Oath of Steel

Review setup

Oath of Steel comes from developer Evoplay. The game has sleek graphics and a strong theme. It takes place in a dark fantasy kingdom populated by fierce warriors. The gameplay itself feels standard for a 5×3 slot, but the graphics and bonuses stand out.

Of course, that’s just the general overview. There’s a lot going on in any slot, and I review it all below.

First impressions with Oath of Steel

My involuntary reaction upon opening Oath of Steel was a slow nod and a muttering of “oh yeah” to myself. I’m a huge fantasy fan, so it was right up my alley. The art style grabbed my eye immediately, and the dark fantasy kingdom in the background beckoned me to spin the reels.

From there, the rest of the game’s elements took a while to reel me in. The standard slot play didn’t hook me like the art did at first. Eventually, the game grew on me, but my first spins felt a bit underwhelming.

Visuals and presentation: 4.5/5

Oath of Steel has fresh and impactful visuals. They immediately caught my attention. The game balances rich, dark backgrounds with vibrant colors to differentiate between its characters and symbols. The game’s character symbols stand out strongest. They’re depicted in crisp and colorful art, each with its own style and animations. When character symbols cover an entire reel, they run a slick animation with a flourish of the character’s armor and/or weapon. It’s a nice, immersive detail.

In contrast, the low-value symbols are boring to look at. They’re the standard card suit symbols: diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades. Each has a fantasy-themed emblem or additional embellishment. I can’t knock the game much for this, however, because the high-value characters should be more eye-catching and cool than the lower-value symbols. So, consider that a small gripe that is easy to overlook.

While the color palette of Oath of Steel mostly works in its favor, there are some confusing elements. Many of the symbols have matching colors (for example, the green warrior matches with the green hammer), but these symbols don’t actually work together. It makes tracking wins tricky sometimes when you see a lot of green on the reels but no winning payline.

Another slight knock I have is that Oath of Steel’s game info pages are all standard black background with white text. I get that they’re supposed to be functional, and they are. But it would be nice to see some stylistic choices there. Overall, this is a minor gripe that doesn’t significantly impact the gameplay, and therefore doesn’t significantly lower the score.

In terms of the general layout of the online slot, Oath of Steel has a solid menu interface and clear buttons. It’s all very easy to understand.

The Role of Sound: 4.2/5

The vast majority of the time, I’m a “no-sound” purist when it comes to slot games. I always look for that “mute” button first, and I love when a slot asks if I’d like to play with sound before the first screen even loads.

That said, I can’t exactly skip out on sounds when reviewing a slot, so I gave Oath of Steel’s soundscape a shot. But I make these statements so that you can understand my bias regarding sound in slots and make your own decisions.

Oath of Steel’s sounds and music play perfectly into the game’s theme. Dark, thrumming music with crescendoing low horns forms the game’s sonic palette. The best comparison I can make is to the treacherous lead-up to an epic battle in a fantasy movie like Lord of the Rings.

The sound effects and winning jingles feature clashing metal noises and brief horn trills, respectively. They play nicely into the theme without becoming too much to bear. The anticipatory sounds of a potential scatter symbol landing to give me the bonus were fun as well.

During the free spins bonus, the music took on more momentum with a more pronounced drum beat and extra horn flares. It was a cool touch that told me I was in a special game round as opposed to the base game.

Even with all these positives in mind, I still couldn’t help but mute the game after 10 minutes or so. At the end of the day, its repetitive soundtrack couldn’t hold a candle to my own tunes on Spotify.

Gameplay journey: 4.8/5

From the moment I loaded Oath of Steel, every single thing was fast and straightforward. The game loaded swiftly, and I was off to the proverbial races.

The gameplay screen was intuitive on both mobile and desktop devices. The spin button is front and center on the bottom of the screen, flanked by the option to change the bet and autoplay. I could also use the plus or minus buttons underneath the “bet” section to increase or decrease my bet.

Bonus chasers will love the scatter mechanic in Oath of Steel. If two land on the gameplay area, the remaining reels are highlighted one by one as the chance for a third (or fourth or fifth) builds. It’s a cool anticipation feature that adds to the game’s flourishes.

I also appreciated the Bonus Buy option, which is only available in select markets but adds a level of custom playability to Oath of Steel.

My only small complaint is that it can be confusing to see winning paylines. Partially, that’s a reflection of the color choices I discussed above. However, it’s also the case with a lot of modern video slots, where you aren’t looking for straight horizontal lines any longer. But I will admit that even more than with other slots, there were times on Oath of Steel where I would have expected a winning combination, but it apparently wasn’t quite lined up correctly.

Bonus features through my eyes: 4.25/5

Oath of Steel has one free spins bonus round. Landing three or more scatter symbols anywhere on the reels will trigger it. Within the online slot bonus round, you get to pick from a variety of choices. You choose the number of free spins and a symbol. The symbol you pick will be the only stacked symbol on the bonus game reels, providing big potential for wins. And as you can imagine, the highest-value symbols generally give you fewer free spins. However, if you choose the mystery box, you can get a higher-paying symbol with the maximum spins, as I did once. However, you can also get a low-paying symbol with fewer spins than you normally would. That happened to me as well.

When triggering the bonus, the number of scatter symbols you land will determine the range of free spins you can possibly receive. Here are the choices and how they impact your bonus game.

Landing a “+1 Spin” symbol will grant you an additional spin each time it lands on the reels.

When you choose the Bonus Buy option, you can pick your number of scatters. Each has a different cost.

• 3 scatters: 81x bet
• 4 scatters: 122x bet
• 5 scatters: 162x bet

After you pick your number of scatters, the reels will spin and auto-trigger the bonus. From there, you will select your number of spins and the stacked warrior associated with them.

The bonus has a lot of potential for big wins. And I like that amount of control that you have. However, I wish there were more features, or that the feature had more extravagant touches. After buying the bonus a handful of times, I got bored of the format.

Balancing risk and reward: 4.0/5

Oath of Steel has an online slot RTP of 96.25% and a medium-high volatility rating. That was in line with my experience, for sure. Scatters landed with some frequency, but those anticipatory “will there be a third or fourth?” moments were few and far between. During my hour or so with the game, I triggered the bonus organically only once.

Bonus Buy was a mixed bag of wins, losses, and near-break-evens for me. When I bought a 5 scatter bonus three times, one resulted in a significant profit, another a tiny loss (within a few dollars of breaking even), and the third a meager win significantly lower than the initial cost of the bonus.

For me, personally? I basically broke even playing for an hour with demo money. Obviously, though, everyone’s experiences will vary.

The good and bad of Oath of Steel

For the most part, I enjoyed Oath of Steel. However, all slots have pros and cons, and different features appeal to different kinds of players. So here are the ones I noted as I played the online slot:

Final thoughts on Oath of Steel

I’ve played a lot of slots. Hundreds of them. Oath of Steel was completely serviceable and will tickle the fancy of the right kind of player. It got its foot in the door for me early on with a fantasy theme. The cool art did it some extra favors. And the gameplay was overall very good, though it wore on me and felt stale after an hour or so.

Bonus chasers who like to choose their number of free spins will definitely enjoy Oath of Steel. Players who seek a ton of variety in a slot’s features may struggle with this game’s single-minded focus on its free spins round.

Final Score: 4.35/5