Fire In The Hole 4 is dated. The sheet is not.

Two November dates, one empty sheet

Nolimit City has put Fire In The Hole 4 on a public calendar. The general release printed on the studio roadmap and on Playin’s listing is 17 November 2026. A separate Playin exclusive early-access stamp sits on 10 November 2026. Those are not the same event. The exclusive window is not the lobby go-live, and this page does not invent which operators sit inside it.

Playin’s public listing, rechecked on 21 September 2026, still prints the calendar line: still digging for those golden nuggets. The same page also carries the studio holding copy: the Dwarf has been sighted; teasers, screenshots, reviews and a free demo will land on nolimitcity.com when they exist. That is a placeholder, not a sheet. The same listing titles the page Fire In The Hole 4 and then prints undefined% RTP and undefined xBet max win. Blank fields on an announcement page are not specifications. They mean the information is unavailable.

Confirmed about Fire In The Hole 4, as of 21 September 2026:

• Studio: Nolimit City.
• Public blurb: still digging for those golden nuggets.
• Playin exclusive early access: 10 November 2026.
• General release: 17 November 2026.
• Official FITH4 game page with a math sheet: not published.
• RTP, volatility, grid, ways, feature-buy prices, bonus names, max win: not published.

The dwarf is a known character. The fourth file is a date and a sentence. That is why the fourth instalment is interesting, and why most of what follows is series history rather than a review of a game nobody can open yet.

The crawlable stub remains Fire In The Hole 4. It prints HOLD until a studio page lands.

What the first mine actually did

Fire In The Hole shipped on 2 March 2021. Nolimit’s official page, rechecked 21 September 2026, still prints the original sheet: RTP 96.06%, Extreme volatility, hit frequency 25.98%, max payout 60,000× bet at 1 in 2.4m, free-spin trigger listed at 1 in 200, reels/rows 3–6, feature buy and bonus mode both yes, stake €0.20 / €50.00.

The picture is a dirty gold mine and a grizzled dwarf, not a polished gem cave. That choice is the series character. Per Lindheimer, then Product Owner, told European Gaming on launch day that the studio was taking a classic gold-mine theme with a Nolimit twist: more explosive dynamite than fabulous gems. The unexpected, he said. The Beer Time animation — only when the cap is hit — is theatre around a ceiling, not evidence the ceiling is typical.

The grid starts at 6×3 with 64 ways and can open to 6×6 with 46,656 ways. Official copy on the same page also mentions 64 ways expanding to 46,656; some contemporary write-ups counted 486 ways on the short grid. We keep the studio’s own 64 → 46,656 pair and do not flatten the two counts into one invented figure.

Collapsing Mine is the loop. Each spin begins with three active rows. A win, an xBomb explosion, or Wild Mining can collapse the board. Paid symbols leave. Everything drops. A new row can come online, up to six. The mine gets taller as the round survives.

xBomb is the tool that made the first file travel. An xBomb Wild substitutes for regular symbols, not Bonus symbols. It removes adjacent symbols except Bonus symbols and raises the win multiplier by +1 for the next collapse. Official rules say it explodes when there is a win whether or not it is part of the combination, and it can explode and force a new collapse when there is no win — unless Wild Mining has already taken the turn.

Wild Mining is the other base-game latch: 3, 4 or 5 matching symbols in a horizontal line with no paying combination award 1, 2 or 3 wilds. Positions above the bar explode unless they are Bonus or Wild, and another collapse starts.

Lucky Wagon Spins are the spectacle. 3, 4 or 5 bonus symbols open the feature with 2, 3 or 4 rows live. The counter starts at 3 and resets to 3 whenever a coin lands. Coin values are multiples of the active bet. A top row of enhancers — coin values, multipliers, dynamite, bag, chest, dwarf — applies when a coin lands on the reel beneath. That is the hold-and-collect camera the later files keep dressing.

A maximum win of 60,000× is a payout ceiling. It is not a typical result and not a claim about how often a session pays. Official probability on the studio page is one in 2.4 million.

How 2 and 3 changed the shaft

Fire in the Hole 2 landed on 22 February 2024. Official sheet, accessed 21 September 2026: RTP 96.07%, Extreme, max 65,000× (El Beerado ends the round at that cap), stake €0.20 / €100.00. The page also prints hit frequency 25.09% and max-win probability 1 in 17m. The short grid is still a six-by-three that can open to six-by-six.

The mechanical change that matters is not a longer feature list. It is what happens to a symbol when xSplit lands. An xSplit on a row doubles the symbols on that row. Once a split stack reaches eight or more, the game shows a multiplier instead of a pile. Bonus symbols and xSplit symbols themselves do not split. After every xSplit has fired, they all become one regular symbol. Dirt that was only sitting there to hide a buried feature can vanish if a collapse follows the split. The same collapsing mine now feeds a wider, denser board instead of only adding rows.

xBet, at 250% of base bet, guarantees at least one Bonus symbol on the last inactive row and strips dirt from the base game so buried features land in the open. That is a different cost base from a 1× spin. Do not read a 65,000× cap next to a 250% xBet as if both numbers sat on the same euro.

