Worms Armageddon

Worms Armageddon is a turn-based strategy artillery game developed by Team17 and part of the Worms series, first released on 29 January 1999 and included in the Worms Triple Pack released in 2002.

The player controls a team of up to eight Worms in combat against opposing teams. It is an enhanced re-release of Worms 2 from 1997, with new weapons, missions, and a new "front-end" interface which looks more like a game menu than a launcher program. Worms Armageddon is one of the most successful games in the series (if not the most successful), with the greatest current player population in the Worms series and most fan support for it, the most recent update being released in 2020 despite being more than two decades old, and several attempts to bank off its success with later games such as Worms 2: Armageddon being named after it, and Worms W.M.D which was claimed to "channel the spirit of Worms Armageddon."

When Worms Armageddon reaches Version 4.0, there is a plan to make Worms Armageddon cross compatible with Worms World Party.

Game-play
As always, game-play is turn-based, with each team moving in sequence (which is determined randomly) across a two-dimensional terrain. During a single turn, a team can only move one of its Worms (unless the Select Worm item is used). Worms can walk and jump, as well as (when the proper items are available) swing by the Ninja Rope, Parachute, Teleport, and Bungee. The objective of a traditional match is to defeat all opposing teams by killing their Worms, although in the campaign some missions have other objectives (such as collecting a specific Crate).

Each Worm begins the round with a specific amount of health (which is predefined by the chosen game options or by scripting in Campaign levels). When hit with a weapon, the Worm will lose health depending on the power of the weapon and the directness of the hit. A Worm can be killed either by having its health reduced to zero or being knocked into the water around and below the level.

Weapons
The game includes a wide variety of weapons, including melee, projectile, and explosive weapons, as well as Air Strike-based attacks. Some are based on real-life arms, such as the Bazooka, Grenade, and Shotgun. Others are more fanciful and cartoon-like, such as the Sheep, which serves as a mobile explosive, or the Skunk, which releases poisonous gas.

In a normal match, all teams begin with the same weapons, based on the chosen weapon set. Some weapons may not become available until a certain number of turns pass. Depending on game options, additional weapons may randomly fall onto the terrain in airdropped and teleported Crates.

In addition to normal weapons, each team (during team creation) chooses a special weapon which becomes available to them after a certain number of turns. The special weapons are more powerful than regular weapons and often offer special abilities. The most powerful weapons are superweapons. Superweapons rarely fall in Weapon Crates. Superweapons are often based on cartoon-like themes (such as the French Sheep Strike) and are usually devastating in power.

* Italicized weapons are new in Armageddon.

PlayStation and Dreamcast
Fire physics are ommited due to engine limitations. As a result, the Petrol Bomb, Napalm Strike, and Flame Thrower are ommited. The French Sheep Strike still remains, but doesn't produce fire. The Longbow is also ommited as well.

Nintendo 64
Fire physics are included in the N64 version, but the Petrol Bomb, Napalm Strike, and Longbow are still ommited.

Game Boy Color
The only weapons in the GBC version are the Bazooka, Grenade, Banana Bomb, Battle Axe, Shotgun, Fire Punch, Dynamite, Sheep, Air Strike, Blow Torch, Baseball Bat, Teleport, Armageddon, and the Jet Pack. The Air Strike, Banana Bomb, and Armageddon work differently as well. The Air Strike has a plane fly by three times, dropping a single bomb each time, the Banana Bomb instead causes a few explosions as opposed to producing clusters, and the Armageddon works more like the Indian Nuclear Test.

Game-play Modes
Worms Armageddon includes a series of training missions, a single-player Campaign, a Deathmatch mode in which the player fights increasingly difficult and outnumbered battles against the computer, local multiplayer, and online multiplayer.

Local multiplayer allows the player to select which teams participate in the battle (including number of Worms and handicaps), which options and weapons are used, and the level to be played upon. The matches can use any combination of human and computer teams, provided at least one team is human. Additionally, multiple Worm teams can form an alliance for the match by selecting the same team color - they will still operate separately in movement rotation but share weapons and score. If multiple human players are using the same computer, the game functions in a hot-seat mode.

Online multiplayer is set up similarly to local multiplayer but allows the players to be at separate computers. Additionally, hotseat can be combined with online play, so multiple human players can use each computer.

