EAGER RECRUITS
YOU DON’T MAKE IT 25 YEARS WITHOUT PICKING UP SOME DIEHARD FANS ALONG THE WAY
While the players are ultimately the lifeblood of any game, it’s always much more evident with multiplayer games – and Worms does have an incredible reach, with millions of players having experienced the series in one form or another. As well as being a mainstay of traditional computer and console formats, Team17 has been able to expand the Worms audience by being quick to embrace emerging digital markets, with the series experiencing success when it hit Xbox Live Arcade, IOS and even Facebook. “We were number one in the Brazil iphone charts – not just games, but all apps – at the time of the last World Cup, and the Worm was holding a big Jules Rimet trophy and we had Brazilian flags flying and things like that,” says Kevin.
“It always blows my mind a little bit that this thing we make in Yorkshire, which is really silly and daft, exports all around the world in the way that it does.”
If you’re not so invested in Worms, you may be surprised to find that the series has a particular singularly popular entry. “Worms Armageddon, hugely enduring game, built off the Worms 2 engine. Worms World Party, pretty much the same game with a few extra features,” says Kevin. “But that’s the game that the hardcore still play today, and they’ve got such an entrenched, fixed idea of what the game should be – anything that moves away from that causes ripples.” That’s not to say that the community hates innovation, as players’ own inventions have shaped the direction of the series. “Some Worms games have had ‘rope racing’ modes – rope racing was something entirely invented by the community. There has been lore created by the community, such as the ‘Buffalo Of Lies’, and we realised the Buffalo Of Lies as an actual weapon in the games,” Kevin tells us.
Of course, the community does extend beyond the vocal hardcore too, and they have different desires. “You tend to find that players who haven’t been around since the days of Worms Armageddon have a less fixed idea of how they want the strategy to play out,” says Kevin. “New players, or players that have come to the game at a later generation, for example on iphone or Xbox Live Arcade, where it felt like a more casual experience, they tend to love the new features and get on board with the new features.” As a result, Team17 can keep creating for those players that want new features, while fans of the old ways benefit from modern technology, as Worms Armageddon remains perpetually available on modern PC game storefronts and even received an official update in 2020, and Worms World Party Remastered is also on sale.