Book of the Fallen Demo & review

Book of the Fallen hands you the one decision a book slot usually makes for you: before its 10 free spins, you pick the symbol that expands. Pragmatic Play released it in November 2021 as part of its John Hunter series, with 10 lines, a wild book that also triggers the round, a bonus buy and a Super Spin mode. It suits book-game players who want a say in how wild the round gets.

The base game before our first spin, with Super Spin off and the buy panel on the right. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

How Book of the Fallen works

A win needs matching symbols on one of 10 fixed lines, starting from the leftmost reel, and each line pays its best combination only. The four picture symbols pay from two on a line, the card ranks from three. The explorer is the top symbol by a distance:

The book does two jobs. It is the wild, standing in for every other symbol on a line, and it is the scatter, paying anywhere on the reels and opening free spins when three or more land. Everything else in the game happens through that one round, or through the two ways to pay for it.

Free spins: how they trigger and which symbol to pick

Three or more books award 10 free spins. Before the first spin a choice screen opens with all nine regular symbols and their pays, and whichever you tap becomes the special expanding symbol for the whole round. The screen carries its own warning: the bigger the value, the higher the volatility.

The choice screen after our trigger on base spin 17, with every symbol priced at the bet. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

What the expanding symbol does

On each free spin the regular line wins pay first. Then, if your symbol landed on enough reels to make a win (two for a picture symbol, three for a card rank), it grows to fill every reel it is on and pays on all 10 lines. The reels do not need to be next to each other.

So the pick is a trade between reach and size. On the last spin of our bought round, Anubis filled reels 2, 3 and 4 and paid $30.00, his three-reel pay on every line. A card rank needs the same three reels to pay anything, and pays a sixth as much when it does. The explorer pays from two reels and is the only symbol whose full screen reaches the cap. For us he is the pick.

The last free spin of the round from base spin 17: the explorer filled reels 3 and 5. The win line shows the round total. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

Retriggers

Three or more books during the round add 10 more free spins with the same symbol, and there is no limit on how often that can happen.

Bonus buy and Super Spin: prices and what you get

There are two ways to pay for expansions instead of waiting for books, each with its own RTP:

One volatility label covers the whole game, so both cells repeat it.

Super Spin is the odd one. You pay ten times the bet, but what the spin wins is paid at the base bet, so an expansion has to be big to cover its own price. Ten Super Spins cost the same as one bought round. The buy puts that money into one round that can retrigger, while Super Spin spreads it over spins you can switch off at any time.

The last spin of our bought round, with Anubis on three full reels. The win line shows the round total. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

Super Spin on, with the explorer preselected and the bet at ten times the base. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

RTP, volatility and max win

The rules list 96.50% for the base game and a hair less for each paid option, as the table shows. These are the figures in the build we played, so check the game information at your casino for the version it runs. Several listings call the game high volatility, but its rules page and intro screen label it Medium, and that label is the rating here. The symbol you pick moves the swings within it.

Wins top out at 5,000x the bet, base game or free spins alike. A round that hits it stops there and pays it, and any spins left are forfeited. By the paytable, five full reels of the explorer pay $500 on each of the 10 lines, which is the cap to the cent.

Our Book of the Fallen demo test

Each of our three free spins rounds ran on a different symbol, so the session shows the choice at work more than the luck of one round. The explorer round from base spin 17 paid $137.50, the best result of the session. The pharaoh round from spin 44 paid less than half that, and the bought Anubis round less again.

The explorer round from base spin 17 ended at $137.50 over 10 free spins. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

Outside those rounds the base game paid back less than half its stake, and more than half of its wins were 50-cent hits. The best line hit was three explorers on spin 9. Super Spin was the costly part: two of our ten paid $10.00 each from an explorer expansion, which only returned the price of that spin.

No retrigger and no expansion over four or five reels turned up, so those come from the rules. Three rounds and ten Super Spins show how the choice plays, not what any symbol returns over time.

Is Book of the Fallen worth playing?

For a book-slot regular, yes. For anyone after something new, no. The free spins are the familiar book round with one real change, the choice, and the choice screen makes it honest by pricing every symbol before you commit. The base game around it is ordinary lines and a wild scatter.

Pick Book of Dead if you want the classic version, where the game draws the symbol and you take the round as it comes. Choose Book of the Fallen if setting the risk yourself appeals, with a buy and a per-spin mode on top.

In the demo, buy the round twice: once on the explorer and once on a card rank. The difference between those two rounds is the whole game.