Napoleon: Rise of the Empire Online Slot Machine – Free Play & Review

The French get a bad rap for being defeated so quickly in World War 2. They’ve been the butt of so many jokes, you might forget that France won more wars than any other nation in history, and that it once held an empire so powerful, it took every other great power in Europe to combine their might to face them. But before that empire, there was Napoleon: Rise of the Empire, a title by Blueprint Gaming.

The famed general and future emperor multiplier all wins he is a part of, and free spins are played with the aforementioned wild multipliers and sticky re-spins. On the playing field, you will find 9, 10, J, Q, K and A as lower paying symbols, as well as icons with unique artwork like cannons, horses, ships and a French soldier. Napoleon himself is the Wild, and a large, golden badge acts as a Scatter.

Developer

We’re not certain exactly when Blueprint was founded. It feels like their physical machines have been around for ages, so they may be just as old as Microgaming and NetEnt are. And yet, they never really seemed to reach the same heights – until 2008, when the UK based company was bought out by a German gambling conglomerate called Gauselmann Group.

With its cash injection, Blueprint managed to flourish and produce awesome titles, even adapting some regular video games into slots, such as Peggle. In 2018 alone, Blueprint managed to sign a deal with Big Time Gaming to license its patented MegaWays mechanic, five of their games were in the top 20 for April iGaming Tracker slot rankings, and they released several new and fun slots.

How to Play it

If you’re played a video slot before, you’ll know what to expect. You have a 5×3 playing field with 20 fixed paylines, meaning you can only adjust your wager up and down. You can bet between $0.20 up to $40 per spin, which is a nice range that covers the interests of everyone from low level gamblers to high rollers that want to go all out on their favourite hobby.

The Autoplay option is present in Napoleon, allowing you to choose how many spins you want it to go through, as well as setting loss and win thresholds to allow you to keep an eye out so you don’t lose too much – or to be there if you score big and want to cash out. The mobile version and the desktop version have the same user interface.

Despite being a remarkably simple backdrop, in conjunction with the music, it really does help bring the idea of a battlefield of the Napoleonic era. Thick smoke clinging to the ground thanks to the fire of cannons, an army ready to charge blindly into the fray through the thick smoke, and the slow march that would establish France at its greatest borders.

Special Features

Free spins are activated by collecting three Scatters, which grants 10 extra turns. During these free spins, Wilds pay a multiplier when present in a winning combination – and the more Wilds are on a payline, the bigger the multiplier gets, up to a maximum of a 16x multiplier for four Wilds.

On top of that, during free spins, any winning combination will be frozen and a re-spin will be carried out, allowing gamblers to increase their prize by adding more symbols. Each time a symbol is added to the winning combination, another re-spin is granted, until no new icons are added, or the reels are covered entirely by that one symbol. Finally, it is possible to retrigger the feature by collecting three more Scatters.

Maximum Payout

There’s a big jackpot awaiting players that are lucky enough to score a five-of-a-kind Wild win. At that point, the multiplier falls off and a massive cash win is rewarded instead.

We weren’t able to find any information regarding the title’s volatility, but our best guess would be somewhere on the medium to high scale, with an RTP of 96%, which is above average for video slots.

Summary

The visuals are really awesome, but it was the gameplay that won us over. The free spins bonus is a lot of fun when you manage to activate it, and the ability to get a 16x multiplier on a winning combination is the stuff of dreams, beaten only by a five-of-a-kind Wild win.