Pirots 5

Quick verdict: the birds go underground, and the traps fight back

Pirots 5 is ELK Studios' fifth numbered chapter of the CollectR series, and it moves the four collector birds from the space setting of Pirots 4 into an ancient Egyptian temple. The core loop is unchanged: birds sit on a 6x6 grid, collect adjacent gems of their own colour, and every collection feeds progress that can widen the grid to 8x8. What is new is how often the temple itself intervenes. Arrow shooters, a rolling boulder and a rotating Secret Door all rearrange or remove birds mid-sequence, and one of them is the only route into the Cursed Temple coin game.

The headline number that matters to series followers is the RTP. The top version is 96%, up from the 94% default listed for earlier numbered entries. Max win stays at the series-standard 10,000x the bet. If you already understand Pirots, this is an iterative upgrade rather than a new engine: the same birds, the same collection logic and the same cap, with a new set of grid events layered on top. If you are new to CollectR, it is also one of the busiest slots on the market, so the rules below are worth reading before the first spin.

Pirots 5: key rules

How CollectR works on a temple floor

Pirots 5 has no paylines and no ways. Instead, four bird symbols in blue, green, purple and red are placed on the grid along with gems and feature symbols. The birds act in turn, and each one collects adjacent gems that match its own colour. The adjacency rule is strict: a bird can only collect symbols that are directly horizontally or vertically adjacent to it, so diagonals never count.

When a bird collects a gem, the bird moves onto that position and checks its new neighbours. That is why a single bird can snake through a long run of same-coloured gems in one drop. Collected gems pay their current value, the empty spaces refill, and the collection continues until no bird has anything left to take. All four birds can collect feature symbols regardless of colour. Only gems are colour-locked.

Gem values and the seven upgrade levels

Every gem colour has its own value ladder, with seven upgrade levels in total. The published range per colour is:

Those values are per gem collected, as a multiple of the bet. A red bird that clears a chain of fully upgraded red gems is where base game value concentrates. A blue bird collecting starting-level blue gems pays very little. This spread is central to the game's volatility: most sequences pay fractions of the stake, and the large results come from upgrades stacking before a long chain forms.

The collection meter and grid growth

Collections fill a meter, and the grid's growth from 6x6 towards 8x8 is tied directly to that progression. ELK's official page describes the grid as expanding and confirms that grid size, meter progress and gem upgrades persist into the bonus game. Exact meter thresholds for each size step are not published, so we won't state them. What is published is that the larger grid gives birds more positions to travel through, which is why grid size at the moment of a bonus trigger matters so much (more on that below).

Feature symbols the birds can collect

These symbols appear on the grid and are collected by any bird that reaches them.

• Wild. Substitutes for gems. Wilds pay at the current upgrade level of the gem they stand in for.
• Coin. Pays its displayed value multiplied by the bet when collected. A Max Win coin, when present, pays whatever amount remains to reach the 10,000x cap.
• Upgrade and Upgrade All. Raise gem values by one to three steps on the seven-level ladder. Upgrade affects one colour; Upgrade All raises every colour.
• Transform and Super Transform. Convert clusters of gems into the colour of a bird, which can suddenly give one bird a long matching route.
• Captain Blackfeather. Covered in its own section below, because it behaves differently from the others.
• Tokens. There are nine to collect across the game's worlds. Each token is listed at 5x the bet, and collecting all nine unlocks the Boss Castle permanently.

Two movement mechanics also return from the series. Switcheroo and Super Switcheroo swap adjacent birds' positions, and Labyrinth removes gems from random rows or columns when three or more birds are adjacent. Portals teleport birds to collectable symbols on the edges of the grid.

Captain Blackfeather: turning birds into ghosts

Captain Blackfeather is the new character mechanic in this chapter. ELK's own wording is that he "turns 1-4 birds into ghosts and transforms their symbols into Blackfeather gems". Published rule summaries describe the trigger: he activates when adjacent to a bird, and the triggering bird becomes a ghost.

