Sanctuary is an Egyptian-themed video slot from Big Time Gaming that was released in November 2023. As a celebration of Ancient Egyptian culture, the game’s playing grid is set against spaceship Pyramids as flashing lights dominate the dawn sky.
Symbols in the Sanctuary slot include animated depictions of a dead pharaoh, Anubis, a scarab beetle, the Eye Of Horus, and several stylised playing card icons, and you’ll play with all of these while enjoying hit music from British rock band The Cult.
Sanctuary Slot Basics
The Sanctuary slot uses a 6×4 playing grid that’s decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphs around the border. The game requires a bet of between £0.10 and £20 per spin while offering you a chance to win up to 44,070x your bet, which is huge. To make wins in the game, you’ll need to land two or more identical icons on a single spin and payline.
The pharaoh is the highest-paying symbol in the Sanctuary slot, awarding you with 0.3x your bet for landing twice, 1x for landing three times, 2.5x for landing four times, 5x for landing five times, and a maximum of 15x for landing six times. After this, Anubis pays 5x, the scarab beetle pays 2.5x, the Eye Of Horus pays 1.5x, the Ace and King icons pay 1.2x, the Queen and Joker symbols pay 0.8x, and the 10 and 9 icons pay 0.5x.
Sanctuary Slot RTP And Volatility
The Sanctuary slot comes with a return to player (RTP) rate of 96.38%, which is around the average for most video slots. The RTP tells you the percentage of all wagered funds that are returned to players over a long period of time and numerous users, with the higher, the better. Meanwhile, the video slot comes with high volatility, so you’re much more likely to make large, infrequent wins while playing.
Special Features
The Sanctuary slot comes with several special features, including full reel wild icons in purple and gold. Wild icons only appear on the second and fifth reels, and they substitute for all icons except scatter symbols. Purple wild icons multiply any wins by 8x for big prizes.
Landing three or more pyramid scatter icons awards seven free spins. Three scatter icons trigger seven spins on one video slot, four icons award seven spins on two video slots, and five and six scatters award seven spins on three and four video slots, respectively. Once triggered, you can use the free spins gamble wheel to collect the earned spins or gamble them for spins on more slots. A successful gamble awards more slots, while losing gambles awards a lower number of slots. Losing the feature completely ends it.
Sticky wild icons in the shape of Ankh symbols appear during the free spins, landing on reels two and five of each slot. Whenever an Ankh icon appears, a sticky wild remains in that position for all spins. Four sticky wild Ankh icons transform into a full wild icon with a 4x multiplier, and award three more spins up to 12.
The slot also comes with a gambling mechanic. Whenever you win 80x your stake or more, you can exchange the win for seven free spins. You can also buy seven spins for 80x your bet.
Games Similar To Sanctuary Slot
There are several Egyptian-themed video slots, all of which are similar to the Sanctuary slot. One game we think is worth checking out is Legacy Of Egypt by Play’n GO, which is set around an outside tomb. Symbols in the game include gods Sekhmet, Anubis, Sobek, and Ra, as well as pharaohs, Cleopatra, scarab beetles, and more. The slot uses a 5×3 grid layout with 30 paylines and has an RTP of 94.50%, with special features that include wild icons, a free spins mode, and multipliers to boost your wins.
Another Egyptian-themed slot we think is worth trying is John Hunter And The Book Of Tut by Pragmatic Play. The game follows explorer John Hunter as he explores Ancient Egypt for the legendary Book Of Tut. Symbols here include John Hunter, sarcophagi, cat statues, scarab beetles, and the famous book itself. Feature-wise, the game comes with wild icons, multipliers, an unlimited free spins mode, expanding icons, and so much more.
Sanctuary Slot Summary
Big Time Gaming’s Sanctuary slot is the latest Egyptian-themed slot to hit online casinos. At face value, the game follows the usual Egyptian slot tropes, with the game’s backdrop based on the pyramids, and symbols featuring gods, pharaohs, and scarab beetles. However, the game manages to differentiate from other similar titles with the inclusion of wild icons with multipliers, as well as the free spins mode that offers spins on mini-slots. This helps make the game much more fun than its competitors, while also giving you some great winning potential.
We believe that the Sanctuary slot is best suited for experienced slot players and high-rollers who want to try a game with an enhanced free spins mode and like the big win potential and decent RTP and volatility rates. Casual users with a larger bankroll and some experience with slots can give it a try, but we suggest new slot players find an alternative and lower-volatility Egyptian-themed title to play – there are dozens, so this shouldn’t be a problem!
