Winterberries 2 - Yggdrasil – Online Slot Review & Rating

Winterberries 2 Slot Game Details

Software Provider:

Yggdrasil

RTP:

Volatility:

Very High

Type of Casino Game:

Slots

Reels:

Paylines:

Coin value:

0.005 – 5

Minimum Bet:

0.10

maximum bet:

100

maximum payout:

10,000x

scatter:

YES

Free Spins:

YES

Multiplier:

YES

ABOUT WINTERBERRIES 2

Yggdrasil is currently one of the most established brands in the world among slot-making companies. Nowadays, their titles are known for eye-watering volatility, industry-leading graphics, and a dedication to unique products. The latter two characteristics have always been a Yggdrasil staple, but hugely volatile games weren’t quite as fashionable a few years ago as they are today.

With all that in mind, the release of the original Winterberries in 2016 was a bit of an outlier. Sure, the game looks and plays great, but it didn’t feature the complex themes and worldbuilding that Yggdrasil is known for. However, the relatively simple nature and high RTP made it a surprise success. Indeed, it was easily one of the highest RTP Yggdrasil slots available at the time.

In 2023, it seems they decided to take another crack at it. This time, they’ve cranked up the variance as far as they could reasonably get it without compromising the fundamentally straightforward gameplay.

Winterberries 2 is primarily distinguished thanks to an interesting system of reel multipliers. Our review is here to help you understand how it works and whether it’s worth picking over other online slots.

winterberries 2 Media Gallery

HOW TO PLAY WINTERBERRIES 2

The core loop of Winterberries 2 is as classic as they come. By default, it’s played on a 5-reel game with 3 rows and 20 fixed ways to win. You can choose to spend a bit more to expand the board to 6 reels – more on that later.

A feature dubbed Freezing Respins is what makes Winterberries 2 interesting. Here’s how it works.

Every time you get a winning combination, all symbols that are part of it are “frozen” in place and you get a free respins. Essentially, the winning symbols are locked into their current position and stay there for as long as you keep getting additional respins.

If you get any more winning symbols in the respin, they also freeze and are factored into the final payout. Additionally, hitting new symbols on respins grants you another respin. This continues until you get a spin with no winning symbols.

Interestingly, any symbols you hit during respins do not have to be on a payline. After the first hit, any additional symbols are simply added to your total payout. However, they have to be on reels connected to the initial winning line.

Multipliers

If you take a good look at the game board, you may notice numbers above the reels. These are multipliers that can be activated on any spin.

To activate a multiplier, you need to completely fill the reel below it. This sounds improbable, but the idea is to fill out the game board as you get more and more free respins.

However, in order to activate a reel multiplier, you must first activate all of the multipliers to the left of it. For instance, you can’t just fill out reel number 3 and get a 4x multiplier on your win. You have to build it up progressively, starting with 1x on the leftmost reel.

Once a reel multiplier is activated, it is applied to the entire payout for that round. Base multipliers range from 1x on reel one to 32x on reel 6, but can be increased through other features.

Free Spins

Winterberries 2 free spins are incredibly powerful, combining multiple features to award potentially massive payouts. For starters, you’ll need to land 3, 4, 5 or 6 Scatter symbols for 10, 12, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively.

All multipliers are doubled during free spins. Landing a Scatter symbol during free spins increases the multipliers even further and grants you an additional free spin.

Special golden Scatters increase multipliers by up to +15, but they’re exceedingly rare.

Golden Bets & Feature Buy

First of all, you can click the big golden button at the bottom right to activate Golden Bets. If you do, the sixth reel will open up, which allows you to make bigger base wins and earn higher multipliers. Additionally, Golden Bets double your chances of triggering Free Spins.

However, Golden Bets increase the cost of every spin by 50%. Note that this increase is not considered when determining payouts – it’s just an extra fee for activating extra features.

Additionally, you can buy features in this game. This means that you can pay a large fee up front to instantly trigger free spins. You have a few options, too:

Pay 100x the stake to receive a random number of free spins
Pay 150x to receive a random number of free spins with Golden Bets activated
Pay 300x to buy 15 free spins
Pay 400x to buy 15 free spins with Golden Bets activated

Casino Bloke Best tips for Winterberries 2 Slot

1Keeping Golden Bets on all the time is generally a good idea. Adding a sixth reel increases your chances of getting respins, which is especially valuable in a game like Winterberries 2.
2If you’re planning to buy features, buy one of the options with Golden Bets activated.
3It’s hard to overstate just how volatile this game feels to play. Regular spins have a very low hit rate. Once you do get the respins going, though, the rewards can be massive.

WINTERBERRIES 2 RTP & PAYOUTS

The game features 8 standard symbols plus the Scatters. The four card suits are essentially your low-paying symbols – all four are identical in terms of how much they pay.

The titular berries themselves are more varied, but the orange one is the only one we could call high-paying.

That said, it’s important to stress that most base payouts in this game are fairly low. The multipliers and respins are a crucial part of the experience and are required if you want to get big wins.

Winterberries 2 RTP clocks in at exactly 96%, just like most Yggdrasil games these days. It’s a solid enough rate, though it’s far from impressive. We would love to see how the Feature Buy and/or Bets affect the RTP, though. Too bad Yggdrasil chose not to include that info like most slots with Feature Buy do.

what we like

Exciting, extremely volatile Freezing Berries feature
Multipliers that can be activated on every spin and stacked up to infinity (theoretically)
Feature Buy
Golden Bets option that increases volatility even further
Powerful, profitable free spins

what we don’t like

Low base payouts
Low hit rate
May be too volatile for some players

OUR VERDICT

Winterberries 2 is a game we really want to love, but we can’t ignore the glaring problems with it.

We realize high volatility is in demand these days. However, Yggdrasil may have pushed things a bit too far. If you’re just trying to play the game regularly, it can be very frustrating to just sit there spinning and not winning for entire minutes. Even when you do hit a matching line, the majority of payouts will be rather underwhelming.

The goal here is clear, of course. If you luck out on some respins and get a good multiplier going the rewards can be massive. Not everyone has that sort of patience, though.

This applies to the free spins, too – even if you opt to purchase them. For instance, you may get truly massive profits from one bonus round and proceed to buy more free spins only to barely scrape together a few coins from them.

In conclusion, Winterberreis is a well-made online slot machine buy it’s decidedly not for everyone.

If you’re patient and enjoy the thrill of hunting huge jackpots, it’s the perfect game for you.

If you’re easily frustrated and don’t like coming up empty after spin after spin, steer clear of this one.

SIMILAR GAMES

Not quite what you were expecting from the new Yggdrasil slot? Check out these suggestions for a solid alternative

Cannonade! is another Yggdrasil slot marked by high variance. However, most of its volatile nature is hidden in the bonus round, so the base game is easier to play.
Hot Slot™: Crown 777 by Wazdan combines sizzling volatility with more approachable gameplay.
Cazino Zeppelin Reloaded, also made by Yggdrasil, is relatively tamer but still includes Feature Buy and Golden Bets.

Also, remember that you can play Winterberries 2 for free in demo mode if you want to try it out before playing for real. Check out Yggdrasil’s official website for the demo.