Gates of Aztec: slot review and demo

Gates of Aztec review

SlotAtlas editorial team · updated 6 October 2026

The release date is 31 January 2023, carried by the studio news item “Pragmatic Play unlocks ancient riches in Gates of Aztec”. The board is 6×5 with no paylines, symbols pay from eight of a kind anywhere on the screen, winning figures vanish and fresh ones drop in from above. The engine of the game is the compass multiplier, which in the base game multiplies a single tumble sequence and in free spins banks into a total multiplier that lasts the whole round.

A stone courtyard, a warrior with a spear and four idols

The board sits in a carved gold-and-stone frame against a stepped pyramid. A warrior in a feathered headdress and green face paint stands on the right, while the left holds two panels: a “Buy Free Spins” button and a card with a “Double Chance to Win Feature” switch. At a 2.00 bet the cards show 200 and 2.50. Above the reels runs a slogan about payouts anywhere on the screen.

The press release names the high symbols by character: a lion, a snake and a frog, joined by a purple mask. The low end is the 10, J, Q, K and A in gold settings. The Scatter shows the warrior’s face with a green stripe across the cheek.

The stake is the coin value times 20, and the demo’s service data draws the coin from a list of 23 values: 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.30, 0.40, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00, 2.00, 3.00, 4.00, 5.00, 6.00, 7.00, 8.00, 9.00, 10.00, 11.00 and 12.00. The total bet therefore stretches from 0.20 to 240: the low steps are fine, while in the upper part every rung adds 20. The demo opens with no registration, on a 2.00 bet, a 0.10 coin, with 100,000 in credit.

What the screen pays: eight of a kind, anywhere

There are no lines. When a spin ends, the game counts how many times each symbol appears on the thirty cells and pays by that count. The rules page gives dollar amounts based on a 2.00 bet; here they are turned into bet multiples.

At the first tier the bottom five symbols pay less than the stake or exactly the stake: the ace, king, queen and jack give 0.25x, 0.4x, 0.5x and 0.8x, and the ten gives 1x. A winning sequence made of card symbols alone can therefore leave the player behind. The sharpest jump belongs to the frog: from 2x at ten or eleven symbols to 12x at twelve or more, a sixfold step.

The top tier opens at just twelve identical symbols, which is 40% of a thirty-cell board. The big sums are therefore tied to tumble chains, where the same symbol piles up on the screen.

Tumbles without a limit and a payout after the last fall

After each spin the winning symbols disappear, the remaining ones drop down and the gaps at the top are refilled. This goes on until no new combination appears. The number of tumbles is not limited. Money reaches the balance only after every tumble produced by a single spin has been played out.

Only the symbols that were not part of the win stay put, and only the winners are replaced. If the new layout again holds eight of a kind, the chain goes on, and its length is decided by the layout alone. The multiplier at the end of a sequence multiplies its whole sum, and the longer the chain, the more there is for it to multiply.

Compasses with gems: values from 2x to 500x

The multiplier symbol is a golden compass set with a green, blue, purple or red gem. It can land on any reel, during a spin or a tumble, in the base game and in free spins. The rules give a range of 2x to 500x, and the demo’s service data lists 15 values: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500. The press release adds that several can land on one spin.

When the tumble chain ends, the values of all compasses on the screen are added together and the total win of the sequence is multiplied by that sum. They are added, not multiplied: compasses of 5x, 10x and 2x make a multiplier of 17, not 100. If the sequence has no win, the compasses have nothing to multiply.

Free spins: four Scatters and fifteen spins

The free spins are started by four or more Scatters in any positions, and the round opens with fifteen spins. The round runs on special reels. Any three or more Scatters inside it add five more spins, so one extension makes 20 spins, two make 25 and three make 30. Nothing in the rules caps how often a retrigger can happen; the round is cut short only if its total reaches the win cap.

The Scatter also pays on its own. A count of four pays 3x, five pays 5x and six pays 100x. Six Scatters therefore pay exactly the price of a bonus buy and open the round besides. All of this comes on top of any wins already on the board. Payment for the round comes when it ends, and the game history shows the cycle as one whole.

A total multiplier that never resets

In free spins the compasses work differently. If a compass lands on a spin and the spin wins, its value is added to a total multiplier, and that total stays for the whole round. Every new compass that accompanies a win adds to it and applies the banked value to the payout. The total climbs with every such compass, and the earlier it climbs, the more spins use the banked value, so late spins can be worth more than early ones.

The wordings differ on one detail. The rules text ties the use of the total multiplier to spins where a new compass landed and a win occurred. The press release is broader: multipliers that land with a win are held for all following spins, and the combined value is attributed to any wins gained. The second wording explains the logic of the game better but is less exact.

Ante, buy and three routes to free spins

The rules describe three ways to reach free spins: a normal 20-coin spin that needs four Scatters, the ante mode and a buy. The “Double Chance to Win Feature” card lifts the bet multiplier from 20 to 25, which is 25% more. In return the rules promise twice the chance of landing free spins naturally, with more Scatters on the strips. The info page gives the maximum bet with the ante as 300.00, which is 12.00 x 25. The round can also be bought for 100 current bets: the buy button sits left of the board, and its price is recalculated for the current stake.

In all three modes the RTP is 96.50%, so the ante does not make the game more generous, it changes the route: rounds come sooner, yet each spin is pricier. The ante and the bonus buy exclude each other: at a multiplier of 25 the buy is disabled, so the choice has to be made in advance.

The 5,000x limit and the “medium” badge

The intro screen promises a win of up to 5,000 bets, and the same limit applies to a bought round. Service data inside the demo gives that number as the limit of the normal game and estimates the frequency of reaching it at one round in 697,350. For the ante mode it records a different limit, 4,000 bets, which the rules page does not mention.

The rules page carries a “Medium Volatility” badge and explains that medium volatility games pay out steadily across a wide spread of prize sizes. Hit rate and bonus rate do not appear in the rules. The 1 in 697,350 figure speaks of the tail of the distribution, not of how often an ordinary spin pays.

Studio neighbours: Gates of Olympus and Starlight Princess

The same ceiling belongs to Gates of Olympus and Starlight Princess, yet both carry a high label at a 96.5% RTP. Different badges over the same ceiling show that a label describes the whole game and not the size of the maximum.

All three games grew from one idea: a board without lines, tumbles, multipliers. Gates of Aztec differs in setting and timing: Gates of Olympus appeared in 2021, Starlight Princess in September 2021, and the Aztec game more than a year after them.

Speed, autoplay and a dropped connection

The arrow button steps through three spin speeds: normal, fast and turbo. A hint under the reels says holding the space bar switches on a turbo spin. Automatic play has a menu of its own, and pressing the button again stops it. A spin is started and halted with Space or Enter.

A separate rule covers a lost connection: if the link drops, the round is played out automatically after 24 hours, and on an earlier return it can be finished by hand. Midway through a long tumble chain or a free spins round, that means a started round does not vanish.