Return of the Dead Slot Review

Return of the Dead Slot Overview

I first loaded Return of the Dead and straight away it felt like stepping back into an old brick and mortar casino. Reel Kingdom built it for Pragmatic Play, and you get a classic 5 reel, 3 row layout with 10 fixed lines. The smiling explorer stands by the reels without his hat, and the whole thing leans on a simple Egyptian book slot set up.

I have played plenty of Book style games and Return of the Dead slots straight into that category. The base game can feel like a grind with fairly sparse line hits, and almost all of the excitement hangs on the free spins with expanding symbols. If you want a no frills high variance book clone with a retro look, this one does the job without any fancy extras.

Symbols and Paytable in Return of the Dead

The paytable in Return of the Dead sticks very closely to the traditional book slot pattern. The top paying regular is the explorer, worth 0.5x, 4x, 40x or 500x for two, three, four or five on a line. Below him sit a pharaoh and a golden statue paying up to 200x, then two mid tier symbols capped at 75x. Low pays are 10, J, Q, K and A with full lines worth between 10x and 15x.

The only special icon in Return of the Dead is the book, which acts as both scatter and wild. As a wild it replaces regulars and pays just like the explorer, up to 500x for a five symbol hit. As a scatter it does not care about paylines and awards 1x, 10x, 100x or 500x your stake for landing two, three, four or five books anywhere, while three or more also trigger free spins.

Symbols and Paytable

Symbol	Quantity	Payout
	Scatter, Wild
	5	x500
	4	x100
	3	x10
	2	x1
	5	x500
	4	x100
	3	x10
	2	x1
	5	x200
	4	x40
	3	x4
	2	x0.5
	5	x75
	4	x10
	3	x3
	2	x0.5
	5	x75
	4	x10
	3	x3
	2	x0.5
	5	x15
	4	x4
	3	x0.5
	5	x15
	4	x4
	3	x0.5
	5	x10
	4	x2.5
	3	x0.5
	5	x10
	4	x2.5
	3	x0.5
	5	x10
	4	x2.5
	3	x0.5

Bonus Features in Return of the Dead

In Return of the Dead all the feature action circles around the free spins round. Hit three, four or five book symbols in any position and you pick up 10 free spins plus a scatter payout of 2x, 20x or 200x your bet. That sits on top of any line wins from the same spin, so a good trigger can already cover a fair chunk of a tough session before the bonus even starts.

Before the first free spin, the book opens and one regular symbol is chosen at random to act as an expanding symbol. Any time enough of that symbol land to form a win, they expand to fill their reels after the normal payout is made. These expanded blocks pay in a scattered way, so they do not need to touch or sit on a single payline, which gives the round its jumpy high variance feel.

Free spins in Return of the Dead can retrigger and you get another 10 spins for every fresh set of three or more books, with no hard cap in sight. The dream scenario is rolling the explorer as the expanding symbol and filling the grid, which lands the advertised 5,000x max win. In practice I found the feature slow to hit and very streaky, yet that big screen potential keeps you chasing another bonus.

How to Play Return of the Dead

Playing Return of the Dead is very straightforward. You choose a stake between 0.10 and 250 per spin, then hit the main button or set up autospins if you like to let it run. Wins land when two or more premiums or three low symbols hit one of the 10 lines from the leftmost reel. There is also a quick spin option, which I usually turn on to speed through the base game grind.

RTP, Volatility and Max Win in Return of the Dead

On the numbers side, Return of the Dead runs a default RTP of 96.71 percent, which is strong for this style of slot. Long term stats from millions of spins even put the observed return slightly higher. Pragmatic Play do offer lower RTP versions to operators though, so I always check the info panel before spinning for cash. Volatility sits right at the top end with long dry stretches very common.

My own experience matches the maths sheet. Hit rate hovers around one win in eight spins, while the bonus showed up about once every two hundred spins, in line with published figures of one in 195.89. The theoretical cap is 5,000 times your bet, so I treat Return of the Dead as a classic high risk slot and keep stakes modest, aiming to grind until that rare hot streak lands.

Return of the Dead Slot Verdict

After a fair few sessions on Return of the Dead I see it as a pure comfort pick for fans of old school book slots. It adds nothing new, and the explorer looks more like a latte sipping hipster than a fearless treasure hunter, yet the mix of strong RTP, brutal variance, and that familiar expanding symbol bonus still holds some charm when I just want a straightforward high volatility grind.

Screenshots