Play Shields of the Wild for Free

Shields of the Wild is a five-reel slot machine with ten fixed paylines running from the left side. The whole game screen is taken up by a stunning image of battle-weary knights overlooking hills as the rays of the sun shine down from above.

Mere words can’t really do it justice, so take a look for yourself to appreciate the view. The symbols are in three rows and are overlaid against this backdrop without solid reels to block the scene.

If you take at a look at the game menu, you’ll see that most of the symbols are shields in various shapes and styles. Lower-value ones are more basic wooden types and the high-value shields are crafted from metal with animal face decorations.

A golden shield with a lion embossed on it is the top-paying standard symbol and you win 25x, 50x, or 100x the amount staked when it crosses three, four, or five reels on a payline.

The game logo is a wild symbol, which not only acts as others if needed, but also pays 30x, 150x, or 250x the line stake when stopping on three, four, or all five reels respectively. It won’t replace the upgrade or scatter symbol however, so we’ll take a look at these now.

Our review team discovered a special Shield Wall feature can be triggered at the end of any spin in Shields of the Wild online slot. All standard symbols on the reels get upgraded to the next-higher symbol, but this can happen up to eight times over.

That can lead to the whole of the reels being filled with the top shield, although any wild and scatter symbols in view will stay in place and can’t be upgraded. Wins are paid at the end of the Shield Wall feature and not on each individual upgrade throughout it.

The highlight of this game, however, has got to be the Marching Stacks feature which begins when you see the sword scatter symbol in any three or more places after a spin.

A stack of matching shield symbols will be placed on the fifth reel and the remaining reels spin for free. If the special upgrade sword symbol appears, the stack on the right side will be changed to the next higher-value symbol. If no upgrade sword is seen, the stack on reel five stays the same, but gets copied across to the next reel on the left.

This can go on until all five reels have been filled with stacked symbols. The value of these stacks rises with each upgrade sword seen during the round, so with luck you will have the whole game filled with the lion shield for a win of 100x the stake. But whatever happens, a win of at least 20x the stake is guaranteed.

If you are really lucky, the feature will be randomly retriggered at the end, but that’s something we never managed to do despite playing this fantastic-looking game for long sessions.

Like many NextGen Gaming slots, the command buttons on Shields of the Wild online slot are placed to the left of the reels rather than underneath them. You have the option to move them across to the other side if you want, which is especially useful in the mobile optimized version of the game.

They are still easy to use, with a click on the icon of some coins opening up the bet options. You can raise the stakes to a high limit of 100.00 per spin although all lines are active, so you can’t decide how many to play. An Autoplay button simply spins the reels for up to 100 time over or until you decide to stop them.

One of the most popular Medieval-themed online casino slots is Black Knight and gamblers can now enjoy even more action in the Black Knight 2 video slot from WMS.

Although The graphics of this five-reel, 40-line slot aren’t quite as good as those in Shields of the Wild, they are still pretty darn impressive, with jesters, crowns, a Princess, and the King joining the fearsome Black Knight. His shield is a scatter symbol that triggers seven free spins, during which it becomes a wild symbol that can be nudged into place if it can then complete a combination.

Shields of the Wild online slot impressed our review experts with its amazing looks, features, animations such as flames rising above the swords whenever they appear. Standard gameplay is excellent but its’s the symbol upgrades and free games that really turn it into something exceptional.

You may find that in the base games, you could be spinning the reels a few times before landing a winning combination, as this is a medium-volatility game, but the bonus games make up for this and it’s a slot machine with a high return to players percentage.

Visit an online casino which features NexGen Gaming slots and get ready for some all-action gameplay.