The value comes from the gem swap. Blackfeather gems are worth 0.15x to 30x the bet each. That top value is higher than the best red gem (25x), so a Blackfeather conversion across a board of low blue and green gems is a real upgrade in what those positions can pay. In the Cursed Temple coin game, Blackfeather can also upgrade the central treasure for an extra coin rain.

The temple traps, and why they matter most here

This is the part of Pirots 5 that separates it from Pirots 4. Previous chapters had disruptive events (Pirots 4 used a Black Hole to relocate birds), but the Egyptian setting adds three distinct traps. Each one pushes results further apart rather than smoothing them out, because each can end a chain early or open a new one.

Arrow Trap

Arrow shooters remove the birds they hit. The knock-on effect is the important part: the removed bird's gems convert to the colours of the remaining birds, and removed birds return on the next refill. In practical terms, losing a bird temporarily is not purely negative. If the red bird is shot, its red gems become gems that the surviving birds can collect, so the remaining birds may get longer routes.

Boulder Trap

A boulder between 2x2 and 4x4 in size rolls across the grid and crushes both symbols and birds in its path. This clears space quickly, which triggers refills, but it can also destroy upgraded gems that were waiting for a bird to reach them.

Secret Door

The Secret Door splits the grid into four squares and rotates them by 180 degrees. ELK says it moves all symbols and birds, and cross-over floor tiles allow birds to pass positions they have already collected. The Secret Door is the most important trap because it is the gateway to the rarest feature. If the entire grid is cleared during a Secret Door event, the Cursed Temple coin game triggers.

Catacombs and the mummy fights

The Catacombs are not a trap but a side route. Collecting a symbol that sits on a catacomb corner tile sends a bird into a coffin challenge. ELK describes battles with mummies, and defeating one awards feature symbols. Because the entrances are corners, the birds' position on the grid decides how often this comes up.

The Cursed Temple coin game step by step

1. Trigger. The whole grid must be cleared while the Secret Door feature is active. It is widely described as the rarest of the three bonus-type features.
2. Grid. The coin game plays on an 8x8 grid with a cursed treasure at the centre.
3. Respins. Landing coins resets the respins to three, in the familiar hold-and-respin pattern.
4. Bird interaction. Coins can stack, or double bird values.
5. Blackfeather. Captain Blackfeather can upgrade the treasure, which adds an extra coin rain.

The official page doesn't publish a full coin value table, so we won't list individual coin values here.

Bonus and Super Bonus: what carries over

The standard bonus triggers when the birds collect three bonus symbols, which take the form of scarabs, and it awards five free drops.

The persistence rule is the single most important detail in the game. ELK states that "grid size, progress on the collection meter and gem upgrades are all persistent during the bonus game". Published rule summaries add portals to that list. So a bonus triggered on a 6x6 grid with unupgraded gems starts from a much weaker position than one triggered on a wide grid with red gems already several levels up. The base game build-up is not cosmetic. It sets the starting point for the bonus.

The Super Bonus triggers when one of the three collected bonus symbols is a super bonus symbol. Its difference is the Cursed Treasure Coin Rain, which activates on every drop of the round rather than only through the coin game route.

RTP and volatility: what 96% changes for this series

The default RTP is 96%, meaning that across a very large number of spins the game is designed to return 96 coins for every 100 staked. That is a long-run statistical figure. It says nothing about any single session, and no spin is influenced by the ones before it.

The notable point is context. Pirots 4 lists 94% as its default, and the original Pirots and Pirots 3 are both reported at 94%. Pirots 5 raises the ceiling by two percentage points. ELK also offers 94%, 92%, 90% and 87% versions, so the RTP a particular site runs may be lower than 96%. The 87% version returns 9 fewer coins per 100 staked over the long run than the top version, which is a large gap. Checking the game's in-game info panel is the only reliable way to see which version is loaded.