Game-play Customization
Worms Armageddon includes a very high level of customization - in multiplayer games or skirmishes, the player can create custom Game Styles with preferred game-play options and weapon sets. Regular options include starting health, whether the Worms can move, how long a turn lasts, and Sudden Death options. Weapons settings include what weapons the teams start with, which weapons will fall in Crates and how often, and how powerful individual weapons are.

Other Customization
Worms Armageddon offers several levels of customization outside of direct game-play options. Many of these options are only available in the PC versions of the game.

Team Creation
The game offers players the ability to create their own custom teams. Each team has its own name and includes eight individually named Worms. The player can also change the team's special weapon, grave marker, flag, victory fanfare, and voice set. In addition to numerous defaults available, the game offers the ability to import custom graves, flags, fanfare, and voices.

Terrain Creation
The game includes a random terrain generator, a basic terrain editor which allows the user to create the shape of the terrain with brushes, and a more complex terrain-import system which allows the user to import custom-made terrains in image format, which the game automatically converts into playable terrains.

Speech-bank Creation
The game includes a speech-bank editor which allows users to create their own speech-banks for their Worms, many of the speech-banks come from movies and TV such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Toy Story, The Simpsons and many others.

Online Play
Worms Armageddon features a multiplayer Internet service called WormNET. This service allows one player to host a game online and others to join it. The host can choose settings like the landscape and Scheme. There is also a chat feature with an optional language filter.

From Worms

 * Beach
 * Desert
 * Farm
 * Forest
 * Hell

From Worms 2

 * Art
 * Cheese
 * Construction
 * Gulf
 * Hell
 * Manhattan
 * Medieval
 * Pirate
 * Snow
 * Sports
 * Time

New in Worms Armageddon

 * Desert
 * Dungeon
 * Easter
 * Forest
 * Fruit
 * Hospital
 * Jungle
 * Music
 * Space
 * Tentacle
 * Tools
 * Tribal
 * Urban

Community Updates
After the 3.0 patch, Team17 recruited Deadcode (David Ellsworth) and CyberShadow (Vladimir Panteleev) to continue maintenance on Worms Armageddon. They have since fixed many bugs and added many features, including:
 * Extend compatibility to Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10/11
 * Allow game to run in any resolution supported by user's computer (minimum 640x480)
 * Minimize the game from the Escape menu or Shift + Escape
 * Improved map editor with increased maximum color palette and removed loading times
 * Maximum in-game Worms increased to 48 (six teams with eight Worms each)
 * Auto-save replays of each match to User\Games directory
 * Save PNG screenshots to User\Capture directory with Pause key
 * Option for brighter team names (for anomalous color deficiency)
 * Translucent Worm labels with Alt + Delete
 * Display thought bubbles with T key
 * Russian localization and Cyrillic character support

Digital distribution
A Steam version of Worms Armageddon was included as a preorder bonus for Worms Revolution on PC. On 20 March 2013, it was made available for purchase on its own. This version automatically updates to the latest community patch and can be used with the Steam overlay. Some soundbanks and team flags were omitted, but these are readily available online.

On 6 October 2016, GOG.com released Worms Armageddon as well. The build is almost identical to the one in the Steam version, with all its omissions and even including the steam_api.dll file, but several community-made modules have been reported to be incompatible at release.

Trivia

 * Worms Armageddon is considered to be the best game in the series by fans.
 * Despite being rated E for Everyone by the ESRB, Worms Armageddon contains violence, blood, occasional mild profanity, and an inappropriate innuendo (see Trivia at the bottom of this page).
 * The back of the US box art on PC states it is suitable for "Ages 11 & Up" contradicting the Everyone rating standard of six years or older, but it better matches the E10+ rating the games would consistently receive starting in the Third Generation of the Worms series.
 * The game was originally announced with the title Wormageddon, this was later changed as it was too similar to SCi's Carmageddon.
 * There are two unused tracks for the game, one of them is a different version of the Stats theme (can be listened here), while the other is titled "After the War - The Homecoming". It is unknown where in the game these tracks were originally supposed to be used. "After the War - The Homecoming" was later used for a different Team17 game, and possibly for the Nintendo 64 version of Worms Armageddon.
 * Like in Worms 2, the cover art shows a worm with a humanoid nose, unlike the ingame sprite. This was the last such instance, as the cover of Worms World Party was consistent with the ingame design.