Gates of Olympus 1000

Gates of Olympus 1000: Slot Overview

One of the leading lights in the scatter pays online slot category is Pragmatic Play's Greek Mythology game Gates of Olympus. Released early in 2021, it went on to not only garner a following but also inspire a host of follow-ups, including its fair share of clones. One was Starlight Princess, an anime-themed slot of multiplier symbol, scatter win action with a cartoon heroine in place of a Greek God. A little later on came Starlight Princess 1000, basically the same game but with a bigger max multiplier and greater winning potential. Now, Gates of Olympus 1000 has landed in our lap. With a history of cloning that would make Emperor Cleon I proud, it shouldn't be a major shock to reveal the fact Gates of Olympus 1000 is a clone of Starlight Princess 1000.

Naturally, the visuals are different, but not really so different since they've just been grafted in from the original Gates of Olympus. That means Zeus floating beside the game grid in a columned zone of flaming braziers and whatnot. Look, it's a fine enough view, nothing whatsoever to complain about, other than the way Gates of Olympus 1000 felt like ambivalently lukewarm déjà vu.

Stats have been left alone, which means a highly volatile math model pumping out an RTP value of 96.5% when betting normally or when activating the Ante Bet. Or 96.49% when buying free spins for the cost of 100 times the bet. The ante bet increases the base bet by 25% to have more scatter symbols on the reels. Base bets range from 20 c to $/€100 per spin. Hitting go drops 30 symbols onto a 6x5 aligned grid matrix, which creates a win when at least 8 identical pay symbols are in view.

Winning symbols are removed from the board by the tumble feature, letting other symbols drop from above to fill the gaps. There are nine regular pay symbols in total. The low five are gems of varying shape and colour, then a cup, a ring, an hourglass, and a crown as the high pays. Landing an 8-9 matching symbol scatter win pays 0.25 to 10 times the bet, while a 12+ scatter win is worth 2 to 50 times the bet. No wilds make their way into Gates of Olympus 1000 at any time.

Gates of Olympus 1000: Slot Features

Joining the tumble feature are multiplier symbols, including a 'new' big value one, plus a free spins round.

Multiplier Symbols

Multiplier symbols are present on all reels in all phases of play. When a multiplier symbol hits, it gets a random value of x2 to x1,000. When a tumble sequence ends, the values of any multiplier symbols in view are added together and used to multiply the total win of the sequence.

Free Spins

Hitting 4, 5, or 6 scatter symbols awards a payout of 3x, 5x, or 100x the bet plus 15 free spins. In free spins, when a multiplier symbol hits and the spin produces a win, the multiplier is added to a total multiplier. For the full duration of the round, whenever a new multiplier symbol hits and results in a win, the total multiplier value is used to multiply the win. Whenever at least 3 scatters land during the free spins round, +5 extra free spins are awarded.

Gates of Olympus 1000: Slot Verdict

Thinking too hard about how Gates of Olympus 1000 spawned into existence is like a piece of code without a functional exit, aka an infinite loop. The reason why is that Starlight Princess was a clone of Gates of Olympus, which in turn was followed by Starlight Princess 1000, which Gates of Olympus 1000 is now a clone of. It's a real chicken and egg situation. Except not really, since it's easy to trace back along the family tree to find which slot preceded which. Obviously, Gates of Olympus 1000 is a clone of the Starlight Princess version, so it wasn't a very exciting proposal from a review standpoint.

The changes are largely numerical and somewhat hypothetical at that. Winning potential has mushroomed to 15,000x the bet compared to the first Gates of Olympus' 5,000x the bet, in part due to the new 1,000x multiplier, whereas Gates of Olympus made do with a max 500x multiplier symbol value. One wonders, though, how often is that thing going to come into play? Probably not a whole heck of a lot (he highest single multiplier drop we saw during 4 hours of continuous bonus buys was x20). But it's there, so players who craved a Gates of Olympus experience with higher wins on the line get what they asked for in Gates of Olympus 1000. It looks good, delivers slick scatter wins gaming and is capable of dumping sizable multipliers onto the grid if you're lucky. Job done?

And so ends the review of Gates of Olympus 1000, which unfolded pretty much as expected at the start of the session. Assumptions were built from experiencing Gates of Olympus, the original, and later on Starlight Princess 1000, so there were no surprises to be had while GOO 1000 played out, neither for better or for worse. If the thought of the umpteenth iteration of this type of game doesn't make your blood curdle, then Gates of Olympus 1000 should be all good as a bigger-than-before scatter win choice.