Book of Monsters

Book of Monsters Review

Pragmatic Play has never been shy about revisiting a winning formula, and Book of Monsters is perhaps the boldest iteration of their explorer-meets-ancient-tome concept yet. Released in 2025, this title stretches the familiar Book of framework across a seven-reel grid and promises a max win of 5,000x your stake. Whether that expansion feels like genuine innovation or simply a reskin with extra columns depends heavily on your patience and your bankroll. This review breaks down exactly what Canadian players, including those spinning in Ontario, can expect from this high-volatility adventure.

Theme and Presentation

As the name suggests, Book of Monsters leans into a dark, creature-filled adventure aesthetic. The visual direction trades the sandy Egyptian corridors of classic Book titles for something with a more gothic, monster-hunter energy. Symbols are suitably dramatic, and the expanded seven-reel canvas gives the studio room to animate things more ambitiously than a standard five-reel setup allows. The audio design follows the genre template: swelling orchestral cues during free spins, tense ambient sounds in the base game. It is competent and atmospheric without being particularly groundbreaking, but fans of the broader adventure-slot category will feel immediately at home.

Base Game Gameplay

The shift to seven reels is the defining structural choice here and it changes the base game experience in meaningful ways. A wider grid means more potential payline combinations and a more visually dramatic spin, but it also means that landing impactful clusters or aligned symbols in the base game feels like a rarer event. Between bonus triggers, players will find themselves grinding through a steady sequence of modest wins and near-misses. High-volatility slots of this type are built to test resolve, and Book of Monsters makes no apologies for that. If you are expecting frequent small payouts to keep your session feeling active, this is not the game for you.

Bonus Features

The core feature in Book of Monsters is the Free Spins round, triggered by landing the Book scatter symbol across the reels. Once activated, a special expanding symbol is chosen at random, and that symbol can stretch to fill entire reels during the free spins sequence. This mechanic is directly inherited from the classic Book of Dead blueprint, and it remains effective precisely because it is so volatile. A single lucky expanding symbol landing across multiple reels on a seven-reel grid can produce enormous returns. The 5,000x max win lives inside this feature almost exclusively.

The challenge is getting there. The scatter trigger on a seven-reel grid can feel stubbornly elusive in practice, and session variance can be brutal. Ontario players should also note that a bonus buy option is not available under that province's regulated iGaming framework, meaning every entry into free spins must be earned through natural gameplay. That adds time and cost to chasing the headline potential.

RTP, Volatility, and Transparency

Book of Monsters carries a published RTP of 95.50 percent. That figure sits below the broadly accepted standard of 96 percent and below several competing titles in the same genre. Combined with high volatility, this creates a combination where losing sessions can be both frequent and deep. Players should calibrate their session budgets accordingly. Pragmatic Play publishes these figures openly, which is appreciated, but the numbers themselves are not in the game's favour compared to elite alternatives. Canadian players who prioritise value in RTP will find better options on the market.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The seven-reel grid is a genuine differentiator and gives Book of Monsters a visual scale that the standard five-reel Book clones simply cannot match. The 5,000x max win is competitive, and the free spins mechanic, though borrowed, works well on the larger canvas. For players who already love the Book of Dead style of play, the familiar structure lowers the learning curve to zero.

On the other side, the 95.50 percent RTP is a real concern for anyone playing regularly. High volatility is not inherently a flaw, but paired with a below-average return rate and an elusive bonus trigger, it creates a challenging environment for casual players. The absence of a bonus buy in Ontario removes one of the tools that experienced high-volatility players typically rely on to manage variance. Book of Monsters is a polarising proposition: potentially thrilling in a lucky session, and genuinely punishing in an unlucky one.

Final Thoughts

Book of Monsters is a competent and visually ambitious expansion of a well-worn concept. Pragmatic Play knows exactly what they are building here, and players who enjoy high-risk, high-reward adventure slots will find enough to like. However, the below-average RTP and the absence of a bonus buy option for Ontario players are real drawbacks that prevent this from reaching the upper tier of the genre. Approach it with a healthy bankroll and tempered expectations.