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The Pirots Series: Every Game From 1 to 5 Compared

Hub By Updated 28 Jul 2026 3 articles in section
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Pirots 5 Pirots 5 (ELK Studios)
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The Pirots series is ELK Studios\' flagship franchise, built on the CollectR collection engine that runs from Pirots (2023) through to Pirots 5 (2026). Same birds, new themes each time. Here\'s the full timeline and a side-by-side comparison.

Six releases, one engine, and a top payout that has not budged since 2023: every mainline slot in the line caps at 10,000x the bet. ELK Studios launched the original Pirots on 7 March 2023, and that is the thread. By the time the fifth game hit its wide online release around 23 July 2026, the studio had shipped four numbered sequels plus one odd cousin, all built on the same proprietary CollectR collection system. Four colour-coded parrots walk a grid, eat matching gems, and trigger cascades. The meter fills until a feature fires.

Here is the single fact that matters most if you are choosing where to start. For three years the whole franchise carried the same knock: a 94% top RTP that reviewers kept flagging as stingy for a game this volatile. Pirots 5 is the first mainline entry to lift that ceiling to 96%. So the newest game is also, on paper, the fairest one. Pirots 5 therefore reshuffles the whole "which one should I play" question.

I have played the free demos across the line and spent August 2026 with the Pirots 5 build on desktop and mobile; more on how Ryan Cole tests these games is on the author page. This page is the map: the full timeline, a game-by-game breakdown, and a comparison table so you can see at a glance how the six releases differ on grid, theme, ceiling and RTP. It covers Pirots 1, 2 and X in depth, since those three have no dedicated page here. For the two most recent predecessors I keep it to a line each and send you to their own reviews: the Pirots 4 review and the Pirots 3 review. For the fifth game itself, the full Pirots 5 review lives on the homepage.

The Whole Line, Side by Side

Set the whole line side by side and the pattern jumps out: the grids grow, the themes hop from pirates to dinosaurs to space to Egypt, but the max win never moves. The RTP sat frozen at 94% until the sixth release. One row does not belong to the numbered run at all: Pirots X is a cluster-pays spin-off, so I have set it apart.

GameYearThemeGridMax winTop RTP
Pirots 12023Pirate / treasure5x5 to 8x810,000x94%
Pirots 22023Dinosaur / prehistoric6x6 to 8x810,000x94%
Pirots 32024Wild West / carnival6x7, expands10,000x94%
Pirots X (spin-off)2024Pirate remix, cluster paysCluster grid10,000x94%
Pirots 42025Outer space6x6 to 8x810,000x94%
Pirots 52026Ancient Egypt6x6 to 8x810,000x96%

A note on Pirots X. It launched around October 2024. Pirots X is the one release that drops CollectR entirely for a cluster-pays engine. The spin-off keeps the birds and the pirate art, but the mechanic underneath is a different animal. Treat it as a remix, not the fifth-in-line. Pirots X is not a numbered sequel, and it does not slot into the crash-landing story arc the other five share.

The CollectR Engine, Unchanged Since Day One

The CollectR engine has run unchanged since day one, so strip away the paint and every mainline game is the same machine. There are no paylines. There are no ways. Wins resolve through collection. Four birds, the "Fearful Four" in blue, green, purple and red, sit at the edges of the grid. Each one only eats gems that match its own colour. When I loaded any of these demos the rhythm felt identical: a bird moves, it collects, the symbols above cascade down to refill the gap, and a meter for that colour ticks up.

Fill a meter and things escalate. Gems level up through tiers and start paying more. The grid itself expands, from the launch footprint out toward 8x8, as thresholds get hit during features. The CollectR loop is a slow-build, snowball design rather than a spin-and-pray one, and that is exactly why the same fans keep coming back and the same critics keep calling it repetitive.

What carries across all six

  • Four colour-matched collector birds with no proper names, addressed only by colour
  • A collection meter that upgrades gems and expands the grid
  • Cascading refills after every collection
  • A fixed 10,000x ceiling, feature-driven, never progressive
  • ELK's X-iter feature buy, where the market allows it
A collector bird sweeping matching gems on the Pirots grid as symbols cascade to refill
The collection loop that has powered every Pirots since 2023.

Pirots 1: Where the Birds First Landed

Pirots 1 is where the birds first landed, and the original set the template. Released 7 March 2023 on a pirate-and-treasure theme, it started life on a compact 5x5 grid that could grow to 8x8. It introduced the whole CollectR idea to ELK's catalogue. BigWinBoard gave it a 7/10 editor score while players rated it a 9, which tells you a lot about the split reception that follows this franchise everywhere.

If you want to understand why Pirots plays the way it does, this is the game to demo first. The mechanics are lean here, without the trap-and-hazard clutter of the later temple and space entries, so the core collect-cascade-upgrade loop is easy to read. Same 10,000x ceiling as everything that came after. Same 94% top RTP that would define, and dog, the series until 2026.

