Wanted Dead or a Wild is the game that made many players notice Hacksaw Gaming. It arrived in 2021 with a gritty western look, a 5x5 layout and a feature that turns a single symbol into a reel-high wild carrying a multiplier. It also arrived with volatility so extreme that its reputation among players splits neatly in two: people who love it, and people who played it once.
This page is for anyone deciding which group they will belong to.
Layout and Base Game
The game uses five reels and five rows, with 15 fixed paylines. Standard symbols are card royals and gunslinger portraits. Most base-game spins either lose or return a fraction of the stake. That is by design: almost all of the game's value is concentrated in its special symbols and bonus modes.
The Duel: How VS Symbols Work
The signature feature is the VS symbol. When it lands, it expands to cover its entire reel, two gunslingers fight, and the reel becomes a wild with a multiplier between 2x and 100x. If more than one VS reel is active in a winning combination, their multipliers combine.
In practice, a single VS reel on a modest line win produces a pleasant result. Two or three VS reels with large values on a line that includes premium symbols produce the results you see in clips. The gap between those two outcomes is what "extreme volatility" means here.
Three Bonus Modes
The game has three bonus rounds of increasing volatility, triggered by different scatter combinations and, where the casino allows it, available to buy. Each one changes how VS symbols and wilds behave, from a round where duels are simply more frequent to modes where wilds stick or carry their multipliers forward. The in-game rules describe each mode in detail, and we recommend reading them once: knowing what each round is designed to do makes it easier to decide whether its price is worth paying.
The honest summary: the most volatile mode is priced for players who accept that most purchases will return less than they cost, in exchange for a small chance of a very large result.
Published Figures
| Item | Wanted Dead or a Wild |
|---|---|
| Studio | Hacksaw Gaming |
| Release | 2021 |
| Layout | 5 x 5, 15 paylines |
| Default RTP | 96.38% |
| Maximum win | 12,500x the bet |
| Volatility | Very high (Hacksaw's top rating) |
As with most studios today, lower-RTP configurations may be offered to operators. The information screen inside the game shows the build you are playing.
Sizing a Session on an Extreme Game
Standard advice about "a few hundred spins" undersells how swingy this title is. We use two rules instead.
- Pick the stake from the budget, not the other way round. Divide your budget by 400 and treat the answer as your maximum stake. With 40 units, that is 0.10.
- Decide in advance what a bonus buy costs you as a share of the budget. Buys on this game are priced in the tens or hundreds of times the stake depending on the mode. If one buy is more than a quarter of the budget, it is not a session any more, it is a single bet.
A worked example: with 40 units at 0.10 per spin, you have about 400 spins, and the long-run cost of that turnover at 96.38% is roughly 1.45 units. Variance will make the real result very different, but at that stake you have a realistic chance of seeing the VS feature several times before the budget runs out. At 0.50 per spin you have 80 spins, and on this game 80 spins is often nothing at all.
If the casino offers a demo, use it. Few games benefit more from a free trial, because the base game's silence is something you need to experience before you pay for it.
Where to Find High-Volatility Games Like This
Extreme-volatility slots from newer studios are now common in large lobbies. You'll find this type of game at the five casinos below. Search for the title to see whether it is offered in your country, and check the information screen for the RTP build. The welcome code goes in the cashier before your first deposit.
