African Elephant

African Elephant

6 / 10
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Get your hat and your binoculars as you’ll be heading to the African savanna in the African Elephant pokie from Pragmatic Play. Brought to you on a grid with 5 reels and 20 paylines, shapes will appear randomly on the reels which transform symbols inside into Elephant Wilds. The Wild Shape feature is activated on each free spin in the Free Spins feature where unlimited free spins are up for grabs. Offering an average 96.04% RTP rate and 15,000x bet top payouts, read more details about it in our African Elephant review.

African Elephant Review

Software provider Pragmatic Play makes you set in a safari 4×4 vehicle as it heads to the continent of Africa for a new online pokie adventure. It’s a straightforward, maybe a bit plain, title describing both the ambiance and the main symbol with no more than 2 words. This rather plainness spills over much of the rest of the casino game as well, which isn’t the best example of creative innovation coming from the Pragmatic Play fabric. Potentially effective though are the extras in the game that are stampeding. So make sure you don’t miss our features section in which we’ll discuss the Wild Shape and a batch of free spins.

Nice to know

Launched 10 April 2023
RTP 96.04%, 95.10%, 94.03%
Volatility High
Software Pragmatic Play
Features Buy Feature, Free Spins, Random Wilds / Additional Wilds, Scatter symbols, Symbol Swap, Wild
Theme Safari, elephants
Paylines 20
Grid Layout 5-4
Min. bet/line $ 0.20
Max win x15,000
Jackpot N/A

Positive points

  • ✅ Average Base RTP
  • ✅ Bonus Buy Feature
  • ✅ Win Up To 15,000x

Negative points

  • ❌ Ranging RTP
  • ❌ Highly Volatile
  • ❌ Few Features

Review African Elephant

Overall, African Elephant comes with a very familiar look & feel. Our bet is that if you’ve played any Safari oriented pokie, you’ll probably have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this one. Get ready for dry grasslands, hills, acacia trees, and a river where wild animals cool off and drink water. The same goes for the soundtrack of the game too, despite being a little less rhythmically intense than these casino games of this genre often are. With top wins of 15,000 our thoughts are that you might not be worried too much about the game’s music as the sights and potential payouts are impressive enough.

How to Play

After loading this online pokie by Pragmatic Play, it’ll open up to 5 columns, each holding 4 symbols. The grid of the African Elephant pokie game plays on 20 fixed paylines, running from the leftmost side. Here is a quick overview of how to play African Elephant:

  • Press the (-) Minus or Plus (+) buttons and the betting panel will pop up. Changing the coin values automatically alters the total bets between $0.20 and $100. Spin the reels manually using the Play function. If you want to instantly cancel a round, you can click on the Stop button. The Quickspin mode can be used to play faster.
  • With the Autoplay mode being available in New Zealand, New Zealanders can gamble continuously for a number of preselected game rounds.
  • The info, “i” icon opens the information page which includes the paytable and the rules of the game. We recommend you to check this page before you start playing.

This online pokie is offered by some of our recommended NZ online casinos. All these websites are operated offshore and are therefore accessible to players in New Zealand who meet the minimum age requirement of 18 years old.

Symbol Wins

With a safari game theme, this African Elephant pokie by Pragmatic Play takes you to the African savanna. This means you’ll be part of an unforgettable trip to discover wild animals and other patterns you might be interested in. As you’d expect, this game is fairly nicely designed, which is why you will see grasslands in the background alongside blue skies, a river and different animals such as wild elephants.

The music of the game is rather pleasant and has a catchy tribal feel to it. Symbols are big enough and stand out with each having their own coloured background. On the reels of the playfield, you will see standard symbols such as A, K, Q and J royals. High value symbols include animals such as cheetahs, meerkats, zebras and rhinos. The rhino is the most valuable symbol with 2, 5 or 30x bet awarded for 3, 4 or 5 across any payline. A full screen with rhinos will trigger payouts of 600x the bet.

