multiplier, which builds up as those quirky birds eat symbols, resets every spin. But in the bonus, it's sticky and keeps growing.

One really cool detail: if there are nests on the board when you trigger the bonus, the birds collect them to boost your starting multiplier before the round even begins. Whatever the birds collect there stays on the sign for all five drops, so a trigger with nests on it starts the round with a head start.

The game also has a great mechanic with wilds. If you get a few wilds inside a winning cluster, they merge into one big multiplier wild. That merged wild boosts the cluster win before the global multiplier is applied on top of it, which can lead to some massive hits.

Then there's the Super Bonus, triggered by landing one super bonus symbol alongside two regular ones. This version opens the grid up to the full 7x7 right away and guarantees features like bombs, wilds, and nests on every single drop. I bought the Super Bonus for 500x my bet. It was a bit underwhelming: my multiplier only reached x10 by the third drop and stalled out. I walked away with 211x. It's not a terrible payout, but losing over half your buy-in stings. Most of that win came at the very end when the wilds finally merged on the larger board.

If you're playing in a region that allows bonus buys, ELK's standard "X-iter" menu is here. You can pay 3x for a Bonus Hunt (which triples your chance to trigger), 5x for a guaranteed Big Symbol drop, or 25x for a Feature Release on the max grid. The standard bonus costs 100x, and the Super Bonus is a hefty 500x. Just keep in mind that all of these run at the game's default 94.0% RTP.

Looking at the bigger picture, Pirots X feels more like a spin-off than a true upgrade. It's the fourth release in the six-part Pirots family, but it actually scales things back a bit. It starts on a 5x5 grid (maxing at 7x7), whereas Pirots 2 and Pirots 4 push up to 8x8, Pirots 3 reaches 7x8, and all three hit a bit more frequently. In fact, Pirots X has the lowest hit frequency of the bunch at 24%. It also sticks to that 94% RTP, whereas later games like Pirots 5 finally bumped the return up to a much friendlier 96%.

It's also hard not to compare it to other ELK games. Mystic Orbs already keeps its multiplier growing between free drops, and Propaganda 2, due on 22 October, resets and carries its multiplier the same way but builds it through cascades instead of birds; both come with better RTPs. Elsewhere in ELK's catalogue, Concrete Cowboys gives you a similar 5x5 cluster setup with 96% RTP and a Super Bonus that costs half the price (250x).

Pirots X is a fun, highly volatile detour. The merging wilds and global multiplier can create some genuinely thrilling moments. However, with the smallest growing grid in the series, a lower hit rate, and a 94% RTP, it requires a bit more patience, and a bigger bankroll, than its louder, more generous siblings.