Pirots 5 – review, demo and RTP

What is the Pirots 5 slot?

Cursed Temple is the fifth chapter in a series that has made its name by wrapping hard-hitting maths in a light and colourful package. After detours through the ice age, the wild west and outer space, the four birds this time land in the sand outside an Egyptian burial chamber. The mission is the same as before: collect gems in four colours via the CollectR™ mechanic, with each bird picking up its own shade.

Rumours and leaks are now a thing of the past – Pirots 5 is a finished release from ELK Studios with a clear identity. You get 96% RTP in the top configuration, a variance of 7/10, stakes between £0.20 and £100, and a grid that swells from 6x6 to 8x8 during a round. The combination of Captain Blackfeather, the Cursed Temple coin game, secret doors and a dedicated super bonus means the slot is aimed at players who enjoy building up patiently before things go off.

Visually it's spot on. Egypt as a setting is anything but original, but ELK has produced a polished, richly animated title that rises above the average. The soundtrack deserves praise too: among the rhythmic beats there's a wink to a certain whip-cracking adventurer from the world of film – a joke that suits the tomb atmosphere perfectly.

Pirots 5 RTP, max win and X-iter™

Pirots 5 features X-iter™, ELK Studios' feature buy menu with five options. You can buy Super Bonus for 250x, Bonus for 100x, Cursed Temple for 50x, Mega Hunt for 10x (just over 20x more chance of a bonus) or Bonus Hunt for 3x (just over 5x more chance). The lowest X-iter price is £0.60 and the highest is £25,000. The RTP stays at 96% across all X-iter modes.

The Pirots 5 max win is 10,000x the stake, which at maximum stake equals a full £1,000,000. Together with five RTP levels (96/94/92/90/87%) and a high variance of 7/10, a clear profile takes shape. Play on the 96% version where possible; the exact percentage is shown at the bottom of the Game Rules file. This is not a slot for those who want to take it easy, but for players who accept bigger swings in exchange for a shot at the high peaks.

How to play Pirots 5 step by step

Every round opens on a 6x6 grid where all gems start at level 1. The four birds pick up orthogonally adjacent symbols in their own colour and also take along any feature symbols in their path. As long as a bird still has something to collect, it keeps moving before new symbols drop. A single drop can therefore contain several moves before the grid is refilled at all.

Above the grid sits a Symbol Collection Meter that charges up as the birds gather gems and wilds. When the meter fills, a waiting feature symbol is added; up to three can be queued at once. When they're released, random gems turn into feature symbols, which can sharply raise the pace within the same round. On top of that, gems can be upgraded all the way to level 7, and that very upgrade is the key to the truly big payouts.

The feature symbols in Pirots 5

Symbol	Image	Effect
Wild		Substitutes for any gem at the payout level that applies at the time.
Coin		Pays its visible value times the stake (1x to 2,500x). The MAX WIN coin pays the rest up to the max win.
Upgrade		Raises the collecting bird's colour by 1 to 3 levels, up to a maximum of level 7.
Upgrade All		Lifts all four colours at once by 1 to 3 levels.
Transform		Turns a cluster of gems into the collecting bird's colour. Super Transform repeats it 2 to 3 times.
Bonus		Three bonus symbols open the bonus mode with 5 Free Drops.
Super Bonus		If one of the three bonus symbols is a Super Bonus, the super bonus game starts instead.
Token		Pays the same as a 5x coin and counts towards unlocking Boss Castle.

Pirots 5 payouts: gems

Each bird collects gems in its own colour, and the value depends on the level the gem sits at (1 to 7). The table below shows the payouts for the top three levels (5 to 7) as a multiplier of the stake. Each stake consists of 100 coins.

Gem	Level 7	Level 6	Level 5
Red	25.00	6.25	2.00
Purple	15.00	5.00	1.60
Green	10.00	3.75	1.20
Blue	7.50	2.50	0.80

The lower levels (1 to 4) drop from roughly 0.75 down to 0.05x the stake. Blackfeather gems can pay as much as 20.00x at the highest level.

The coins and their values

Coins are among the most valuable symbols in Pirots 5. A collected coin pays its visible value times the stake, from 1x all the way up to 2,500x. The MAX WIN coin pays the rest of the amount directly, up to the max win of 10,000x.

100xstandard coin

500xcoin jar

1,000xcoin jar

MAX WINpays up to the cap

The story: settling the score with Captain Blackfeather

This time it's not about an ordinary treasure hunt, but about revenge. Long before the crew set out on their own voyages, they raided ships under the command of Captain Blackfeather. That partnership ended in betrayal: the captain forced the birds to walk the plank and made off with chests full of gold.

Many years later, after everything they've been through in other worlds, the birds finally track down their old traitor. But Blackfeather doesn't go down without a fight. With a curse he turns birds into ghosts and rips their loot straight off the grid – right in the middle of your round.

Captain Blackfeather, catacombs and traps

The traitor Captain Blackfeather can show up in any drop. If a bird lands next to him, he turns 1 to 4 birds into ghosts and converts their gems into valuable Blackfeather gems (worth 0.15x up to 30x), which are then collected in one go. In the bonus game he stays between drops and guarantees a win in every single catacomb fight.

In each corner of the grid there's a catacomb corner with a random colour. If a bird collects a symbol on top of a corner in its own colour, it descends into the catacombs and meets a mummy; win the fight and you get a feature symbol. If three or more birds line up next to each other, Labyrinth triggers, clearing entire rows and columns. Two adjacent birds can also perform a Switcheroo and swap places.

Along the edge, traps appear: archers that remove birds, a rolling stone block (2x2 to 4x4) that crushes everything, and a secret door that splits the grid into four quadrants and rotates them 180°. For the player the traps are actually an advantage – each triggered trap opens new chances for chains, and the secret door is the key to the Cursed Temple coin game.

Cursed Temple Coin Game and bonuses

The Hold & Win-style coin game kicks off as soon as the whole grid is cleared during the secret door feature. It's played on an 8x8 grid with a cursed 2x2 treasure in the centre. You start with 3 drops, and every landing of coins, birds or symbols resets the counter back to 3. If a bird ends up next to the treasure with no more symbols to collect, coins rain across the grid.

Collect three bonus symbols in a round and Bonus Game kicks off with 5 Free Drops, with each extra bonus symbol granting another drop. If a Super Bonus is among them, the super bonus game starts instead, with a cursed coin shower at the start of every drop. The grid size, the collection meter and the gems' upgrade level are all carried through the entire bonus game.

Pirots 5 also spans three worlds – Cursed Temple, The Kraken and City of Gold – where you collect 9 tokens in total. Manage all of them and you unlock Boss Castle for good. Progress is saved permanently across all stake levels and game modes, which gives a clear long-term goal alongside the regular bonus rounds.