Before the market became bloated with hundreds of entries in the genre, I remember the excitement when a new Battle Royale dropped. You know the one I’m talking about – it’s a classic. Squads of four teammates, blasting each other with a myriad of bizarre weapons, destructible terrain crumbling all around you, and building safe spaces to hide away until only one team’s left standing.
What – Fortnite? No, dummy – I was talking about Worms!
Team17’s turn-based shooter peaked with Worms Armageddon way back in 1999, and to celebrate the 25th year since Boggy B and his maniacal army was unleashed, they went and released Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition to make the all-time classic playable on modern consoles for the very first time.
If you’ve been on the earth long enough to be able to read this review and somehow never experienced Worms before, the premise is wonderfully simple. You have a team of four adorable pink cartoon worms, and take turns moving them around randomly generated maps, blasting the snot out of your enemies with a collection of weapons so daft that they make the laser dolphins from Austin Powers look like a sound military endeavour. The terrain is almost entirely destructible, and it’s just as viable a tactic to blow up all of the land and leave your enemies sleeping with the fishes as it is to try and shoot them to death. Adding a tactical layer to the gameplay is the ever-changing wind that impacts the trajectory of some of your weapons, game-changing supply drops that can spawn anywhere on the map, and the fact that your turn ends the moment your lil wormy guy takes even one point of damage. Planning your attacks is absolutely paramount, but executing them is sometimes easier said than done.
The first and most simple thing to say about the Anniversary Edition is that it doesn’t stray far from the formula that made the original release such a crowd pleaser – this is thoroughly in the camp of ‘remaster’, not ‘remake’. All the original game modes and mechanics return, albeit with a fresh lick of paint to bring things up-to-date. You can still enjoy the gamut of training levels to walk you through the basic weapons and tools, tackle the formidable single-player missions, or battle your way through as many jam-packed deathmatches as your heart desires – all spruced up with shiny new HD graphics that look fantastic on the TV or the Switch’s OLED screen.
While Worms Armageddon has always been a phenomenal game, it’s always had its rough edges too, and that hasn’t changed with this modern anniversary release. Picking up the game again for the first time in 20 years, I was struck by how clunky some of the control choices were, with button commands sometimes lacking consistency and continuity. The training levels are a little vague too, leaving out key info about how certain weapons worked, leaving you at the mercy of a stray button press to find things out. I remember this being the case in the original release, and expected this to be tidied up in 2025 (or at least offer on-screen prompts as reminders), but alas not. The Anniversary Edition is ‘ride or die’ with the source material, and while I think this decision will make the game less palatable for modern audiences, I can absolutely respect the decision.
But -and it’s a big ol’ ‘but’- I don’t really care about any of that – Worms Armageddon is just as fun to play today as it was in 1999.
Fumbling around with the buttons or not knowing what you’re doing only adds to the delight of it all. With weapons like the super sheep, holy hand grenades, and exploding old ladies – this isn’t a game that takes itself seriously, and neither should you. This is a game about gathering your best pals in a room and committing heinous and hilarious war crimes until you’re sick of the sight of each other. Pound your pal in the face with a full power bazooka shot from 15 metres away. Smash another one with a baseball bat and watch as he hurtles to a watery grave ten miles out to sea. Creep up behind another and prod him off the ledge and into a mine pit. Worms Armageddon is a no-holds-barred fight to the death that’s fun against the AI, but infinitely better in a room full of friends. Maybe the real treasure was the friends we nuked along the way.
An anniversary edition wouldn’t be complete without at least a few added extras that celebrate what makes the game so special, and Worms Armageddon is no exception. Perhaps one of the coolest items in the Anniversary Edition is a series of features that look back on the timeline of the Worms franchise and some fascinating behind-the-scenes videos showing the making of the original 1999 release. Video game history buffs and long-standing fans of the series will get a massive kick out of the ‘War Stories’ (as they’re dubbed), though I think there’s incredible value in these videos for gamers of all generations. The story of Worms is a tale of a single enthusiastic gamer-turned-developer who created a global phenomenon through the sheer passion he had for making something unique and fun. How many other masterpieces would we have missed out on if solo devs just never stuck with the grind – and how many more are being cooked up as we speak, being coded on home computers long after clocking off from their day jobs?
Also showcased as part of the Anniversary Edition is the fully playable Game Boy Color version of Worms Armageddon, scoring points for retro handheld fans and game preservationists alike. Not stopping there, as part of their Worms Backwards Compatible patch in June 2025, Team 17 also added full versions of the SNES and Mega Drive releases of the original Worms, and the GBA version of Worms World Party. I’m a huge fan of bundling older versions of games into modern releases like this, and while I don’t imagine they’ll see a huge amount of playtime, I think it’s important that we celebrate the roots of our long-storied franchises before they’re forgotten forever.
Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition is the equivalent of a classic car getting a detail, a fresh wax, and being rolled out to wow an all-new audience at the car show. Under the hood, it’s still very much a product of its time, but that doesn’t make the final product any less enjoyable to drive. Boasting the same hilarious and addictive gameplay as 1999 but with a lovely new set of 2025 HD visuals, old-school fans will be thrilled to have this absolute gem available on their modern machine. Just how much this release will move the needle with new players remains to be seen, as it’s very much a port that comes ‘warts and all’, eschewing a few layup modernisations in favour of offering a thoroughly faithful remaster instead.
Recommendation Score
In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.
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