Volatility is listed as Medium-High. Some ratings class it as High, so treat it as sitting at the upper end of that band. The published hit frequency of 25.1% means roughly one spin in four returns something, and gem values starting at 0.05x mean many of those returns are well below the stake. Either way, this is a game that concentrates its value in upgrade-heavy sequences and bonuses.

How the 10,000x cap is reached

Max win is 10,000x the bet, confirmed by ELK. Reaching it requires value to stack on several fronts at once: a wide grid, high gem levels, long colour chains and, most likely, a Super Bonus or Cursed Temple round. The game has a dedicated Max Win coin that pays the difference to the cap when collected. When the 10,000x limit is hit, the round ends. At a 100-coin maximum stake, that ceiling is 1,000,000 coins.

X-iter: the five ways to buy in

ELK uses its X-iter system for feature access. Where it is available, it offers five modes at the following costs:

One logical consequence of the persistence rule: a bought bonus doesn't benefit from base game build-up in the same way a naturally triggered one might. Separate RTP figures for each X-iter mode are not published, so their long-run return can't be compared. Note that the Super Bonus is priced at 250x here, half of the 500x Super Bonus mode listed for Pirots 4.

Pirots 5 against Pirots, Pirots 3 and Pirots 4

Each game below has its own specs. They are listed separately to avoid mixing them.

Pirots (March 2023). The original pirate-themed release. It started on a 5x5 grid expanding to 8x8, with a 94% RTP, high volatility and a 10,000x max win. Gem upgrades went to level 5 and a Bomb was among its feature symbols.

Pirots 3 (June 2024). The Wild West chapter. It is listed with a 94% RTP and 10,000x max win, on a grid that starts at 6 reels by 7 rows and grows to 7 by 8. It introduced Bandit and Train modifiers.

Pirots 4 (July 2025). The space chapter. It lists a 94% default RTP, mid-high volatility, 25% hit frequency and 10,000x max win on a 6x6 grid expanding to 8x8. It had three worlds (the space station, Frozen Fury and Inferno), Alien Invasion, Lost in Space and Black Hole features, and an X-iter menu running from 3x to 500x.

Pirots 5 (July 2026). Same 6x6 to 8x8 footprint and 10,000x cap as Pirots 4, similar hit frequency (25.1% against 25%), but a 96% top RTP, a more compact X-iter top tier (250x), and traps that act on the grid directly. The Black Hole of Pirots 4 relocated birds; the Arrow Trap in Pirots 5 removes them and recolours their gems, which is a different kind of disruption. Seven gem levels also give more upgrade headroom than the five levels reported for the original.

Who Pirots 5 suits

It suits players who enjoy games with a long memory. Much of the value depends on things that build up and carry forward: grid size, meter progress, gem levels, and the nine tokens that unlock the Boss Castle. If you like tracking that kind of progression, the design rewards attention.

It suits Pirots veterans who skipped earlier chapters because of the 94% ceiling, since the 96% top version addresses that directly.

It is a poor fit for anyone who wants a quick, readable spin. Between the traps, portals, Switcheroo, Labyrinth, Catacombs and Captain Blackfeather, a single drop can involve several events, and the Medium-High to High volatility means long runs of small returns are part of the design.

Pirots 5: the strong points and the drawbacks

Pros

• 96% top RTP, higher than the 94% default of earlier numbered chapters
• Persistence of grid size, meter progress and gem upgrades gives the base game a clear purpose
• Captain Blackfeather's gems (up to 30x each) can revalue a weak board
• Five X-iter options, with the Super Bonus priced at 250x rather than 500x

Cons

• Lower RTP versions down to 87% exist, and the loaded version isn't always obvious
• Very dense rule set, with meter thresholds for grid growth not published
• Low starting gem values (from 0.05x) mean many collections pay a small fraction of the bet

Pirots 5 FAQ