Infectious 5 xWays Demo & review

In Infectious 5 xWays, a mystery xWays symbol only turns infectious when a Wild lands on the same spin, and then every matching symbol on the reels grows to its size. Nolimit City released the game in June 2021 under its Extreme volatility label, with three bonus buys that run up to Mayhem Mode. It suits bonus buyers who want to choose how a round plays, more than players who wait for free spins to land on their own.

The intro screen introduces Infectious xWays and the Extreme label. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

How Infectious 5 xWays works

Five reels of four symbols give 1,024 ways, and a win needs the same symbol on neighbouring reels, starting from reel 1. The five villains are the premium symbols, with Mind Flayer at the top of the paytable:

Five of any card symbol pays less than five of the cheapest villain. That gap matters, because the game's big wins come from premium symbols that have been stretched over many rows, not from long runs of cards.

How xWays and Infectious xWays work

An xWays mystery symbol reveals one symbol, never a Wild or a Bonus, as a block of two or three. That makes its reel taller and adds ways. Reels can grow to eight high, which takes the count from 1,024 up to 110,592 ways.

Infectious xWays is the upgrade the game is named after. When an xWays symbol and a Wild land on the same spin, every symbol matching the revealed one grows to the same block size. One premium character can then fill rows on several reels at once. Without a Wild, an xWays symbol only stretches its own reel, so the Wild is the symbol that decides a spin.

A frame from our bought Toxic Hazard round shows what infection does to the board. Toxicity sat as double-height blocks on reels 1, 2 and 5, a Wild stood on reel 3, and the counter above the reels read 2,000 ways.

Mid-round in our bought Toxic Hazard spins, with 17.20 won and six spins left. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

How the bonuses trigger

Three Bonus symbols start Infectious Spins, a fourth adds one more spin, and five go straight to Mayhem Mode. Before the first spin the game asks you to pick a mode, and that choice shapes the whole round.

The mode choice at the start of our 75x buy. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

Toxic Hazard

Nine spins, or ten from four Bonus symbols. One to five Wilds land at random on the middle reels on every spin, so any xWays symbol that appears turns infectious at once, and here Infectious xWays reveals only the five villains. The mode screen labels it High and says it wins more often. The rules name it as the choice that gives the optimal return.

Lock n' Load

Seven spins, or eight. Wilds on the middle reels lock in place until the round ends, each new one adds a spin, and a Wild may carry an x2 or x3 multiplier. Any xWays symbol becomes Infectious xWays. The mode screen labels it Extreme: fewer spins, but locked multiplier Wilds that keep working on every spin after they land.

Mayhem Mode

Mayhem is the round the game builds toward. It starts from five Bonus symbols in the base game, or from collecting five in total during Infectious Spins, and it plays 12 spins with Toxic Hazard or 10 with Lock n' Load. Nolimit City's game page adds that every premium character reveals the gold top symbol in this mode.

Our bought Mayhem round, played with Toxic Hazard, shows it working. With one spin left, gold top symbols stood on four reels beside two Wilds, and the total read $302.40. The round finished at $340.35.

Our bought Mayhem round with one spin to go. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

Bonus buy: prices and what you get

The Nolimit Bonus menu sells all three rounds, and you still pick the mode after buying.

No buy has a volatility label of its own. The labels belong to the modes instead, High for Toxic Hazard and Extreme for Lock n' Load. By the rules, Mayhem with Toxic Hazard is the buy we would pick: it has the highest RTP of the three, and Toxic Hazard is the mode named for the best return. The 3 Bonus buy is the cheaper way to see both modes.

The buy menu, opened after our 100 base spins. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

RTP, volatility and max win

The standard version returns 96.02% in theory, and Nolimit City also supplies a 94.27% version. The casino decides which one you play, and the buys sit higher than either. The label is Extreme, rated 10 on Nolimit City's game sheet.

The top payout in Nolimit City's simulation of 10 billion spins is 55,555x the bet. The same sheet puts a win of 100x or more at about once in 840 rounds.

Our Infectious 5 xWays demo test

One spin made the base game. Spin 87 paid $80, while no other base spin reached $4. Small hits came often around it, 31 paying spins in all, and most of them returned less than the stake.

All three buys came back below their price. The two Toxic Hazard rounds held their value better than the Lock n' Load round, built around a sticky x2 Wild on reel 3, which returned the least. A natural bonus, an upgrade to Mayhem from inside a round and an x3 Wild did not show up, so those parts rest on the rules. Three bought rounds and a hundred spins show how the modes feel, never what they return over time.

The end of our bought Mayhem round: 340.35 back on a 555 buy. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

Is Infectious 5 xWays worth playing?

As a bonus game, yes; as a base game to spin through, less so. The mode choice gives every round a decision that matters, and Infectious xWays turns a single Wild into a board-wide event. The base game has to wait for that same pairing to land on its own, under the Extreme label.

Pick San Quentin xWays if you want a far higher 150,000x ceiling and Jumping Wilds that carry multipliers. Pick Infectious 5 xWays for cheaper buys and the choice of how each round plays.

In the demo, buy the cheapest round twice, once in each mode. Feeling the difference between random and sticky Wilds is the best guide to which one suits you before Mayhem.