Medusa 2 Slot by Light & Wonder

Three winged Pegasus scatters open the free games, and that's where the gorgon theme stops being decoration. The Medusa wilds turn to stone and stick where they land for the whole 10-spin round, building up across the reels spin after spin instead of vanishing. They arrive stacked too, so a single reel can lock solid with wilds, and a multiplier rides on the wins they help complete.

The base game is a straight 25-line setup, with Medusa herself acting as the top-paying wild that fills in for everything except the Pegasus scatter. Perseus stands as the next premium, followed by a Medusa-head shield and a coiled serpent, with card royals from nine to ace handling the low end. Any win can be pushed into the red-or-black gamble for a double-or-nothing flip, the usual route to stretching a small hit.

The art leans darker than the original, all weathered stone columns and temple ruins behind the reels, with Medusa rendered in close detail rather than played for laughs. It reads as fantasy with a slight edge to it, fitting for a snake-haired antagonist.

As the second entry in NextGen's Medusa line under the Light & Wonder banner, this one trades the first game's simplicity for the frozen-wild round, which is the whole reason to pick it over a plain 25-liner. If the locked-symbol idea is what pulls you in, the wider pool of sticky wilds games covers the same ground across other themes.