Ares has some of the wildest lore in the whole Greek pantheon. This is the god who once turned into a giant boar just to brutally troll one of Aphrodite’s exes, and another time got publicly humiliated when Hephaestus trapped him in an unbreakable net mid-affair and invited the entire Olympian cast to come have a look.

Imagine being the god of war, yet still spending half your mythological career getting roasted by your own family.

With its new Army of Ares slot, Hacksaw leans into the cool factor of Ares and ignores all the family trauma in favour of his better-known badassery.

Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war

The Army of Ares slot features 14 paylines spread across five reels. If you’re betting at the $20 maximum, you’ll have a shot at winning up to $300,000. However, thanks to the 15,000x max multiplier, even betting at the $0.10 minimum will give you a shot at some impressive wins.

The slot features medium to high volatility and offers an RTP of 96.26%.

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When a Wrath symbol appears, it expands into a Wild Wrath Reel that immediately reveals a multiplier between x2 and x300. If you form a winning combination that includes more than one Wrath Reel, their multiplier values are applied.

In addition to expanding, a Wrath Reel will also add between zero and five wild symbols to random positions on the grid. A complete line of five wilds returns 10x.

A round of the Fear and Flame free spins is triggered with three FS scatter symbols in the base game. During this round of free spins, wild symbols added to the grid by a Wrath Reel also have a multiplier ranging from x2 to x100.

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A round of Wrath and Ruin bonus game is triggered with four FS scatter symbols. You will have three spins to start, which are reset each time a Disc Multiplier or Battle Horse lands. If you go three spins without adding one of those symbols, your round is over.

During the Wrath and Ruin bonus game, a Reel Multiplier is set above each reel and starts at x1, which will increase when a special disc lands on the reels directly below it.

• Green Discs: add 1x to 100x to their reel’s multiplier.
• Epic Green Discs: add 1x to 100x to all Reel Multipliers.
• Red Discs: multiply their reel’s multiplier by x2 to x10.
• Epic Red Discs: multiply all Reel Multipliers by x2 to x10.

When a Battle Horse lands, it is collected above its reel. At the end of the feature, each collected Battle Horse activates and reveals a multiplier between x2 and x20.

Once your round is over and all Battle Horse symbols have been activated, all of the multiplier values will be added together and applied to your bet amount.

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A round of the Ares Ascends bonus game is triggered when five FS scatters land in the base game. This Hidden Epic Bonus mirrors Wrath and Ruin but begins with a guaranteed full grid of Disc Multipliers and one Battle Horse already in place.

In addition to triggering the bonus features the old-fashioned way, you can select to purchase a round through the Buy Bonus offering. You can choose to purchase a round outright or select to pay a fee per spin to increase your chances of unlocking the bonus features.

Is the Army or Ares slot worthy of the God of War?

The Army of Ares slot appears to take a lot of inspiration from the 300 comic-book-style visuals, and while a little derivative, it still works over a dramatic setting for the action.

The Wrath Reels bonus game is the obvious star, with perfectly on-theme animations and multipliers that can snowball fast, while the stacked bonus rounds add enough variety to keep things moving without feeling bloated.

Nothing in the feature lineup reinvents the wheel, but the presentation elevates it, and that’s enough to get a nine out of ten from me.

If you’re looking for a few other quality Hacksaw slots to try out, I recommend Immortal Desire and Bullets and Bounty.