Helios Fury review
The bronze statue of Helios has come alive above Rhodes, and the city is in danger. Helios Fury came out at Relax Gaming on 6 October 2021. Wins are built not on lines and not on a fixed 243 ways, but on connected ways. The studio names no volatility, but it spells out the mechanics in detail: the Wild sails right across the reels, each win with it earns a re-spin, and a trip to reel 5 opens the bonus.
Ninety-nine connected ways
The rules define a connected way like this. A win is three or more matching symbols from left to right, starting on the first column. Each next symbol must sit in an adjacent column and in the same row, one row above or one row below the previous one. The result is not a straight line and not an arbitrary set of cells, but a bent path.
From any row one can go to two or three neighbouring ones, and across five columns of the 5×3 board the total comes to 99 paths, while the 5×5 free spin board has 259. The usual “243 ways” scheme on the same board allows any cell in the next column: there the number of paths equals the product of the column heights, and here it is smaller because of the neighbouring-row restriction.
3 reels — Ordinary ways 5×3: 27; Connected 5×3: 17 (63%); Connected 5×5, Fury Free Spins: 35.
4 reels — Ordinary ways 5×3: 81; Connected 5×3: 41 (51%); Connected 5×5, Fury Free Spins: 95.
5 reels — Ordinary ways 5×3: 243; Connected 5×3: 99 (41%); Connected 5×5, Fury Free Spins: 259.
Ordinary ways on 5×5 would make 3,125 paths, against 259 connected ones, which is 8%. The longer the chain, the more the scheme departs from the familiar and the more the placement of symbols matters; wins of three symbols come easiest, because six in ten possible paths across three columns are connected. The mechanic trades away combinations, and in return each win depends on a chain of neighbouring cells.
The Wild as a bridge inside a path
A connected path is best seen in an example. Suppose reel 1 holds a symbol A in the middle row, reel 2 holds it in the top row, reel 3 shows a Wild in the top or middle row, and reel 4 again shows an A in the row above or below. The chain holds: the Wild stands in for an A, and every step stays within neighbouring rows. Four columns have made a win over four reels.
Without the Wild in the third column the same path would have torn. This is what the Wild is worth in Helios Fury: it is not merely slotted into a line, it joins pieces of a path that would otherwise lie in unconnected cells.
The longest path and multiplying symbols
Wins are awarded for the longest unique connected ways, and for each symbol only the longest combination is paid. There is a third rule: matching symbols that stand several times in one column contribute to the win multiplicatively. If a column holds two needed symbols, the number of ways doubles and the payout grows accordingly.
The example is conditional: three columns in a row show the needed symbol, and in the second column it appears in two cells. Under the multiplication rule the win for such a combination is counted twice, once for each path.
A Wild with no payout of its own
The Wild substitutes for all symbols in wins. It appears on reels 1 to 4, in both the base game and free spins. It has no separate payout: a full path made entirely of Wilds is paid as the highest normal symbol.
The “reels 1-4 only” restriction matters for the logic of the bonus. A Wild does not land on reel 5; it gets there on its own when it sails across. So the free spin trigger, a win with a Wild on reel 5, is met not by luck of landing but by a chain of wins.
The sailing ship: Wild and re-spins
If a Wild is part of a win, it moves one reel to the right and earns a re-spin. Re-spins keep coming while each new win includes a Wild. The series ends one of two ways: a win with a Wild on reel 5 starts the bonus, and a win without a Wild breaks the chain. If several Wilds stand on the board, only those that were part of the win carry into the next re-spin; the rest leave the board.
A Wild that landed on reel 1 must cross four reels, which takes four wins with it involved and four re-spins, and then one more win with it on reel 5: five wins in a row in total. A Wild that landed on reel 4 has a shorter road: two wins. If even one re-spin passes without a win for this Wild, the chain breaks, so in the base game the bonus is no routine event.
Fury Free Spins: six spins and a 5×5 board
A win with a Wild standing in any position on reel 5 starts Fury Free Spins. The player receives 6 spins, and the board grows by two rows to a 5×5 format. When the bonus opens, a Wild is placed in the centre of reel 1.
In free spins Wilds do not disappear: they stay on the board to the end of the bonus whether or not they joined a win. Each new Wild that lands on the board adds one spin. Once a Wild has taken part in a win, it shifts one reel to the right and stops in the rightmost position.
The two extra rows also change the character of wins. The number of paths rises 2.6 times, and for short wins over three reels it goes from 17 to 35, about double. Symbols find each other more easily, each Wild substitutes in more paths, and since Wilds do not disappear, their influence accumulates.
The hot spot: where the extra spins come from
The most unusual part of the bonus is called the hot spot. At first it stands on the last reel of each row. When a Wild reaches it, one more spin is awarded and the spot shifts one reel to the left: the first Wild in a row earns its spin on reel 5, the second on reel 4, and so on down to reel 1. This goes on until the row is filled with Wilds entirely.
The rightmost-position rule clarifies the details: if a Wild has sailed to reel 5 and another already stands in the same row, reel 4 counts as the rightmost, and so on. So a row fills from right to left.
The rules also give a ceiling on the number of spins: one completely filled row yields up to five spins from the hot spot, and the 5×5 board has five rows, so up to 25, plus the opening 6 and one spin for each new Wild. This is a calculation from the rules text, not frequency data; filling all five rows would take a very lucky bonus. A more modest example: if two new Wilds land in the first spin and three Wilds later reach their spots, the counter still holds five when the original six spins run out, so 11 in total.
The studio description ends by saying the bronze god “brings nothing but gold”. By the rules a full row of Wilds pays as the highest normal symbol, and filled rows not only pay but also extend the bonus, so a good start feeds itself.
Iron Bank and Hellcatraz beside Helios Fury
The rules fix the win cap at 50,000 bets per round, and no odds of reaching it are published. Next to other games the studio released in those years, the figures look like this.
Helios Fury — Year: 2021; Volatility: not named; Cap: 50,000x; RTP: 96.27%.
Iron Bank — Year: 2020; Volatility: very high; Cap: 49,999x; RTP: 96.20%.
Hellcatraz — Year: 2020; Volatility: very high; Cap: 51,843x; RTP: 96.46%.
Temple Tumble Megaways — Year: 2019; Volatility: high; Cap: 7,767x; RTP: 96.25%.
Iron Bank has almost the same cap but another theme, banking. Hellcatraz brings a prison plot and very high volatility: the studio builds very different worlds around similar caps, while in Helios Fury everything rests on a chain of Wild wins.
The 97.00% bonus buy and the gaps in the rules
The bonus can be bought from the base game, and it begins immediately, skipping the chain of events. The RTP of that purchase is 97.00%, against 96.27% for the base game, and the studio does not explain the difference. What the buy guarantees is the start of Fury Free Spins, not the result. In the open rules the price remained an empty template, so this bonus buy cannot be compared with other games’ offers on price.
Missing from the open text are the frequency of wins and of the bonus and a paytable in readable units. It is unknown how many symbols each payout needs and what share of the bet a full row of Wilds pays. The free demo mode is launched by the “Try Game” control on the Relax site, with no account needed.
