How Nolimit City Have Pushed The Boundaries To Achieve Success

Introduction

If you like your slots play fast paced, unpredictable and fun, with a healthy dose of irreverent humour, then there is only one slot studio whose games truly fit the bill – Sweden’s Nolimit City. Their extraordinary rise from bolshy upstart in 2016 to a valuation of €340 million and acquisition by Evolution Gaming in August 2022, was powered by an approach to the slots industry unlike any seen before. They’ve pushed boundaries in every area from themes and style to features and maths models and as a result their games are now on slot sites everywhere.

For those wanting to learn a bit more about the studio and where to get started with their catalogue of around 100 games (and counting) here we pick some highlights that show them at their creative best.

Adult Themes And Irreverent Humour

In interview, Per Lindheimer, Head of Product at NLC has said that ‘The slot industry is 18+ for a reason, so why can’t the themes also be more towards the more mature and controversial side?’ That belief appears to underpin the creative process in every new slot they make with games that are always whacky and often built to shock.

Early releases showed a company that was willing to break from traditional themes and formats, but it wasn’t until around 2022 that they really started to find their feet. Now, emboldened by success, NLC rarely release a game that doesn’t make you double-take at first look.

They’ve gone to places no-one else would dare go.

For the best shock-slot action you could try Kenneth Must Die (May 2024) with an S and M loving suburbanite whose fetishes inspire the game’s bonus features, like Kinky Hookup and Gimp Transformation. And if that kind of thing doesn’t float your boat then maybe take a spin on their dark historical slot, Remember Gulag (April 2022), which takes a trip back to the Soviet labour camps of the 1920s and 30s, featuring all manner of grotesque and authoritarian shenanigans. Or, spend some time with the Bodycam Butcher, the psycho killer in Serial (November 2022).

The list goes on … there are also fearsome monsters on desert islands in Beheaded, zombie rock stars including Hendrix and Cobain, in The Crypt, and demonic children in Possessed, to name just a few classics.

Huge Non-Progressive Jackpots, ‘Insane Volatility’ And Explosive Gameplay

It’s no coincidence that NLC’s rise to infamy has coincided with that of the slot streamers, those who live stream their slots play on Twitch channels. That kind of gambling requires big drama on the reels to keep your audience interested. Crazy win sequences that drop out of nowhere powered by inter-connected features are the name of the game. Where previously Big Time Gaming with their Megaways slots would have best to meet that requirement, now NLC games do it.

This studio has taken the size of non-progressive jackpots to a new level and done it on a regular basis. Their highest paying games include slots like Tombstone RIP (300,000x max win or $300,000 with a $1 stake), San Quentin 2 Death Row (200,000x), Deadwood RIP (100,000x) and Fire In The Hole 2 (65,000x).

Those big win possibilities are matched by sky high variance or volatility. This is the part of the games maths model that determines the distribution of payouts. High volatility games have a very uneven distribution which means you can be playing for a long time with little return before a run of big wins drops out of nowhere. It makes these slots more risky to play, and more dramatic too.

In fact, NLC slots are so volatile they had to invent two new levels of volatility to describe them! – ‘Extreme’, like Blood and Shadow 2 and Punk Rocker 2, and ‘Insane’ like Tombstone RIP and Beheaded. They can be notoriously tough to crack, but wild celebrations when the game’s magic moments finally unlock are what it’s all about.

Those twin factors of high max win and volatility are still more compelling when combined with the thrill of new and unusual features. And NLC games are absolutely stacked with those.

They are most famous for their xNudge Wilds and xWays. xNudge Wilds appear in games like Tombstone and El Paso Gunfight where stacks of wild symbols nudge up or down to fill an entire visible reel space, pushing up their win multiplier with each nudge. This creates powerful wild multiplier reels. xWays, found in slots like Infectious 5 xWays - are a type of splitting symbol – another common feature of NLC slots – that convert one symbol into a stack of the same symbol to increase the win ways in play.

These are just two of the many feature you’ll find if you start exploring the NLC catalogue. Others include xBombs, xPays and xSplits. On their own they are fun, but in combination, and with those sizeable jackpots to play for, they are simply electric.

A Carefully Cultivated Fan Base and a Bright Future

When NLC sold to Evolution Gaming there were concerns that losing their ‘independent’ status might mean blunting the edge that had made them so popular. Would a gambling giant like Evolution countenance the release of games featuring adult themes?

Well, those concerns appear to have been unfounded. In fact, if anything, the games just get more extreme and the studio’s fanbase gets more fanatical. This in part has been helped by re-invention of the Nolimit City website into a kind of fan page packed with information about all the games including live feeds of recent wins that update by the minute, information on what games are hot (paying out over average) and which are cold (paying out under average), and best of all, a Road Map which shows every game release to date with details of the max wins, volatility levels, Return to Player, stake ranges and features. You can also log in and leave comments about each slot, a feature that has helped to build a lively NLC community.

Now, browsing the road map for 2024 into 2025 and its promise of future hits like Dead, Dead or Deader, Tombstone Slaughter: El Gordo's Revenge and Duck Hunters, it looks like NLC will continue to push the boundaries of what an online slot looks and plays like.

So if you’re looking for some extra thrills with your slots play next time you log on, I really recommend giving some of the games in this article a try. You won’t be disappointed.

Tweet

Posted by kmorr906