Lost Relics™ Slot Review – Free Play by NetEnt

Lost Relics™ Slot Facts

The Lost Relics slot from NetEnt spins on a 5x5 grid using the Cluster Pays mechanic, with a max payout of 900 times the stake in this 2018 release. Ancient ruins and a mysterious excavation mechanism frame a game built around clustering matching symbols rather than counting paylines, with a stack of random features hidden inside every winning cluster. It is a dense, feature-rich title that rewards close attention to what triggers under the surface.

Medium volatility and a 20% hit frequency give this a fairly balanced pace. The free demo on this page is a good way to see how the Extra Wild, Coin Win and Extra Scatter boosts actually surface during play.

Lost Relics Theme & Design

Lost Relics sets its scene among ancient ruins, framed around the idea of an excavation mechanism waiting to be uncovered. Rather than traditional reel symbols lining up across paylines, the whole 5x5 grid works on clusters of adjacent matching icons, giving the theme a literal dig-site feel where treasures sit hidden beneath the surface until enough matching pieces group together. Scatter symbols act as the key that reveals what lies underneath, tying the ancient-ruins framing directly to the mechanical trigger for the game’s biggest round. The random features hidden under winning clusters reinforce that treasure-hunting concept, since players never know in advance which symbols in a cluster might be hiding something extra.

How Lost Relics Plays

Every spin on the 5x5 grid pays out through the Cluster Pays mechanic, meaning six or more matching icons touching edge to edge, whether stacked in a column or lined up in a row, form a paying group, and separate groups of the same icon that never touch each other still cash out on their own. Whenever a cluster wins, the game can layer in as many as five separate random boosts pulled from three possible pools before settling the payout: a coin prize worth 3x to 30x the stake, a trio of fresh Wild icons dropped onto open spots away from the cluster, or an additional Scatter icon pulled straight out of the winning group itself. Gathering three Scatter icons, whether they land naturally across reels one, three and five or arrive through that scatter-adding boost, opens 10 Free Spins, where a hidden chest sits buried beneath the grid and slowly gets uncovered as winning clusters clear away the spaces on top of it. Fully uncovering a chest hands out some mix of a lingering Wild, a coin prize, or extra spins tacked onto the round, and it is this chest-hunting layer stacked on top of the random main-game boosts that drives Lost Relics’ win potential.

RTP, Volatility & Win Potential

Lost Relics pays out at 96.3%, running slightly ahead of the industry average of around 96%, solid for a Cluster Pays title with this much random-feature depth. Medium volatility suggests a moderate bankroll experience without extreme swings, while the 20% hit frequency shows winning clusters land on roughly one in five spins, a pace that fits the density of features stacked into each win. The 900x maximum payout reflects a game built more around frequent, feature-layered wins during Free Spins and the Hidden Chest than around one single explosive multiplier.

Our Verdict on Lost Relics

This Lost Relics slot review works well for players who enjoy dense, mechanically layered slots where a single winning cluster can trigger several different random features at once. The Hidden Chest mechanic during Free Spins gives genuine reason to keep playing toward uncovering a chest rather than just watching a flat spin counter. The tradeoff is a fairly modest 900x ceiling, meaning big single-spin scores are less likely here than the frequent, feature-stacked wins the Medium volatility and 20% hit frequency are built around; the free demo on this page is worth trying to see that stacking in action.

Lost Relics™ RTP, Payout & Specs

Lost Relics™ Bonus Features & How They Work

Cluster Pays™

A group of matching icons forms a cluster whenever they touch edge to edge, stacked in a column or side by side in a row, and only groups reaching six members or bigger pay anything. When the same icon forms two or more separate groups that don’t physically touch, each one is treated as its own cluster and cashes out on its own rather than merging into a single total.

Random Features

Landing a winning cluster opens the door for the game to layer in as many as five separate random boosts, drawn from three possible pools, right before the round settles its payout: a coin bonus, a set of extra Wilds, or a bonus Scatter icon. Whichever of these show up get tucked randomly beneath the icons that make up the winning cluster, adding a layer of surprise on top of the base payout.

Coin Win Feature

When this triggers, one icon inside the winning cluster reveals a cash bonus worth 3x to 30x the stake, stacked on top of whatever that cluster already paid. The icon revealing the bonus keeps its place in the cluster, so the payout adds on rather than replacing the original win.

Extra Wild Feature

Triggering this drops three fresh Wild icons onto open spots on the grid, steering clear of the cluster that set it off and any Scatter or Wild already sitting there. Those added Wilds can stand in for any symbol besides Scatters and may count toward more than one cluster at once, with as many as 15 able to build up on the grid across repeated triggers.

Extra Scatter Feature

This hands out a bonus Scatter icon pulled straight from a winning cluster, counting it toward the total needed to open Free Spins. Only three Scatter icons can ever count altogether between natural landings and this bonus, and once that ceiling is hit the effect stops triggering.

Free Spins

Gathering three Scatter icons, landing anywhere across reels one, three and five during a regular round, opens 10 bonus rounds that keep the wager and coin size unchanged from whatever triggered them. Any win racked up across those rounds gets folded into the result from the spin that opened them.

Hidden Chest Feature

Found only inside Free Spins, this buries a chest of one of three sizes beneath a set of covered spots on the grid. Winning clusters slowly clear those spots away, and once the whole chest is uncovered it hands out some blend of a Wild that lingers for the rest of the round, a cash bonus worth 1x to 30x the stake, or bonus spins tacked onto the count, before a fresh chest gets buried and the cycle starts again.

Lost Relics™ FAQ