Is this literally opening a new can of worms?
Those intrepid invertebrates return with a vengeance in the much-loved Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition. It’s a whole new can of worms! It’s hilarious fun that you can enjoy on your own or with all your friends. This Anniversary Edition will now allow console players a chance to get stuck into the artillery insanity of worms, for the first time. The developers have poured a lot of love into the enhancements, with many quality-of-life improvements and a completely redesigned UI across all platform versions. Worms Armageddon will also feature online support, allowing up to six players to team-up or compete. Online is cross-generation so PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 owners will be able to play against each other, as well Xbox Series and Xbox One owners.
I played the original Worms Armageddon on PC and N64 back in the day, though both versions were quite different in their design. The Anniversary Edition is inspired more by the original PC version, but does also include the Game Boy Color version, which I wasn’t expecting.
It’s very faithful to the original PC game, while adding controller support well and redesigning the UI throughout. Single players can attempt the training challenges and missions, while you can also play against others either locally or online. I personally had problems finding a game online at the time of writing, I’m not sure if that’s a more recent issue or not and I couldn’t find much information about the server issues online or Team17’s Discord, so I’m kind of at a loss here.
I’m hoping it’s just a case of it needing a patch to enable more players to connect, if that happens then I’ll come back and update the review. My main issue with the game though is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to zoom in, so your worms are absolutely tiny on screen and trying to perform accurate ninja rope jumps or trying to judge the throw of a grenade or bazooka can be difficult as a result.
That aside, it’s a perfect recreation of the original game and I did enjoy my time with it. If it fixes the issues I’ve mentioned, then I will be glued to it for a long time to come. The visuals have been sharpened and load times are short, while the music is authentic to the original and I didn’t come across any glitches.
The Verdict
Besides having issues finding a game online and not being able to zoom in (at the time of writing), Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition is as close to the original as you can hope for. With a few fixes, it would easily be my most played game this holiday.