The Elephant Wild symbol is the one that substitutes for all paying symbols. Appearing in the Wild Shape, or combinations of 3, 4 or 5 wilds will award 2.5, 12.5 or 75x your total stake. Then there is an Elephants Bonus symbol appearing on all the reels. As you might have guessed, this is the key symbol of the game, as it triggers the free spins. Here is what the different symbols in the game do and can award:

Symbol Payout 3x Payout 4x Payout 5x
J 0.25 0.75 4
Q 0.25 0.75 4
K 0.25 1 4
A 0.25 1 4
Meerkat 0.5 1.25 5
Cheetah 0.75 1.25 5
Wildebeest 1.25 2 7.5
Zebra 1.25 2 12.5
Rhino 2 5 30
Elephant Wild Substitutes for symbols above + pays up to 75 x bet
Elephants Bonus 3+ ativates free spins feature

Bonus Features

Pragmatic Play has kept it simple and clear when it comes to the features of the African Elephant game. However, that does not mean that the features are not well put together. On the contrary, the Wild Shape and the free spins feature provide a very nice dynamic. Here is what the different bonus features in African Elephant can mean for you.

WildShape

Every spin there is a chance that a certain “shape” will appear on the playing field. That is, a number of arbitrary positions are framed. As a result, all symbols that fall within the frame are turned into wilds. This of course significantly increases the chance that you can make (valuable) winning combinations this spin.

Africa Elephant free spins

By spinning 3 or more bonus symbols you can earn free spins in African Elephant:

  • 3 bonus symbols award 10 free spins.
  • 4 bonus symbols award 15 free spins.
  • 5 bonus symbols award 20 free spins.

The free spins feature basically works exactly the same as the base game. The only real difference here is that every free spin you have the guarantee that the Wild Shape feature will be activated. In addition, you do not have to pay for the spins, of course.

Bonus Buy

New Zealanders can purchase the feature for 100x the stake. This gives you 3 to 5 triggering scatters on the next spin. As it’s all about the free spins bonus in this game you might want to consider making use of the bonus buy option — clearly if your bankroll allows it. We do recommend all of our readers to make moderate use of this feature.

Payout Metrics

When it comes to return to player rate, the African Elephant RTP is set at 96.04%. Right above the 96% online pokies average, Pragmatic Play have also produced two other versions of 95.1% and 94.03% which may be used at some online pokies websites in New Zealand. We therefore recommend you to check which RTP you’re playing with which can normally be determined in the game’s paytable. The variance of the game is labelled as high (4.5 out of 5) whilst the max win probably is 1 in 11.494.253. In terms of this payout potential, the African Elephant pokie can serve up top wins of 15,000x the total stake. This can be won in the Free Spins feature which is what should be the focus of attention.

Summary

Taking place in the African savanna, the African Elephant pokie follows many other games with a safari theme. From a visual perspective, African Elephant is really nothing out of this world but it’s very well crafted with plenty of detail in the symbols and various backgrounds. As for the gameplay, it is rather simple what you will get. Randomly on base game spins, shapes appear on the reels which then transform into Elephant Wilds. These can be a couple of random positions. In the free spins feature, the Wild Shape feature is in play on every free spin. The bigger wins will naturally come here as a result.

With the African Elephant pokie boasting 15,000x stake max wins, this can only be won in the Free Spins feature. With 20 paylines, a screen full of Elephant Wilds will result in a 1,500x stake payout. The key to the top wins is to get the wins with Elephant Wilds in the free spins, and make sure there are heaps of them.

Being a high volatile game, African Elephant was a bit frustrating and this is not the only worrying part of this game. Pragmatic Play continues to be popular amongst online casinos and they think they can permit making mediocre pokie games. Our thoughts are that the same thing will happen to Pragmatic what happened to NetEnt in 2019-2020; casinos will become less willing to add the games by Pragmatic as other studios like Nolimit City and Hacksaw Gaming step into the space left by providers who get too lazy.