Break Away

Break Away launched in 2012 as Microgaming's dedicated ice hockey slot. The theme is lived-in rather than cartoonish — hockey players, referees, goalkeepers, ice resurfacers and arena imagery fill the reels on a 5×4 grid with 243 ways to win.

The Break Away symbol is the game's headline feature. When it appears, it fires diagonally across the screen and can land simultaneously on multiple adjacent reels, filling them with identical Break Away wilds. This can produce rows of wilds across a large portion of the 5×4 grid in one trigger. The puck is the scatter: three or more trigger free spins with stacked symbols in play.

The 5×4 reel format (rather than the standard 5×3) gives more symbol positions per spin, which increases the likelihood of adjacent matches and makes stacked symbols more impactful. At medium volatility, Break Away pays frequently enough to sustain sessions while still having meaningful swing potential in free spins.

Genre context

Hockey-themed slots are rare — the genre is dominated by fantasy, ancient civilisations and fruit themes. Break Away has a near-monopoly on the format among mainstream Ontario operators, which gives it an audience among hockey fans who want thematic alignment with their hobby. It has held its place in operator lobbies for more than a decade without a sequel.