Eagle Strike Hold & Win Slot

Eagle Strike Hold & Win is a 2022 slot by Iron Dog Studios, a creative team operating under 1X2 Gaming’s umbrella. Here, we have a game that aims to emulate the feel of some entries in the Pragmatic Play Gold series. It blends this presentation style with the popular Hold and Win mechanic that famed titles like Playson’s Buffalo Power: Hold and Win popularized. 

I should not miss to say that this is essentially a sequel to Wolf Strike: Hold & Win, which came out four months before this product. 

Aside from its already noted renowned mechanic that spices things up with nugget-collection, bonus-wise, this slot also provides a free spin round, where the game’s eagle spreads his wings, turning into an expanding wild, ensuring you get something from your played spin.  

I liked how Eagle Strike Hold & Win does not overcomplicate things. It stays casual-friendly, boosting session engagement with tumble action. Once you get into the bonus round of Eagle Strike Hold & Win, you go jackpot hunting for added thrills and prizes. 

Read my Eagle Strike Hold & Win review below to learn how this game works precisely.

Eagle Strike Hold & Win is an online slot with a classic 5x3 layout and 243 winning ways. In essence, the theme here is the planes of America. The country's natural beauty is highlighted by the majestic animals most synonymous with it. Iron Dog has paid its respects to some of these, the American grizzly, wolf, and buffalo, on top of the white-headed eagle, with their own Hold & Win Strike games.

Regarding the quality of graphics featured here, you get standard painterly illustrations rich with color, which you would expect to see in a title from this genre. The different-hued card royals may add too much color in this Eagle Strike version, hurting the green and blue tone set by the background. But this is nothing overly wrong. 

You also get treated to a Native American-inspired soundtrack that may be too dynamic and drum-heavy for the soothing visuals of this Hold & Win spinner.

Before you begin chasing wins on Eagle Strike Hold & Win, you should check its betting range. You can make wagers from 10c to $50 per spin and click the button with two semi-circular arrows in the bottom right corner of your screen to start. All the controls, including the bet selector, are in the same bar as this one.

As in most 243-ways-to-win games, you must hit two to five matching tokens on adjacent reels to get a payout here. As noted above, this is a tumble slot. So, in win combos, prize-forming symbols are destroyed, and the remaining ones tumble to leave space for new ones to fall into the grid. Such sequences go on until there is no new win.

There are six low-pay card royals in the Eagle Strike Hold & Win slot, and these produce rewards from 1x to 15x for five-of-a-kind combos. There are three animal premiums, which, unlike their low-pay counterparts, can generate prizes even by appearing twice on the same spin, and they can yield wins from 30x to 50x for five identical ones from this group landing in view. 

The eagle is the wild here, and the scatter is a claw mark.

The claw scatters open the way to a free spin mode that can deliver up to 20 on-the-house gaming rounds through five landed scatters. Four get you twelve, and three supply eight. The Hold & Win feature can be activated in this round, and if you hit three, four, or five scatters in it, you can get four, six, or ten extra spins.

Golden and Strike Nuggets are central to the Hold & Win gameplay, and when at least six appear, this feature is triggered, awarding three spins. The nuggets remain sticky, and the spin counter resets when a novel nugget hits. Special rewards are tied to the number of Strike Nuggets, with three awarding the Mini payout, four the Minor one, and five the Major win. 

If all positions in this bonus are packed with nuggets, your total win will be multiplied by two or five if you have five Strike Nuggets on the grid.

Unfortunately, there's no buy bonus option in this online slot.

In truth, I did not expect to be wowed by Eagle Strike Hold & Win. I hoped to get a good-looking Hold & Win-powered game with loads of modest wins, and that is what I got. 

As usual, I played this title with a bankroll of $100, spinning its reels at $1 per round. At the end of my session, I turned a profit of $14, which, for me, was satisfactory.

I had to play over fifty spins to enter the free spins bonus of this online slot, but the many low-figure wins kept me happy while I was waiting for that round to activate. Sadly, I did not manage to hit it big there and got no extra spins. 

Eagle Strike Hold & Win is a low volatility slot with a default RTP of 96.12%. It also comes in 94% and 88% RTP versions. The max prize here is 5,100x your stake.

Solid and decent — those are the words I would use to describe the Eagle Strike Hold & Win game. It is fun enough to keep you playing for some time, but it is nothing special that will appeal to experienced players who desire complex or unique gameplay in top online casinos.

Note Iron Dog Studios has tailored this product, like its other animal Strike ones, for everyday low-roller gamblers. Hence, its low volatility spec and 10c minimum bet size. 

If you are in the market for similar games, I would recommend the newer Lucky Cache variant, Iron Dog’s Grizzly Strike: Hold & Win, and maybe Pragmatic Play’s Buffalo King Untamed Megaways.