ICONIC21 debuts Monkey King in new series

• ICONIC21 has launched Mythic Link: Monkey King, the first release in a new slot series inspired by Asian mythology.
• The game layers a Hold & Win round inside Free Spins, with four jackpot tiers in play.
• Serhii Nilov, Game Producer at ICONIC21, calls the launch a milestone for the studio’s slot portfolio.

ICONIC21 has launched Mythic Link: Monkey King, the opening release in a new slot series built around Hold & Win mechanics and characters drawn from Asian mythology.

Unveiled on 8 September 2026, the title introduces a feature-within-a-feature structure in which Free Spins can themselves trigger a Hold & Win round, spread across four jackpot tiers.

Bonus within a bonus

The Chinese folk hero Sun Wukong, better known to players as the Monkey King, is the figure ICONIC21 has chosen to carry its new series. He is a fitting pick: a trickster known for shifting shape and dodging the odds, dropped into a game built around unlocking one bonus from inside another.

In Free Spins, landing the right combination can pull the reels straight into a Hold & Win round without the round ending first. Rather than running the two features as separate paths through the game, ICONIC21 has nested one inside the other, with the round paying out across four separate jackpot tiers.

That structure means a single spin can carry a player from base game to Free Spins to Hold & Win without a natural stopping point in between.

Serhii Nilov, Game Producer at ICONIC21, said:

“Mythic Link – Monkey King is an important milestone for ICONIC21 as the first release in our new Mythic Link series.”

“We combined classic gameplay mechanics, including Free Spins and Hold & Win features, with richly detailed visuals inspired by Asian mythology. The result is a slot that offers plenty of excitement while introducing players to a memorable new collection of characters and themes.”

One concept, many titles

Mythic Link is not a single slot but the name ICONIC21 has given to an entire collection. Every title released under the banner will share the same mechanical core – Hold & Win, paired with a theme drawn from Asian mythology – while each game gets its own cast and setting.

Monkey King is the template that later releases will follow. ICONIC21 has confirmed more titles are coming under the same banner, giving the studio a recognisable format it can repeat rather than starting from scratch with every launch.

The approach fits with how ICONIC21’s design team has described its own process. In a recent interview, game designer Andrii Savyntsev explained the discipline of knowing what not to change when building a format series, arguing that the hardest part is identifying which elements of a game are open to change and which have to stay untouched.

A studio in motion

The series lands in the middle of a stretch of announcements from ICONIC21.

Earlier this month the studio struck an Alea distribution deal, putting close to 90 of its games onto the aggregator’s network in one move, and confirmed it is opening a two-floor studio in the Lithuanian capital that will bring more than 350 new roles to Vilnius.

It has also expanded beyond slots and live tables into AI-driven RNG formats. ICONIC21’s Chief Product Officer, Edvardas Sadovskis, recently described how an AI-powered dealer is giving RNG a new personality on its iDealer Blackjack tables, part of a wider push to diversify its portfolio beyond its Gravity and slot lines.

That range of activity, from a desert-themed Wolf’s Moon Fortune release last month to an AI-fronted blackjack table and now a mythology-themed series, suggests a studio testing several formats at once rather than settling on one.

Whether Mythic Link becomes a recurring fixture in operator lobbies depends on what comes next. A single launch proves a concept; a second title under the same banner is what turns it into a series operators can plan around.