Pirots 2 Went Prehistoric

Pirots 2 went prehistoric eight months later, on 7 November 2023, when ELK swapped galleons for dinosaurs. The studio bumped the base grid to 6x6, still stretching to 8x8 in features. That 6x6 base has stuck around as the default ever since, right through to the fifth game.

This is the entry most reviewers point to as the moment the formula clicked. BigWinBoard nudged its score up to 8/10, the highest early mark in the run. The prehistoric setting gave the collection mechanic more room to breathe than the cramped 5x5 original did. The maths did not change though. Still 94%, still 10,000x, still that patient snowball that either hooks you or bores you.

Pirots X: The Odd One Out

Pirots X is the odd one out, the game where ELK did something strange. Around October 2024, sandwiched between the numbered sequels, the studio released Pirots X. It is the only game in the whole lineup that throws out CollectR.

Instead of collector birds walking a grid, Pirots X runs on cluster pays. It keeps the pirate art and the general vibe of the first game, which is why the name confuses people, but under the hood it is a genuinely different slot. Think of it as a side experiment rather than a chapter in the story. It still tops out at 10,000x and 94%, so the headline numbers match. But if you go in expecting the meter-fill collection loop you will be surprised. I would not use it as your introduction to the games. Play Pirots 1 or 2 for that, then treat X as a curiosity once you know what the mainline feels like.

The two most recent predecessors, in one line each

Pirots 3 (25 June 2024) took the birds to a Wild West carnival on an expanding 6x7 grid, so read our Pirots 3 breakdown for its trap suite and scoring. Pirots 4 (24 July 2025) shot the crew into outer space on a 6x6-to-8x8 layout and set up the crash-landing that leads straight into the Egyptian sequel, covered in full in our Pirots 4 review.

What Pirots 5 Actually Changes

What Pirots 5 changes starts with the story: the crew crash-lands back on Earth after their space trip, then follows the traitor Captain Blackfeather into an ancient Egyptian temple. That story hook, and Blackfeather himself, are new: he is the first named antagonist in the series, a takeover feature that converts collected symbols into higher-value gems. He is not one of the four birds, so do not mix him up with them.

Mechanically the sixth release is an evolution, not a reinvention, and I will not pretend otherwise. The base grid is the familiar 6x6 that grows to 8x8. The birds still collect by colour. But the details pile up in Pirots 5's favour. The RTP ceiling finally moves to 96%, the single most requested fix in three years of reviews. The X-iter feature buy expands to five tiers, from a 3x Bonus Hunt up to a 250x Super Bonus, where your market permits it (feature buy is banned in the UK and some other places, so check before you count on it). And ELK layered in an Egyptian hazard suite of Boulders, Arrow Shooters, Portals, a Secret Door that rotates the whole grid, Catacomb mummy battles and a Labyrinth.

There is one more thing that no earlier Pirots did. Pirots 5 ships with a staggered worlds rollout through 2026, adding content chapters, Cursed Temple, then The Kraken, then a Mayan City of Gold and a Boss Castle, inside a single game rather than as separate releases. It is an ambitious idea and, as far as I can tell from the early build, still unfolding. You can try the free Pirots 5 demo before you commit real money, and I would. When you are ready for a real-money lobby, our 1Win review covers the operator we rate highest for ELK titles.

Where the Series Falls Short

Where the series falls short comes down to loyalty to a formula, which cuts both ways. If you have played one Pirots you have, honestly, played the shape of all of them. The criticism that Pirots 5 is "an iterative upgrade, not a departure" is fair. The collection loop, the four birds, the cascade, the meter, the grid growth: it is all here again, dressed in new art. Some players love that consistency. Others find it stale by the fifth go.

The RTP story has a sting in the tail too. Yes, Pirots 5 reaches 96%, but that is the default model. Operators can run official lower configurations all the way down to 87%, through a 96 / 94 / 92 / 90 / 87 ladder. The version you actually get depends entirely on the casino. Every earlier game in the line still caps at 94% legacy RTP, so the "fairer" upgrade only applies if you are playing the newest title at a generous operator.

Then there is volatility and reception. These are medium-high to high games, scored 7/10 for variance by review sites, which means bonuses are slow to arrive and base spins pay little; I watched plenty of quiet stretches in the demo where the meters crawled. The franchise is also genuinely divisive. BigWinBoard handed Pirots 5 a 10/10, but streamer coverage skews mid-tier and the earlier games swung between 7 and 8. The features have grown complex enough that a newcomer can lose track of what is triggering what. None of that makes Pirots bad. It makes it a specific taste.

Quick answers on the line

How many Pirots games are there?

There are five mainline titles - Pirots 1 through 5 - plus one spin-off, Pirots X. That makes six releases in total since March 2023, all from ELK Studios.

Which Pirots game has the highest RTP?

Pirots 5, with a 96% default model. Every earlier game caps at 94%, so the fifth title is the first to lift the ceiling. Operators can still run lower builds down to 87%.

Do I need to play the earlier Pirots games first?

No. Each game stands alone. The story links them loosely across pirate, dinosaur, Wild West, space and Egyptian settings, but you can start with any one and lose nothing.

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