Rabid Randy Dark Trails by NetEnt Launches on 14 October 2025

by Kevin Lentz, 13 October 2025

If you’ve been longing for a return to the dark forest as the nights begin to cool, good news, Rabid Randy makes a return on 14 October with a new Dark Trails adventure. The five-reel slot features Traps, Free Spins, Frame Mechanics and the NetEnt Elevate feature buys.

Rabid Randy goes hunting, with Active Hot Paws, Frame Traps and Elevate.

Rabid Randy Dark Trails in Brief:

• Release Date: 14 October 2025
• Type: Video Slot
• Theme: Western Horror/Mad Science
• Reels: 5
• Rows: 3-4-5-4-3
• Payout Rate: 96.13%
• Software Studio: NetEnt
• Special Features: Frame Traps/Hot Paw/Collect meter/Elevat Buy
• Volatility: Medium-High

All right, we know what you are thinking, rabid hunter stalks dark forest filled with even more rabid snarling beasts, setting traps, and generally causing mayhem. Where has this game been all my life?

If anything, the visuals and music only make a great premise even better, but we will get to that in a minute. The first thing we need to discuss is the innovative grid. It’s 5 reels across but in a diamond shape.

The top is three across, the next row is four, followed by five, then back down to four, then three again. Which is cool and seldom seen, but also seriously limits our win ways.

Game Play and Mechanics

You want to land the Pawsymbols, which place Frames on that reel. Every now and again, these paws will upgrade to Hot Paws, which converts your frames to Active Frames, which can turn into sticky Wilds. It gives a perception of trapping, lurking and being strategic to the base game that fits in nicely with the gameplay.

Collect Meter

This meter tracks the paw symbols collected off frame, then at 200 points collected, you can upgrade your Free Spin Multiplier. The more Active paws and hot paws collected, the better the upgrade.

Free Spins

Triggered by landing 3 Rabid Randy scatter symbols on reels 2-4, the free spins round takes you to Rand’s trophy room. You start with three spins. Landing a trophy symbol will reset those spins back to three.

Once you have either run out of free spins or managed to fill the grids, your total Trophy Values all combine together and are multiplied by the Free spins multiplier, with a 2x bonus should you manage to get the grids filled.

Elevate or Feature Buy

NetEnet has leaned heavily into the feature buy bonus in many new releases, and the Dark Trails version of Rabid Randy is no different. For a mere 25x, you can unlock the Free Spins round immediately, and for just 75x, you can get free spins with a 1 to 10x multiplier attached. It is a much faster, though slightly pricier way to jump straight into the action.

As with most NetEnt games, the new Rabid Randy features Elevate.

Theme and Visuals

Dark Forest, creepy, snarling beasts, fog-filled trees. It’s a horror, hunting mashup, with no clear delineation of who is hunting who.

From the run-down, decrepit woods to Randy’s silhouette, Net Ent has perfectly encapsulated the creepy, haunting sense of the best Hollywood slasher, which only serves to highlight each successful frame conversion or trap trigger.

Player Experience and Final Thoughts

From the trap mechanics, strategic collections and mix of buy-in options, Dark Trails is not your average casual, haunted spin’em game.

It builds tension, and offers great pacing, and while the max payout is a very low 1200x, it manages to keep the thrill level extremely high.

If you were a fan of the original or enjoy slow-burning trap-style slots, you will eat this up, pardon the pun. You can also explore the top online slot casinos to see some other horror themes from NetEnt.