Could Microgaming's Fortress Charge slot offer a glimpse at the future?

A little while back, Microgaming released the Crazy Tooth Studio produced Fortress Charge slot game and it is fair to say that in doing so, the game opened people's eyes as to what could well be possible for the future of slot gaming going forward.

While Fortress Charge does indeed have reels that spin and symbols on those reels, the actual mechanics of how the game plays and pays out is very different. On a standard slot, it is a case of matching symbols of the same type, or with Wild symbols, in order to trigger wins. On Fortress Charge, it is about landing a hero and enough weaponry, or other beneficial symbols, on the middle four reels, in order for them to vanquish foes on their way to the Fortress and the cash prize it holds.

With Fortress Charge, a player earns a payout in a number of ways, if they vanquish a villain, then they win a cash prize, similarly if they move onto a spot with a treasure chest, they win a cash prize. They can also pick up a 2x multiplier to double the value of any wins on a quest. That is very different to the standard slot win by matching symbols and it sounds rather more exciting.

However, Fortress Charge is not the first 'slot' game that doesn't really fit the template of a standard slot. There have been numerous games released over the years that have tried something different, to varying degrees of success.

Unusual slot games

You only have to think back to January 2020 to discover a slot game that isn't anything like a slot game with the release of The Incredible Balloon Machine. This simple game, of inflating balloons so that they don't burst but offer you a win, was as far removed from a slot game as you could get, but still offered players a chance to click a button to land a win.

An equally unusual slot that is not a slot was the Poke the Guy slot which was released back in 2017 and which featured a gorilla rampaging around a land which you have to stop by catapulting a variety of objects at him. Hit the gorilla with the item in your catapult and you can win a cash prize and you can change the item you catapult to increase or decrease the value of your bet on the spin.

Another type of slot game from the recent past that offers a different type of game was Astro Legends: Lyra and Erion, which was released in 2018 and which used a cluster pays method of calculating wins, rather than having standard reels. Players landed larger cash prizes for the greater number of the same symbols they landed together in a cluster. This particular form of modified slot has been around for several years and has grown in popularity thanks to its similarity to popular social media games like Candy Crush Saga.

We have also seen the Reel Splitter slot, which has the special feature of seeing its original four reels increase to a much larger number once the Reel Splitter bonus is triggered in the game. Games such as Attack on Retro, African Quest, Break Da Bank Again Respins, Lucky Riches, and Book of Oz slots all have the Hyperspins feature, which allows players to spin one individual reel, for a set cost, to try and land a win or trigger a bonus.

The Castle Builder series of slots, of which there are now two, allows you to play a pretty standard slot, but in addition to winning cash you can collect items to help build a castle to progress through the game and earn a variety of awards.

Perhaps the most ambitious game was the Max Damage and the Alien Attack which combined the values of a shoot-em up, Space Invader type game, with a slot to offer punters a chance to play a game that was radically different to any slot you could find at that time.

So as you can see, Fortress Charge is following in a long line of games that offer something very different to your standard type of slot, so why could this game be the one that becomes the most successful crossover type of game?

Why is Fortress Charge different?

If there is one thing about Fortress Charge that I think stands it in good stead compared to a number of the games we have outlined above, it is that it still contains a strong slots element in the game. You have to spin the reels to generate the Fortress cash prizes, the four middle reels and what appears on them and of course, whether you land a hero on the first reel.

It is true that the games from the long list above of unusual 'slots' that have enjoyed the most success do still tend to have a strong element of a slot game within them. The cluster pays slots and the Hyperspins games for example, all have done pretty well, whereas some of the other games haven't really caught the imagination of slot players.

That could well be because slot players are conditioned to the 'reels and symbols' set up of a modern slot. If that is the case, then a game like Fortress Charge, which still has spinning the reels at the heart of the game, is likely to be a hit.

The importance of a Quest Element

Another key factor in why Fortress Charge could be a significant development in the future of slot gaming is the inclusion of a quest element in the game. Games that have just such an element, be that the unlocking of additional bonus rounds as in the massively popular Thunderstruck II and Immortal Romance slots, or the building of castles in the Castle Builder slot, all tend to appeal to players a bit more.

That is because players have more to focus on than simply whether their session, or each spin, is a winner or loser. In amongst that, there is the other quest element that drives players on.

Fortress Charge also has the quest element in a much more obvious form. Every successful quest you have will either see you win cash, or lose. You could make it all the way to the Fortress to claim the biggest possible win for your hero. That quest element alone will add a huge amount of appeal to the game as it has certainly done so when used in the past.

Could we see a Fortress Charge-type progressive?

One of the more intriguing prospects is whether we could see a progressive jackpot linked to a game like Fortress Charge. We already know that Microgaming has a number of different games that have progressive jackpots, including roulette and card games, as well as their famous slots, the original Mega Moolah (including its newer versions Atlantean Treasures, Mega Vault Millionaire and Absolootly Mad) and the Wheel of Wishes slot with its 2 million seeded top jackpot prize.

On the face of it, it would be relatively simple to tack on a progressive jackpot to a game like Fortress Charge as it has been done on games other than standard slots before. The question is whether it would be popular with customers.

It may well be that which decides how Microgaming go about designing their progressive jackpot games of the future to complement their long-standing and still massively popular titles.

Is Fortress Charge an indication of the future of slots?

In a way, I think the Fortress Charge slot and its innovative game play is an indicator of the variety of games that could be devised that still uses a set number of reels and symbols as their basis. As we have seen, there is no requirement for slots to have matching symbols all the time.

However, the driving factor in any decision as to what the slots of the future will look like will of course be their popularity. If people flock to play Fortress Charge in their droves, you can bet Microgaming (and many more companies besides) will be quick to bring them more games on the same lines.

That said, love for slot games is so strong among casino fans that traditional slot games are going nowhere as yet, but in the future you may well see a more diverse range of slot-type games you can play alongside these traditional offerings.

And that is good news for everyone involved in the slots industry. As always we at MegaMoolah.com will bring our readers the relevant news about new innovative casino games.