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Thunderkick has always had a knack for taking standard slot mechanics and giving them a weird, slightly volatile twist. With Shark Park, due on 13 November 2026, they’re tackling the cluster-pays genre on a 45-cell hexagonal grid.
On paper, it sounds like a blast: cascading wins, roaming multiplier wilds, and a massive 10,000x max win potential. But in play, Shark Park is a game of extreme highs and frustrating lows.
The Hexagonal Grid: A Double-Edged Sword
To get a win here, you need five matching symbols touching anywhere on the hex grid. When you do, it triggers a cascade, but with a major twist. Instead of just popping the winning cluster, the game wipes every symbol of that kind off the entire board.
It’s an awesome visual, but mechanically? It’s a double-edged sword. Because it clears so much space at once, the board often drops in too sparse to keep a chain reaction going. Over about thirty spins, my best base-game cascade lasted just four steps and paid out a measly 3.3x. If you’re used to the endless tumbling chains of games like Reactoonz, you’ll need to adjust your expectations here.
The Shark Wilds: Multiply Before They Merge!
The real chase in Shark Park revolves entirely around the multiplier wilds. After any winning cluster that doesn’t already have one, a shark spawns carrying a multiplier of x2, x3, x5, or the elusive x100. It then roams the board for the rest of the cascades.
Thunderkick implemented a really clever dual-rule system for these wilds:
- Inside a win (multiplying): If two sharks end up inside the same winning cluster, their values multiply. An x3 and an x5 will boost that specific win by x15.
- After the win (adding): After that win pays out, those sharks move to empty cells and fuse together. Their values add, meaning your x3 and x5 become a single x8 roaming wild for the next drop.
This creates a brilliant dynamic. You are constantly rooting for multiple sharks to share a cluster before they fuse, because multiplying them is always more lucrative than adding them.
A Brutal Base Game, But a Solid Bonus
I have to be fair: the base game can be a grind. The RTP sits at a rather low 94.14%, and the hex grid can be unforgiving. Because symbols have to touch on specific angles, you can land a ton of premium symbols without seeing a dime. In one agonizing spin, I landed ten Lifeguards (the top premium that pays 200x for a max cluster), but because five of them weren’t touching, it was a dead spin. Ouch.
Thankfully, the Free Spins round is where the game comes alive. You need three scatters to trigger 8 Free Spins, and they can accumulate during a cascade. Any sharks on the board when the bonus triggers carry over, and crucially, they become sticky/roaming for the entire feature. They still merge, but they don’t reset between spins.
In my natural bonus trigger, an x3 and an x2 carried over, eventually merging into an x8 that saved my final two spins. The round paid out 24.8x, not a mega win by any stretch, but it perfectly showcased how the multipliers can snowball if you get a good setup early on.
Bonus Buys & The 10,000x Chase
If you’re in a jurisdiction that allows it, Thunderkick offers three bonus buys. They are steep, but they show exactly where the game’s potential lies:
- 80x, Into The Blue: the plain Bonus Game (no guaranteed starting sharks).
- 200x, Beneath The Surface: starts with one guaranteed x2, x3, or x5 shark.
- 500x, Blood In The Water: starts with the massive x100 shark already on the board.
(There are also Bet+ Bonus Boost at 1.5x and Bet+ Bonus Boost Plus at 2.5x the bet, which make a natural trigger more likely.)
It’s impossible not to compare this to Pragmatic Play’s Sugar Rush. But where Sugar Rush ties its multiplier accumulation to static spots on the grid, Shark Park ties it to these roaming, cannibalistic wilds. It feels much more unpredictable.
Should you play it? If you have the patience for a volatile, sometimes frustrating base game and love the thrill of roaming multipliers, Shark Park is a highly original take on the cluster-pays formula. Just keep an eye on your bankroll, because those sharks can take a bite out of your balance while you wait for the feature to hit.
