The Eternal Widow

The Eternal Widow: Slot Overview

Sometimes, you end up reviewing or playing so many slots the actual names of them fail to really sink in. Candy this, gold that, bonanza the other. However, Just For The Win's The Eternal Widow slot, was one name which managed to hit right in the feels, and before seeing the actual game, the title evoked a train of thoughts. Had Just For The Win made something heartfelt, controversial, romantic, a game that would tug on the heartstrings and make us reassess how we perceived relationships, ageing, and human emotion?

Well, not exactly, because The Eternal Widow is actually a vampire-themed online slot where the title character is an unnamed leggy, chesty, raven-haired lady vampire. She's joined by a smattering of other vampires, and their base game domain is what looks to be a graveyard, though the background isn't super easy to make out. An eerie vampiric soundtrack thickens the scene, though, and while The Eternal Widow wasn't the most immersive vampire game, it had enough initial nosferatu atmosphere to wonder what it will serve next.

Held in place by a wooden frame is The Eternal Widow's gaming grid. It's got 5 reels and 4 rows crossed by 30 paylines for evaluating wins. With a highly volatile math model, the game is available in four different RTP configurations, the highest default value being 96.06%. At this level, players can look forward to a theoretical hit rate of 24.31%, while stake selections go as low as 20 p/c or as high as $/€50.

Across The Eternal Widow's paylines, when at least 3 matching symbols land on consecutive reels from the leftmost reel, a payout is triggered. However, there is one exception. The highest paying Widow symbol pays left to right from the leftmost side and right to left starting from the rightmost side. Only the highest win per line from both ways is paid. The rewards for landing a 5-of-a-kind win are 2.5 to 3 times the bet when the combo is made up of garlic, vials, hammer/stakes, and books, or 5 to 10 times the bet when the win is formed by the 5 high-paying vampire symbols. Helping link winning combinations is the wild symbol, present on reels 2, 3, and 4. As well as substituting for any pay symbol, wilds can also get multipliers in free spins, as we will see.

The Eternal Widow: Slot Features

Wilds may also trigger the Wild Frenzy feature, while other extras are free spins with symbol upgrades called Widow's Thirst, and Bloodlust.

Wild Frenzy

Each time a wild symbol lands, there is a chance the Wild Frenzy feature triggers. If it does trigger, the wilds already on the reels become sticky, and 2 to 9 additional wild symbols are added to the reels. Wild Frenzy cannot trigger on a spin that triggers free spins, and free spins cannot trigger when Wild Frenzy activates.

Free Spins

When 3, 4, or 5 scatters land anywhere on the grid, 8, 12, or 16 free spins are respectively awarded. After each free spin, all Widow and wild symbols that landed are collected. When 10 Widow symbols have been collected, the Widow's Thirst feature is awarded. When 10 wild symbols have been collected, the Bloodlust feature triggers. If more than 10 Widows or wilds are collected, the extras count towards the next respective feature.

• Widow's Thirst – when triggered, the lowest high-pay vampire symbol is upgraded to the next more valuable symbol. Each time this feature triggers, +1 free spin is awarded. Once all high-pay symbols have been upgraded to Widow symbols, Widow symbols will no longer be collected.
• Bloodlust – when triggered, the multiplier on wild symbols increases by +1, and +1 free spin is awarded. When the wild symbol multiplier reaches x5, no more wild symbols are collected.

The Eternal Widow: Slot Verdict

For a walk on the undead side of, err, life, the Eternal Widow isn't a bad option. It's visually pretty decent without being one of Just For The Win's most eye-catching slots. The music is another story, however, as the sweeping score is one of The Eternal Widow's high points. In short, whilst there are more immersive vampire slots available, The Eternal Widow is pleasant to behold, and its thought-provoking name was a bonus. Although, in saying that, slight disappointment did settle in once realising The Eternal Widow was about vampires rather than being an in-depth examination of the human condition, or one emotional aspect of it at least.

Never mind, so far, so okay, how about the gameplay? Again, the features are not bad, and the dual collection systems in free spins help attract attention. Both collections may lead to extra free spins; whilst one gives you multiplier wilds which are always nice, the other upgrades symbols. One thing about the Wild Frenzy is that the first time it triggered, it looked as though all three middle reels were instantly covered in wilds, but then wilds were added one by one, which means it may or may not fill the middle reels. The Eternal Widow's gaming might have been more special if we hadn't experienced pretty much the whole shebang before in Rubies of Egypt, of which The Eternal Widow appears to be a reskin. To give it some credit, The Eternal Widow has a less commonplace theme and less generic presentation, so that's something. Like Rubies of Egypt, The Eternal Widow has a winning potential of 5,000x the bet.

Test running The Eternal Widow went okay, but it's not the strongest slot of this type out there, losing out to the mack daddy of the genre Immortal Romance (Immortal Romance 2 is in the works, by the way) and lacking the characterful charm of Blood Suckers Megaways. However, for players obsessed with all things vampiric, The Eternal Widow does enough to make it onto the to-do list.