Thunderstruck II is Microgaming’s Norse mythology slot from May 2010, now part of Games Global. It plays 243 ways and its Great Hall of Spins has four bonus levels, Valkyrie, Loki, Odin and Thor, that open the more often you enter, while Wildstorm can strike at random and turn all five reels wild. It returns 96.65% with an 8,000x maximum. The free demo below is a similar Norse pokie, no download.
The Thunderstruck II slot runs on five reels and three rows with 243 fixed ways to win, paying left to right on adjacent reels from reel 1. The bet is a fixed 30 coins times a bet level of 1 to 10, and with coin values of 1 to 5 cents a spin costs from 30 cents to $15; some sources quote a $60 top stake. The standard return to player is 96.65%, and one database says most UK sites run a 94.13% version, which you can check through the game’s Help link rather than the paytable. Most sources rate the volatility medium, one medium-high and one high. One review site puts the hit frequency at 32.62%, roughly a win every three spins. The published maximum is 8,000 times the total bet, which is $120,000 at a $15 stake.
Thunderstruck II Pokies Characteristics
Three or more matching symbols on adjacent reels make a win, only the highest win on each way is paid, and no regular symbol pays for two of a kind. The Thunderstruck II logo is the wild. It stands in for everything except the scatter, doubles any win it helps form and pays 1,000 coins for five on its own. Thor’s hammer is the scatter, which pays anywhere and opens the Great Hall of Spins when three or more land.
There is no gamble, no bonus buy and no jackpot in Thunderstruck II itself. Apart from the scatter, the only base-game feature is Wildstorm, which needs no trigger symbol.
Figures are five-of-a-kind pays on one way, in coins at the 30-coin stake; divide by 30 for multiples of the total bet.
Three and four of a kind pay less; only one review site lists those amounts. The hammer pays anywhere: 1x the total bet for two, 2x for three, 20x for four and 200x for five, the biggest single entry in the table. Five wilds on one way are worth 33.33 times the bet. Immortal Romance, which we also review, uses almost the same table: its characters and mid symbols pay what the gods and mid symbols pay here, though its wild pays 1,500 coins for five.
Three, four or five hammers anywhere pay their scatter prize and open the Great Hall of Spins. A progress bar above the reels counts your entries: Valkyrie is open from the first, Loki from the fifth (one database says after nine), Odin from the tenth and Thor from the fifteenth. Progress is saved, and you choose among the unlocked gods each time the Hall triggers.
No source describes retriggers for Odin or Thor. Valkyrie’s flat 5x is the steadiest level and stays a sensible pick after the others open; Odin and Thor depend on ravens or rolling chains landing.
Wildstorm can strike on any base-game spin, with no trigger symbol: lightning hits one to five reels and turns each of them fully wild for a single free respin. One review site adds that the ordinary wild and scatter are inactive while it runs and that free spins cannot trigger on that spin. No source says how often it strikes. Five wild reels is the game’s top result, published as 8,000 times the bet; 243 ways at the 1,000-coin five-wild prize comes to 8,100x, so the published figure looks rounded.
At 96.65% the game keeps about 3.35 cents of every dollar bet over the long run; the 94.13% version keeps nearly 6 cents, so the Help screen is worth checking first. Medium volatility in most ratings and a win on about one spin in three keep the base game ticking over; the Great Hall and Wildstorm decide whether a session ends up or down.
At the 30-cent minimum, $30 buys 100 spins, about a third of which should pay something, and the long-run cost of those spins is about $1, though one session can land far from that average. At $1.50 a spin the same $30 lasts 20 spins. How often the Hall triggers is not published, so reaching Thor is a long project at any stake.
The original Thunderstruck is a 9-line game from 2004 (one spec table says 2003) in which Thor is a wild that doubles wins and rams award 15 free spins at 3x; it returns 96.10% (one page says 96.01%) and pays up to 3,333x. Thunderstruck II itself reached iOS and Android in February 2013 and was rebuilt in HTML5 as Thunderstruck II Remastered in December 2020; no source describes a change to the maths.
Thunderstruck II Mega Moolah (May 2022) is the same game, Wildstorm and Great Hall included, with the four-tier Mega Moolah progressive added; its top prize seeds at $1,000,000 and the return drops to 92.01%. Later titles come from Stormcraft Studios: Thunderstruck Wild Lightning (July 2021, though one site says 2020) with Link & Win respins, Stormchaser (November 2022) with 1,024 ways and a 50x bonus buy, Gold Blitz Extreme (October 2024) with four jackpots on a 6×4 grid, and Stormblitz (February 2026), which grows from 5×3 to 5×5 in its bonus.
The setting is Norse mythology in greys and sky blues. The four gods are the premium symbols, above Valhalla, a Viking longship and royals from nine to ace. Wildstorm plays out as lightning striking the reels, and the bonus is staged as a hall of four gods. The graphics are 3D, and one slot database’s listed downside is that they could have been better; the appeal has always been the structure. Since the HTML5 rebuild it runs in mobile browsers, in portrait mode too.
No source mentions a Thunderstruck II pokie machine in Australian pubs, clubs or casinos; it is an online game. Online pokies are not licensed in Australia, so playing Thunderstruck II online means an offshore casino that accepts Australians. One slot database’s Australian page lists it at 60 of the 161 casinos it scanned, a third-party count rather than a lobby check, and we could not confirm it at any specific casino, so availability varies and a lobby search is the way to check; pick the plain Thunderstruck II tile, not the 92.01% Mega Moolah version. We found no official free demo from Games Global, but several review sites host a Thunderstruck II demo, one of them behind an age check.
Thunderstruck II has lasted because the Great Hall gives every session a goal, and the four levels play differently enough for the choice to matter. At 96.65% with medium volatility in most ratings it is a fair, even-tempered pokie, with Wildstorm as the occasional jolt. It suits players who like progression and will stick with one game. It does not suit anyone after a bonus buy, the large multipliers of newer pokies or a jackpot; the Mega Moolah version adds one, at a much lower return. The one thing to check is the RTP in the Help screen, since a 94.13% version exists.
96.65% in the standard version. One database says most UK sites run a 94.13% version; the game’s Help screen shows which applies.
Land three or more Thor’s hammers anywhere to enter the Great Hall of Spins. Valkyrie is open from the first entry, Loki from the fifth, Odin from the tenth and Thor from the fifteenth, and progress is saved.
8,000 times the total bet, from Wildstorm turning all five reels wild, which is $120,000 at a $15 stake.
It strikes at random on a base-game spin, with no trigger symbol, and turns one to five reels fully wild for one respin.
Not at an Australian-licensed site, since online pokies are not licensed here. One database lists it at 60 of the 161 offshore casinos it scanned for Australia, so search the lobby first.
The original has 9 lines and a single round of 15 free spins at 3x, with a 96.10% return and a 3,333x maximum. Thunderstruck II moved to 243 ways, added Wildstorm and the four-level Great Hall, and raised the published maximum to 8,000x.
