NetEnt Takes Operators Inside the Vault with In and Out
A glamorous thief. A museum full of priceless artefacts. And a mechanical framework ambitious enough to match the setting. NetEnt's latest release, In and Out, is now live — and it arrives with a feature set that will demand attention from product managers evaluating premium content for their portfolios.
The game centers on Chloé, a fictional master thief motivated not by necessity but by the thrill of the score. The narrative framing is more than window dressing; it structures every mechanic in the game, from the tiered highlight system to the tools she deploys mid-heist.
Building the Grid: Avalanche and Expanding Reels
In and Out opens on a 6x5 grid — but that's only the starting point. The Avalanche™ feature triggers on any win: winning symbols disappear, replacements fall in, and a highlighted area is established on the winning positions. Each subsequent win on the same position upgrades that highlight through four tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond.
The grid itself is not fixed. When a Bomb symbol lands, it removes all adjacent symbols, triggers an avalanche, and creates highlighted spots in the cleared space. Critically, if a Bomb lands at the edge of the play area, it pushes the grid outward — expanding it up to a maximum of 8x7.. That's a meaningful jump in potential symbol real estate, and it's not a guaranteed feature but one that emerges organically from gameplay.
Heist Mode: The Core Feature Engine
The mechanical heart of In and Out is Heist Mode, activated when Chloé lands during a round that contains a win. Once triggered, every highlighted position spins individually, with only four symbol types eligible to land: Coin, Diamond, Bonus, or Multiplier symbols.
The payout structure is tiered directly to the highlight level:
- Bronze Coins: x0.5, x1, x1.5, or x2
- Silver Coins: x4, x6, x8, or x10
- Gold Coins: x15, x20, x25, or x30
- Diamonds (Diamond tier only): random multipliers of x50, x100, x200, or x1,000
Heist Mode launches with 3 lives, extended only by the Extra Life bonus symbol. The bonus symbol roster deserves particular attention from a mechanics standpoint:
- The Multiplier: applies a random x2 – x10 multiplier to all coins, diamonds, and collectors on the grid
- The Upgrader: promotes all adjacent positions to the next tier, including converting non-highlighted spots to Bronze
- The Burst: upgrades a random number of non-highlighted positions to its own tier — and can grow the grid by affecting out-of-bounds positions
- The Extra Life: adds one additional Heist Mode spin
- The Collector: sweeps the value of all coins, diamonds, and other collectors on the grid
When Collector and Burst land simultaneously, a Blast is triggered — a combined effect that automatically populates all newly created highlighted positions.
Free Spins and Super Free Spins
The alarm goes off when 3 Bonus symbols land simultaneously (after all avalanches resolve). That activates Free Spins, beginning with 5 spins. The base game mechanics carry over in full. Landing 1 or 2 additional Bonus symbols during Free Spins award 1 or 2 extra spins respectively.
Super Free Spins upgrades the experience further: triggered when one of the activating Bonus symbols is a Super Bonus, it adds an extra spin per Super Bonus landed and — significantly — begins the sequence at maximum grid size. For operators thinking about volatility positioning, the grid-at-maximum starting state is a notable differentiator between the two Free Spins variants.
Wild symbols complete the base toolkit, substituting for all paying symbols and appearing anywhere on the reels.
Elevate: Operator-Facing Buy Features
NetEnt has built a structured suite of buy features under the Elevate banner, giving players — and by extension, operators — a clear cost-to-benefit ladder:
- Bonus Hunt: increased Free Spins activation chance — 2x bet
- Guaranteed Chloé: Chloé appears every spin, raising Heist Mode frequency — 10x bet
- Heist Mode – ON: instant Heist Mode with 3 Bronze-tier highlighted positions — 30x bet
- Free Spins: direct Free Spins activation — 100x bet
- Super Free Spins: direct Super Free Spins activation — 100x bet
What This Release Signals for NetEnt's Content Direction
In and Out is not a single-mechanic slot dressed in narrative clothing — it is a layered system where grid expansion, tier progression, and bonus tool interactions compound across a single session.
The depth of interplay between the Burst, Collector, and Blast mechanics suggests NetEnt is deliberately targeting the high-engagement, high-volatility segment that has seen strong traction across the market. The expanding grid mechanic — contingent on Bomb placement rather than guaranteed — introduces session variance that keeps the feature meaningful rather than routine.
For operators, the Elevate buy-feature ladder is strategically structured. The five-tier pricing range, from 2x to 100x bet, provides flexibility across player segments without forcing a binary choice between base game and full feature access. Whether that ladder converts at premium price points will depend heavily on the operator's player base profile and jurisdiction-specific feature purchase regulations. The NetEnt What's Up? Witches slot release earlier this year illustrated how the studio has been leaning into high-volatility mechanics across its 2026 lineup — In and Out continues that trajectory with considerably more mechanical depth.
According to NetEnt.
