New Slots Round Up: 26th September – 2nd October 2026

It’s another busy week for new slots, but while there’s variety in the themes and mechanics, there’s also a fair amount of familiar ground being retrodden. Let’s see if we can figure out the standouts.

Arcade Raider by Bullshark Games has a retro arcade feel, complete with synthwave soundtrack – the whole thing feels like a pixelated love letter to the gaming culture of the 80s. Wins play out across 19 paylines on a 5 x 5 grid, with two special frames complimenting the action – the Blue Frame lands on a cell and turns all instances of the symbol contained within into Wilds, while the Red Frame is similar but adds a random multiplier of up to 100x instead. Overall, Arcade Raider is fun enough, and there’s a 12,000x max win to chase, but it doesn’t quite have the X factor to be our Game of the Week.

Ants Attack, also from Bullshark, has a military theme, but the soldiers here are ants. It’s kind of cool and a bit less random than some of the themes this developer comes up with sometimes. The gameplay uses a staple Bullshark seems to love: reel multipliers. We saw the same idea not too long ago in Behind Bars: Masterplan, but here, only reels 2-5 have their own multi. These all start at 1x but can be upgraded by the aptly-named Multiplier Upgrader symbols; possible values go as high as 10x, although they often only upgrade to 2x.

There’s also an Expanding Wild that can spread either up or down. Then, in the bonus round, the Reel Multipliers don’t reset with each spin, which is where the big wins can come into play. So Ants Attack is a fairly simple but enjoyable slot that could be the source of some fun over the weekend.

By the way, one thing I found annoying in both of these Bullshark games was the way wins play out. Landing multiple wins in one spin is great, but it takes a few seconds to move through them all. It feels like poor UX, and players should be able to skip this by pressing the spin button. Also both games look a little ‘AI’, something that seems to be getting increasingly common in the world of slots…

Moving on to a studio that always has a strong and original visual style now with Print Studios. We recently got a reminder of its Royal Potato series when Royal Potato: Dream Drop was released only 4 weeks ago. But whereas that slot presented a stately world of sunshine and warmth, Rotten Potato is dark and creepy – the potatoes here look like those ones you’ve left in the pantry for too long, as they go gray and start sprouting. You can practically smell the must and dust coming off the screen.

In Rotten Potato, the 30 paylines and SuperSpinners have been maintained from Royal Potato, but now we also have random Mystery Symbols, turning all affected cells into the same type. This mechanic can play out in various ways, including the Potato Horde and Spreading Fungus, and they’re both pretty creepy-looking as they stretch over the board.

The bonus round has been changed up too. There’s still a big wild potato in the middle, but it doesn’t grow – rather it spreads infection across cells that it takes part in wins with, and those cells can return as Mystery Symbols at any point in the same round. Also, any infections get collected in a meter up top, bringing extra spins and more SuperSpinners into play.

It’s fun to progress as you go through the feature, but it’s somehow not as satisfying as the growing Jumbo Symbol in the original. Another competent and creative slot from Print Studios, but not its best work.

Hades Hot Roller 3×3 by Gaming Corps is another slot using the black and white, vintage cartoon aesthetic. It’s something Hacksaw has been known for for years, but other studios seem to be picking up on it, including Nolimit City last week with Ding Dong Death.

Onto the gameplay – as the title implies, Hades Hot Roller 3×3 takes place on a 3 x 3 grid, and I wasn’t jazzed to find out this is another 3 pot game with Boost, Expand, and Multi power-ups available for the hold & win bonus round. I’m so over this trend, especially when the RTP is at 95.94% and the max win at only 2,500x.

Moon Dynasty by Backseat Gaming felt a little broken during our test session. The rules don’t tell you how many paylines there are and the spin button kept randomly disappearing. Either way, it seems the special features in the base game are Wilds and Wild Multiplier Reels, which is hardly original. Then cash collection in the bonus round? The Kung Fu Panda-type theme has been done more than once before too. I say it often, but it’s such a shame to see how dumbed down Backseat games have become lately.

Servants Of Anubis is a dark, Egyptian-themed all ways pays slot from Wild Streak Gaming. The visuals are quite striking, and there’s a max win of 25,000x, but unfortunately the gameplay is pretty dull. There’s the base game, and within this, the ability to trigger the Cash Collect feature when certain symbols land on the 5th reel along with cash symbols. Then for the bonus round, it’s a hold & win situation. Pretty unremarkable ideas overall.