Upgrade Crystals sit on an extra seventh reel. Coins that land under an Upgrade keep extra behaviour: value and multiplier coins can stay live for the next spin; Dynamite, Beer and Dwarf can become persistent for the rest of Lucky Wagon. Persistence is the sequel’s real addition.

Published buys on the official 2 sheet include Lucky Wagon at 70× / 200× / 600× for 3 / 4 / 5 scatters, Lucky Draw at 175×, and a guaranteed Persistent Dwarf buy at 3,600×. Those prices belong to Fire in the Hole 2. They are not Fire In The Hole 4 prices.

Fire in the Hole 3 went to a Playin exclusive on 25 May 2025 and to general release on 3 June 2025. Official sheet: RTP 96.05%, Extreme, max 70,000× under the Fire In The Bowl label, grid stamp 6-6-6-6-6-6, stake €0.20 / €100.00. Trade notes citing the studio also print hit frequency around 22.18%, bonus around 1 in 231, and max-win probability 1 in 14.3m. We treat those last three as studio-adjacent figures and keep the RTP, cap, dates and grid from the title page.

The mine is frozen. Ice blocks bury wilds, xSplits, multipliers from ×2 to ×100, xHoles, scatters, and a 2×2 Max symbol. Clear the ice on that Max block and the 70,000× cap is awarded immediately.

xHole is the third-file change you can see. When the barrel lands, it pulls regular paying symbols off the grid and throws them back as split stacks of size 1 to 3. Inside Lucky Wagon, the same symbol can start 3 Frozen Wagon Spins, turn into a 1× coin, and force every live coin to collect the enhancer row — which, for those three spins, contains only coins.

Six scatters in the base of 3 open Lucky Wagon with four rows and a Persistent Dwarf on spin one. Evil Dwarf and Persistent Dynamite join the enhancer row.

None of that transfers to Fire In The Hole 4. It is the floor the fourth file has to stand on, or walk away from.

The four files, side by side

Read the fourth column as empty on purpose.

Fire In The Hole — released 2 March 2021. Core: collapsing 6×3 to 6×6, xBomb +1, Wild Mining, Lucky Wagon. Major addition: xBomb itself. Official max 60,000×. RTP 96.06%. Extreme. Stake to €50. Qualification: max-win probability 1 in 2.4m on the official page.

Fire in the Hole 2 — released 22 February 2024. Core: same collapsing mine. Major additions: xSplit, xBet at 250% of base, Upgrade Crystals, persistent wagon characters. Official max 65,000× (El Beerado). RTP 96.07%. Extreme. Stake to €100. Qualification: official max-win probability 1 in 17m.

Fire in the Hole 3 — exclusive 25 May 2025, release 3 June 2025. Core: collapsing mine plus ice. Major additions: xHole, Frozen Wagon, 2×2 Max-in-ice, Evil Dwarf, persistent dynamite. Official max 70,000× (Fire In The Bowl). RTP 96.05%. Extreme. Stake to €100. Qualification: cap can hit by clearing ice on the Max symbol, not only by collecting the wagon.

Fire In The Hole 4 — exclusive 10 November 2026, release 17 November 2026. Core mechanics: undisclosed. Major additions: undisclosed. Official max: undisclosed. RTP: undisclosed. Volatility: undisclosed. Grid: undisclosed. Qualification: Playin listing prints undefined. Do not copy 60,000×, 65,000× or 70,000× onto this row.

A larger cap is not a better game and not better odds. Each ceiling is a stop rule.

Why this series sits in Nolimit’s catalogue

Nolimit City’s public reputation is not “mining slots.” It is high-volatility math with named mechanics — xWays, xNudge, xBomb, xSplit, xHole — and themes that refuse the polite lobby. San Quentin and Wanted Dead or a Wild taught the audience that a Nolimit bonus can look like a scene, not a scatter count. Fire In The Hole uses the same habit in a dirtier register: the dwarf is the through-line, the explosion is the grammar, the wagon is the set-piece.

The first file invented a tool, xBomb, and hung a whole mine on it. The second file did not replace the tool. It added a way to thicken the board and a way to keep characters on after they appear. The third file changed the temperature and added a vacuum that rearranges the same board. That is a studio pattern, not a franchise accident.

What the pattern does not decide is the fourth file’s math. Nolimit’s nearer dated chairs on the same calendar — Ding Dong Death, Outsourced 2, Duck Hunters 2 — already prove the studio will ship a sheet when it has one. Fire In The Hole 4 does not have one.

