You either love or hate pirate-themed slots – there’s no middle ground. And, to be honest, developers don’t always try that hard to make them exciting. That’s not the case with Pragmatic Play and its latest pirate outing Pirate Golden Age. As the name suggests, it takes place during the Golden Age of Piracy, which was in the 17th-18th century.

This particular slot doesn’t namedrop any pirates, but it’s clearly based on the legendary Blackbeard. It has the looks and pirate style and has the specs too. It’s a highly volatile pirate ship with an RTP of 96.49% that sets sail across 20 fixed paylines. Its features include Mystery Symbols in the Bonus Game that can fire the ship’s cannon and blow your wins away. With a bit of luck, you could hit a cash prize worth 3,000x the bet.

If you’re looking to join a pirate crew, Pirate Golden Age is available for fun and real money in our recommended top slot sites.

The Pirate Golden Age slot doesn’t come with that many modern bells and whistles. The studio has opted for a familiar 5x3 layout and design, and that trademark Pragmatic Play layout that makes it a breeze to play on any device.

As expected, the pirate flag is flying high in this one, so you can guess the symbols. The Captain and two of his mates pay the most - 75x, 50x, and 30x respectively for five of a kind. There’s a parrot and an anchor too, because what would a pirate crew be doing without a parrot?

The slot is easy to play thanks to the intuitively placed controls. Should you need help, the game’s guide is but a click away.

If you prefer to play slots on the go, you’ll be lucky to learn that Pirate Golden Age is fully mobile-optimized. It runs on instant play platforms which means you can play it on Android and iOS devices without downloading any slot apps.

When you fire up the Pirate Golden Age slot for real money, the default bet is set at $2 per spin. You can adjust that between $0.20 and $100 per spin in tiny increments, so set what suits you best and hit the Spin or Autoplay buttons. The first will allow you to go spin by spin, the second lets you spin the reels automatically.

The base game doesn’t have a lot of surprises. You’ll get the best payouts with the premiums and the Skull Wild which plays its usual role. It matches the top-paying symbol should you collect five. This isn’t a slot that banks on the base game, so you can turn your attention to the engaging Bonus Round.

Three or more Scatters give you seven casino free spins in an exciting Hold & Win-style Bonus Round. You also get a nice payout:

• 3 Scatters – 2x
• 4 Scatters – 20x
• 5 Scatters – 200x

During the Bonus Round, you get a special Mystery Symbol that can land on any reel. When one or more land on the reels, they all transform into the same symbol or Wild. All Mystery symbols are also accumulated in a special meter. At the end of the Free Spins Round, all the symbols come back on the reels – if one or more occupy the same spot, a multiplier is applied. It starts at x1 and rises by +1 for each overlapping spot.

Collecting those Mystery Symbols also adds free spins to your tally. For every five that land, you get one, two, or three free spins randomly. You can add plenty of extra spins to your tally this way, in addition to dozens of Mystery Symbols being unleashed on the reels at the end of the bonus.

The Pirate Golden Age slot RTP is set to a pretty solid 96.49%. That’s perfect for a slot of its volatility which can pay a maximum of 3,000x the bet. That’s not the most valuable bounty on the high seas, but it’ll do.

Pirate Golden Age is a swashbuckling adventure that doesn’t reinvent the pirate ship’s wheel. It does have a fun Bonus Round, though, which can pay off nicely if you manage to accumulate those golden Mystery coins. You get plenty of potential by landing more of them, although there’s no other factor to rely on than pure luck.

Still, it’s a slot that mixed standard gameplay with a cool feature, and as such, it’s one you don’t want to miss at new casinos online.