Studio profile

Microgaming

The studio that wrote the first rulebook

A studio whose releases from 2004 through 2026 all sit in one library, which makes it an unusually direct way to see how the slot format itself changed.

Microgaming is one of the longest-running names in online slot development, and its catalogue reads like a timeline of the format itself — from plain three-reel machines through ways-pay grids to today's cascading and Maxways boards. Because the same design language carries across decades of releases, it is an unusually good place to see what changed and what never did.

146Slot guides

58Live dealer tables

2004–2026Release years covered

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Reading the catalogue

The catalogue at a glance

Reelwise lists 203 Microgaming entries: 145 slots and 58 live dealer tables. By format, 71 slots are filed as fixed paylines, 44 as ways-to-win, 14 as cluster pays, 9 as standard video slots, 4 as Link & Merge, 2 as Maxways and 1 as cascading reels. The standard group is a data effect: those entries come with a format line too general to place in a narrower family, which says nothing about how plain the game itself is.

91 of the 145 slots carry a release date, running from 2004 to 2026. The spread is uneven. There are 7 dated slots from 2023, 30 from 2024 and 27 from 2025, with 9 more so far in 2026, against single figures for every year before 2023. The library is old at the root and weighted heavily toward recent releases.

RTP is published for 132 slots, with a middle value of 96.15% and a range from 91.89% to 97.49%. A volatility word is given for all 145 slots: High is the most common grade (57), followed by Very high (39), Medium (29), Low (9) and Medium-high (7), and two slots each are labelled High / Very High and Medium to High.

What Microgaming publishes, and what it leaves out

The Microgaming records on this site join two studio sources: an asset library that supplies artwork and titles, and a customer catalogue that supplies the figures, namely RTP, a volatility word, bet limits and a demo. A game that appears only in the first source arrives with its art and name but without numbers, and its page says so rather than filling the gap.

The thinnest field is the win cap. Only 52 of the 145 slots state a maximum win, which is why Microgaming pages lean on RTP and volatility instead of a headline multiplier. Where a cap is given it can be large, as with the 50,000x on K-POP Hunter Zeus, but its absence on the other 93 is a publishing gap, not a hint that those games cap low.

The volatility scale also has in-between steps that most studios here do not use. Medium-high, Medium to High and High / Very High appear on eleven slots between them. Read them as the studio's own finer grading rather than rounding them to the nearest whole word.

Format history in named titles

The Thunderstruck line is the cleanest way to watch ways-pay arrive. Thunderstruck, dated 2012 in this catalogue, pays on 9 fixed lines; Thunderstruck II (2013) moves to 243 ways; Thunderstruck Stormchaser (2022) widens that to 1024 ways. Same theme, same studio, three different answers to what counts as a winning line.

Maxways is the studio's own variable board. Merlin's Secret Maxways and Queen of Cairo: Royal Maxways are the two titles filed under that family, and Queen of Cairo also exists as a standard video slot, so that pair shows one theme before and after the board changes.

Link & Merge is the family to read last. Luna Princess Link&Merge, Almighty Zeus Wild Link & Merge, Break Away Candy Link & Merge and 123 Soccer carry it, and each rules screen explains the board feature in its own terms. The single cascading entry, K-POP Hunter Zeus on a 6 by 5 grid with cascading ways, is the newest structure in the set.

Series you can follow

Break Away is the longest Microgaming series here, with five entries. Break Away (2015) uses 243 ways; Break Away Deluxe offers 18, 38, 68 or 88 lines; Break Away Gold uses 20 lines; Break Away Max runs on 117,649 ways; Break Away Candy Link & Merge moves to a Link & Merge board. Reading them in order is a short course in how a studio re-engineers one theme.

Lucky Twins has four entries, and it is the better series for seeing one theme carried across different mechanics. The list includes Lucky Twins Wilds, Lucky Twins Wilds Jackpots, Lucky Twins PowerClusters and Lucky Twins 5X 4Tune Reels.

Smaller runs are worth a look too. Almighty Zeus has three titles, including a cluster-pays version and a Link & Merge version, and Queen of Cairo has the standard and Maxways versions mentioned above.

Live tables, and how to read the labels

Microgaming is the largest live dealer source on the site: 58 tables, against 27 from Pragmatic Play and 6 from Evolution. Baccarat accounts for 23 of them, blackjack 19 and roulette 12, and the remaining four are split between card tables, a game show and casino hold'em. Four are Korean All-In Baccarat tables.

Live tables show the label Table game where a slot would show volatility. A dealer-run table has no volatility grade in the same sense, so the site does not borrow one for it.

For slots, read the volatility word next to the RTP and the format family, not on its own. A High grade on a 9-line game and a High grade on a 117,649-ways board describe very different boards under the same word, and that is the main lesson this catalogue teaches.

Landmark titles

Reference games for understanding this studio.