Blue Bird Bonus Extreme from Edge Labs seems to be a tweaked version of Blue Bird Bonus, one of the studio’s most popular titles. The max win has been raised to 5,000x, although that’s far from enough to be throwing the word “extreme” around, in my opinion. The visuals have also been altered, and it seems the Stunt Bird feature has been removed, although it wasn’t the main feature before. Overall, this is a fun game, with the birds landing in varying amounts and 3 or more being needed to score the win. On the other hand, it’ll be too sedate for some players.

By the way, there are plenty more slots from Edge Labs that have hit our demo catalog this week – 8 in total. However, games from this studio can be a bit mediocre so there’s not a great deal to recommend. Maybe Nordic Paws if you fancy a scatters pays title and want to see what dogs dressed up as vikings look like!

Let’s move on to a cluster pays game from Slotmill called Ribs Golden Crypt. Your job here is to land 5 or more matching symbols in a cluster, hoping that even more can form thanks to the tumbling mechanic. From time to time, you’ll get a Giant Symbol (2 x 2) too.

You’ll also be helped on your way to bigger wins by multipliers. These always appear with Giant Symbols, while there are Multiplier Meteor symbols as well, and these simply apply random multis globally to any wins.

The theme seems to be a playful one, perhaps aimed at the Halloween period? It’s focused on Ribs, a funny skeleton who has a British accent and a treasure-filled underground crypt, but he’s lost his keys… Those keys do show up in the form of Bonus symbols though, and 3 will send you to the free spins round, where you get to see inside the crypt. These spins are a pretty simple affair, following the rules of the base game, except that a Giant Symbol always lands at the start of every spin.

There’s no doubt this is a fun little game with an enchanting theme, but it’s not really innovating much gameplay-wise, and the stats aren’t anything to write home about either: 96.01% RTP and a max win of 10,000x.

Speaking of not innovating much, Trials of Zeus from Hacksaw sees the studio return to one of its favorite characters, the ancient Greek god of thunder and ruler of Mount Olympus. The thing is, this is basically a reskin of Zeus Ze Zecond from earlier this year, which was a reskin of Le Zeus from a year ago…

The game centers around Mystery symbols, but they’re called Wonder symbols here, and when they land, they reveal high-paying symbols, Wilds, or Coins/Diamonds/Clovers.

The visuals are still pretty stunning, to be honest, with some tweaked colors. However, I can’t escape the fact that this is another reskin from this studio, relying heavily on what’s come before.

Game of the Week

The logo of Buried By Night, a new slot from Hacksaw tells us that it’s part of the Duel at Dawn universe, but instead of DuelReels, we now have DuelRows, so when VS symbols land, they expand horizontally, adding Wild functionality and a multiplier. Depending on which reel they’re on, their expansions cover different lengths too. This can, of course, lead to some decent wins across the 14 paylines.

The first tier of the bonus round (3 FS symbols) simply ups the chance of landing DuelRows. Then the second tier (4 FS symbols) adds DuelSpins and a meter across the top of the screen that you fill by landing FS symbols. When you reach certain points on it, you’ll get DuelSpins, where at least one VS symbol hits along with some nudges, usually iterating extra wins for you. Of course, the VS symbol can land without creating a win, so nothing is guaranteed in this round.

There’s also the Hot 100 feature, as seen previously in Supreme Zeus – this mechanic awards nudges until 100 wins are registered. It’s kind of fun, and, unlike the other two bonus rounds I’ve just mentioned, it can’t be bought in the bonus menu.

I’m sure Hacksaw will be counting on bonus buys to achieve the second tier with DuelSpins (for 200x your wager). It’s a pretty major upgrade to the gameplay that’s hidden behind a higher tier of bonus round, and one that only lands rarely if you’re spinning naturally. But, as I often say, bonus buys seem to be part of standard expected gameplay at Hacksaw now.

Buried By Night doesn’t hit quite as hard as Duel at Dawn did, but the organic, textured art and accoustic guitar-led soundtrack are charming in a world of increasingly artificial-feeling slots, and this can be a really fun one when things hit!

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