3 Buzzing Wilds: Slot Overview
With a name which might have come from the numerically minded slot maker 4ThePLayer, 3 Buzzing Wilds is actually a bee-themed online slot from software provider Pragmatic Play. You know, you've got to hope insects don't cognitively level up any time soon. With their social organising skills and supremely industrious nature, they might, if evolution has anything to say about it, conquer the world someday. Well, maybe so, but today is not that day, and instead of fleeing from invading armies of bees, people have put them to good use, making honey and starring in online slots. In 3 Buzzing Wilds, the bizzy bizzy bees are linked to 3 different wild features, linking further still to 3 different bonus rounds where features get a sticky boost.
Bees aren't exactly unknown on the gambling scene, and despite the substantial number of bee slots, they're almost always portrayed in a hyper-cute manner. For 3 Buzzing Wilds, Pragmatic Play has decided not to rock the boat and make it documentary-style. Instead, 3 Buzzing Wilds is a cutesy bee game where the characters are cheerful, friendly, and more like plush toys than creepy crawlies. This is no critique, by the way, as it was hard to feel negativity towards 3 Buzzing Wilds' warm, open-armed greeting when it buzzed up on the screen.
The action is held on a 5-reel, 4-row gaming board covered in 20 paylines for landing winning combinations across. Despite all the smiley happy insects, 3 Buzzing Wilds is a highly volatile online slot (rated 5 out of 5 in this regard) and comes with three return-to-player models, and the highest is 96.02%-96.03%. Bets of 20 p/c to £/€100 may be placed, and a buy feature option is supplied. When buying free spins, the RTP on the highest model drops to 95.99%-96.02%.
3 Buzzing Wilds' pay symbols are divided between honey-coated J-A low-pay card ranks and a high-pay butterfly, caterpillar, ladybug, and bee. Hitting a winning combination made up of 5 low pays is worth 2.5 to 4 times the bet, while a 5 premium win pays 10 to 50 times the bet. Wild symbols are present on all reels and substitutes for anything except the scatter. Landing a 5 wild winning line awards 50 times the bet.
3 Buzzing Wilds: Slot Features
First on the list to cover are 3 Buzzing Wilds' 3 different wild feature types, then comes the free spins bonus rounds, and lastly, a feature buy. The wild types are:
- Random Wilds – on random base game spins, wild symbols can appear on random positions on the game board.
- Expanding Wilds – on random base game spins, wild symbols that stop on the grid expand to fill their entire respective reel.
- Surrounding Wilds – on random base game spins, Surrounding Wilds can land, and all symbols surrounding them are transformed into wilds.
Free Spins
Landing 3, 4, or 5 beehive scatter symbols wards 2x, 10x, or 50x the bet, respectively, as well as triggering the free spins bonus game. Once triggered, players pick one of these three options:
- Random Wilds – 10 free spins are awarded where random wild symbols can be added to random positions on the reels. Wilds added like this will remain on the screen until the feature ends.
- Expanding Wilds – 8 free spins are awarded where any wild that hits expands to cover the whole reel and remains on the screen like this until the round ends.
- Surrounding Wilds – 6 free spins are awarded where, when a Surrounding Wild hits, wild symbols are placed on all positions on the grid around it. The Surrounding Wild and the added wilds remain on the screen until the round ends.
None of the three free spins bonus rounds can be retriggered.
Buy Free Spins
Players are able to trigger the free spins round instantly at the cost of 100x the bet. Once bought, any of the three aforementioned bonuses may be selected.
3 Buzzing Wilds: Slot Verdict
3 Buzzing Wilds is one of those games which feels unlikely to make a massive splash, sending waves of euphoria rippling out to all corners of the iGaming world. But it's not a game that warrants major picked holes of criticism, either. What it's got to offer is quite enjoyable, both in terms of presentation as well as gameplay. 3 Buzzing Wilds plasters smiles on its characters, invites players in, and can do some pretty nifty stuff with wild symbols, if they're lucky.
Do get lucky, and 3 Buzzing Wilds can shower players with wild symbols, spraying them on the grid in three pulse-tinglingly different ways. The base game gives a taste of how each wild feature functions since they may trigger at any moment on random spins. Once a favourite has been selected, and free spins trigger, naturally or not, then you're free to pick your favourite and let it loose on the reels to do its thing. Adding a sticky characteristic to each wild feature is a nice touch, boosting each feature's potential effectiveness while creating the opportunity to stack a bunch of wilds on the grid to, if lucky, trigger some juicy back-to-back win action. Hopefully, the chosen wild feature gets in as hard and early as possible since free spins cannot be retriggered.
While not the biggest or baddest bee slot out there, 3 Buzzing Wilds turned out to be a fun flit in nature after buzzing around for a while. Not the bee's knees perhaps (apologies for the cliche) but a 5,000x win cap, a trio of wild features, a sticky element to free spins, and loads of dripping honey references combined to make 3 Buzzing Wilds a pleasant diversion.
