NetEnt blazes new trail
In what the iGaming trade is calling a golden year for innovative mechanics, Evolution subsidiary NetEnt’s latest release What’s Up? Witches serves as a timely reminder of the Stockholm-based firm’s trailblazing creativity.
The narrative-driven slot showcases NetEnt’s ability for captivating and original storytelling, featuring three university students who use their morally higher ground powers to fight a darkness overrunning their city.
While the witch theme is playful, colorful, and illustrated in graphic novel style, WUW is anything but childish and is testimony to NetEnt’s signature reputation for high-production values, complete with a soundtrack NetEnt took to X to reveal was streaming on Spotify:
So far, so good, and we haven’t even gotten to the mechanics that makes this slot one of 2026’s standout releases: its imaginative spell system and unusual grid layout.
Let’s open WUW’s spellbook, or Grimoire as the three higher leaning academics call it, and take a look.
Far-out features
Load the slot and you’re taken to a candlelit sanctum in which a blacked-out stained-glass window tableaux hosts an unusual 6-reel grid in a 4-6-6-6-6-4 pattern. The bottom reel spins horizontally against the rest and is the source of WUW’s 20,736 ways to win.
It’s on this bottom reel where WUW’s wow factor comes into play, the Arcane Feature. When a spellbook symbol lands on the bottom row, it activates pentagram shaped Spell sigils in the main grid, which can trigger one of nine different spells. Each spell has a slightly different design riff on the pentagram, and does unique things, such as turn symbols into wilds in specific patterns, clear entire rows, expand in all directions, or create powerful chain reactions.
This nine spell system immediately feels like something totally new and dynamic, giving you the feeling the grid is a living, changing entity, especially when multiple spells link, trigger one by one, and combine with the cascading features, which NetEnt slots still call avalanches.
Then you get the Free Spins feature when four or five Scatter symbols land anywhere on the reels in the base game and activate ten or 15 Free Spins. This round plays out on a new 5-reel, 5-row grid, and brings in the Magic Orb mechanic.
The Magic Orb system also has nine distinct features, with one randomly activated during each free spin. These include the Doubler, which doubles three random multipliers on the reels; the Collector, which does what it says to two to six random multipliers on the reels; the Adder, which adds a random value from 5x to 200x to three multipliers on the reels; and the Generator, which slaps three multipliers on empty reel positions with random values from 1x to 500x.
Given this tsunami of features and multipliers, its no surprise WUW comes with high volatility, max win of 10,180x, but with a decent enough RTP of 96.03% and a betting range of $0.10 to $100 that will satisfy all levels of players.
A different beast
Ultimately, What’s Up? Witches is one of NetEnt’s most mechanically audacious releases in recent memory, with the 9-spell, 9-Free Spins features in tandem with asymmetrical grid giving it real personality and strong replay value.
Even the use of its avalanche/cluster mechanic doesn’t detract from the impact of the spell differential and unusual grid system, making it a totally different beast from the deluge of standard cascade/cluster pays slots you’ll encounter on the current slots market.
While casual players might find the mechanics daunting, high-velocity hunters in search of genuine wow moments will find their slot nirvana in WUW.
