Xmas Drop

It’s time to get into the festive spirit as Hacksaw Gaming bring us a seasonal version of one of their most popular releases. The release in question? RIP City, brought to us at the start of 2023. Introducing us to Ro$$ and Maxx, RIP City found favour with players due to its simple nature – utilising expanding Wild symbols to form pretty much every important win.

Now Hacksaw Gaming are returning and rather than bringing back the greyscale image of the past, they’ve gone all out to turn RIP City into an in your face, classic Christmas release in Xmas Drop.

With RTP options up to 96.22% (96.44% feature buy) this medium (3/5) volatility release can produce wins up to 12,500x bet.

Xmas Drop Base Game

We’re outside on a snowy landscape in Xmas Drop, with a multitude of snow covered trees to either side of the reels, upon which we find a variety of festive symbols. Toy blocks, Christmas trees, candy canes, stockings, bells, teddy bears and snow globes all remind us of the wonderful gifts given at Christmas, whilst Wild symbols do a good job of making us feel guilty for not spending more time developing our wrapping skills.

The rest of our attention is given to Santa, whose house we can see in the distance. He stands proudly to the right of the reels looking jolly as ever, while also taking on the position of the most important symbol in the game. Finally, a festive soundtrack with more bells than ever comes in to tie it all together.

Xmas Drop Offers Players 19 Fixed Win Lines

Xmas Drop Base Features

Taking place across 5 reels, wins are formed on Xmas Drop by matching at least 3 symbols on adjacent reels, beginning with the leftmost reel, across 1 of 19 fixed win lines. Symbols available begin with non premiums, with 10s, Js, Qs, Ks and As, awarding wins between 0.20 and 0.40x bet for 3 of a kind matches, increasing to values between 5 and 10x bet for 5 of a kind wins.

Premium symbols consist of stockings, candy canes, Christmas trees, teddy bears and bells. Land 3 of a kind of any premium to see wins between 1 and 2x bet, increasing to values between 15 and 20x bet for 5 of a kind matches. Finally, there are two kinds of Wild symbols in the form of presents and Santa Clauses, and both award wins of 25x bet for 5 of a kind whilst substituting for all symbols except FS Scatter symbols.

Wild Santa Symbols Expand if the Expanded Symbol Will Be Part of a Winning Combination

Wild Santa Symbol

There’s really only one feature to cover in Xmas Drop – the Wild Santa symbol.

Each time a Wild Santa symbol lands on the reels, it expands to the bottom of the reel it has landed upon. The Wild Santa will only expand if it will form part of a winning combination once expanded.

Once expanded, Wild Santa symbols count as a Wild symbol on every expanded position. If they do not expand, Wild Santa symbols count as a single Wild symbol.

Only one Wild Santa can land per reel.

Wild Gift Symbol

Wild Gift symbols are regular Wild symbols that do not expand. However, if a Wild Santa symbol expands through a Wild Gift symbol, the Wild Gift reveals a multiplier that is applied to the whole expanded Wild Santa.

Wild Gift symbols can reveal the following multipliers – 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x, 50x, 100x or 200x.

If a winning combination contains more than one expanded Wild Santa with multipliers, the multipliers will be added together before being applied.

Xmas Drop Night Before Xmas Bonus Feature

Xmas Drop Bonus

Land 3 FS Scatter symbols to trigger the Night Before Xmas Bonus Game with 10 spins.

During this feature there is a higher chance of Wild Santa or Wild Gifts landing on the reels.

Land 3 FS Scatter symbols to trigger an additional +4 spins, whilst landing 4 FS Scatter symbols will upgrade the feature at the end of the current spin to the Santa Claus is Coming to Town Bonus Game.

If this happens and there are less than 10 spins remaining, these will be reset to 10. If there are more than 10 spins remaining these are unchanged.

Super Bonus Game

Land 4 FS Scatter symbols to trigger the Santa Claus is Coming to Town Bonus Game with 10 spins.

During this feature each time a Wild Santa symbol lands on a reel the reel will be activated, guaranteeing a Wild Santa symbol will land on that reel for every remaining spin. Wild Santas continue to interact with Wild Gift symbols in the same way as they do in the base game.

Land 3 FS Scatter symbols to trigger an additional +4 spins.

Land 3 or More FS Symbols to Trigger Additional Spins

Buy Bonus

Players in appropriate regions can take advantage of the following Buy Bonus options.

• Bonus Hunt FeatureSpins (5x more likely to trigger a bonus) – 3x bet (96.44% RTP)
• Two Wild Santas FeatureSpins (at least 2 Wild Santa symbols guaranteed) – 20x bet (96.34% RTP)
• Three Wild Santas FeatureSpins (at least 3 Wild Santa symbols guaranteed) – 50x bet (96.31% RTP)
• Night Before Xmas – 110x bet (96.20% RTP)
• Santa Claus is Coming to Town – 200x bet (96.41% RTP)

The volatility for every Buy Bonus option is high, with the exception of Two Wild Santas FeatureSpins, which is very highly volatile.

The values above are based upon the 96.22% RTP setting.

The maximum win available in Xmas Drop is 12,500x bet. If the sum of a single game round exceeds this, the game round will end and 12,500x bet will be awarded.

Xmas Drop Santa Claus is Coming to Town Bonus Feature

First Impression

Well, for fans of RIP City there really isn’t much to talk about here. If you haven’t played RIP City, let’s recap. In the base game, Wild Santa symbols working alongside Wild Gift symbols is all that you’re looking for. Land these in the right combinations and you can see some pretty big wins with win multipliers up to 200x. That, plus you might find it amusing to see Santa expand in the same way that Ro$$ the cat did in RIP City.

The Bonus Game continues this in pretty much the same way, except that you now have a higher chance of landing those aforementioned symbols. It’s the Super Bonus Game that this one will be known for though, just like RIP City. Land Wild Santas to activate reels and guarantee a Wild Santa for every remaining symbol, with multipliers also working as they do in the base game.

Thankfully, both landing the bonus naturally and upgrading the bonus is possible so players don’t need to be concerned about shelling out for a 200x bet bonus buy – or concerned that they don’t have that option. In any area of this release, wins are possible up to 12,500x bet when the right combinations happen.

Finally, maths is rated medium (3/5) volatility and RTP options are available up to 96.22% (96.44% feature buy), so as always it’s worth checking this. There’s not much more to say – if you enjoyed RIP City and you fancy a festive alternative, Xmas Drop was quite literally made for you.

*The screenshots taken of games reviewed on this site are taken from Demo Play, as reviews are often written before games are released for real play.