Money Train is the other long bonus, not the same game

Relax Gaming’s Money Train series is the comparison people reach for because both franchises sell a long, character-led bonus that streamers can sit inside. The studios are different. The presentation is different. The way persistence works is different.

Money Train, on Relax’s own product page, is a 5×4 video slot with 40 fixed lines, high volatility, min €0.10, max €50, and a published cap of 20,000×. The Money Cart bonus is the hold-and-spin that later files keep expanding. Characters — Collector, Payer, Widener and the later cast — apply named modifiers to locked coins.

Money Train 4 was billed as The Last Stand, with Relax’s 2023 teaser citing a 150,000× cap. Money Train 5 was then announced anyway. Relax’s official 2026 note, signed by Tony O'Mahony and Martin Stålros, dates the fifth file to 24 September 2026. That announcement does not print RTP or a max win. Trade coverage after the sheet circulated — including iGB on 2 September 2026 — describes a 5×4, 40-line game with Nuclear Wild, Ticket Master / Bomber / Pyromancer, Standard mode capped at 50,000× and Ultra mode at 100,000×, and an RTP band down to 86.00% with a 96.10% default. Those later figures are not on the June announcement. This page does not treat them as the June text.

Fire In The Hole builds persistence on a collapsing ways grid and an enhancer row above a collect board. Money Train builds persistence on locked coins and named outlaws on a fixed-line hold-and-spin. They are not reskins.

Why these bonuses get watched

A Lucky Wagon or Money Cart bonus is built like a scene. Symbols lock. A counter resets in public. A character walks on and stays. An audiovisual reveal — ice cracking, a bomb stepping the multiplier, a station bell — tells even a muted viewer that the board just changed. Unusual outcomes (six scatters, a Persistent Dwarf on spin one, a Frozen Wagon fork) are readable without a paytable in hand. That is why the format works as viewing material. It is not, by itself, a measurement of popularity.

Two public clips are enough to show the grammar. We describe what the publications themselves state. We did not treat a title card as a watched session.

Casinodaddy Highlights published OUR EPIC WIN ON FIRE IN THE HOLE 3 (6-SCATTER BONUS) on 15 October 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKLRL4SLgSs). The description names Hugge and Ebro opening a bonus that Masse built, and a 6-scatter on Fire in the Hole 3. Official 3 rules already say six base-game scatters open Lucky Wagon with four rows and a Persistent Dwarf on the first spin.

KingbonusTV published the short 3 SCATTER BONUS On FIRE IN THE HOLE 3 (NEW) on 9 June 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QcvnpqSBhAA), six days after general release. Three scatters, on the official 3 sheet, open Lucky Wagon with two rows.

Do not read these uploads as proof the fourth game will be a streaming title. They show why the existing bonus already behaves like one.

What we would like to see — editorial, not a leak

The next five notes are Bonusjungle possibilities. They are not confirmed features, not official names, and not a predicted max win.

1. A deeper collapse, not a taller cap. The first three files already walk 3 → 6 rows. Tradeoff: harder to screenshot, easier to write a sheet that still fits in an info panel.

1. An xBomb that carries a printed multiplier instead of only +1 per blast. File 3 already hides ×2–×100 under ice. Tradeoff: the base game gets closer to the bonus’s job.

1. A wagon that remembers a character between entries, inside one paid bonus, not across sessions. File 2 and 3 already persist Dynamite and Dwarf until that Lucky Wagon ends.

1. A Frozen-style fork that is not ice. File 3’s Frozen Wagon is a collector-only camera.

1. Restraint on the buy board. File 2 already sells a Persistent Dwarf at 3,600×. File 3 sells a Golden Nugget chase at 7,000× on the Playin sheet.

None of those lines is a Fire In The Hole 4 feature.

What still has to land before the fourth file can be judged

Before anyone can assess Fire In The Hole 4 as a game, the studio or Playin still needs to publish, on a title-specific page: RTP file or files; volatility; grid and ways; how a collapse starts; whether xBomb, xSplit, xHole or something unnamed is in the file; how Lucky Wagon, if it returns, actually starts; every buy price and the bet it multiplies; the max-win cap and the rule that stops the round; and a demo that matches the sheet.

Until those cells fill, the honest page is the one that keeps them empty. The calendar is real. The exclusive date is real. The undefined fields are real. Predecessor math is not a preview.

The fourth dig is interesting because the first three already trained an audience to watch a mine get worse in public. Whether Nolimit spends that attention on a new toy or on a larger cap is the only question worth sitting with until 17 November 2026. Ten November is a window, not the answer.

If you later chase a chest that lists the game, read the small print, stay on responsible rails, and start from houses already walked on casinos. The HOLD stub stays at Fire In The Hole 4. Nearer sheets: Ding Dong Death, Outsourced 2. More notes on news.