Worms Armageddon

Worms Armageddon for PlayStation is Team17's 1999 turn-based artillery strategy game, published under the MicroProse label. This PS1 edition brings the series' comic-book battles to a controller-friendly console format: players lead tiny, customizable worm teams across destructible 2D landscapes and try to eliminate every rival before their own squad is wiped out. It follows Worms 2 and began life as a planned expansion before becoming the third standalone entry in the series.

Every battle advances one team at a time. A player chooses a worm, uses its allotted turn to move into position, then selects a weapon or utility and judges trajectory, force, terrain and wind before committing to an attack. Damage can come from direct hits, falling debris and explosive knockback; a worm also loses the match when it is sent into the water. Simple movement, jumps and backflips are only the beginning, since ropes, jet packs, parachutes, teleportation and other tools create opportunities to reach safe ground or set up a difficult shot.

The PlayStation game supplies a deliberately absurd armoury alongside familiar bazookas, grenades, shotguns and air strikes. Exploding sheep, the poisonous skunk, banana bombs, homing weapons and screen-filling super weapons turn positioning into a contest of timing as well as aim. Weapon crates and utility crates can alter a battle mid-match, while game schemes determine starting supplies, turn limits, health and other rules. This lets a restrained artillery duel and a chaotic, heavily armed party match share the same basic controls.

Worms Armageddon on PS1 offers training challenges, a mission-based single-player game and Deathmatch battles against computer-controlled Wormbots, as well as local multiplayer. Its console release includes more than 40 missions, ten of them exclusive to PlayStation, and rewards progress with additional schemes, bonus material and challenges. Players can create teams, name their worms, choose voices and cosmetic touches, pick special weapons, form alliances and apply handicaps, making each group’s preferred style of competition easy to revisit.

Randomly generated terrain and illustrated landscape styles keep battles from playing out on one fixed arena. Slopes, tunnels, water and the destructible ground make the level itself part of each turn’s puzzle: a missed projectile may open a route, remove cover or leave a teammate exposed. The PS1 version supports the DualShock controller and a widescreen television resolution, features advertised specifically for this edition, while retaining the series’ broad assortment of weapons, custom schemes and humorous soundbanks.

The PlayStation port arrived during a wider 1999–2000 run that also reached Windows, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color, but it should not be confused with the reduced portable version or later reissues. Team17’s own history identifies Worms Armageddon as a major success for the franchise. On PlayStation, its compact turns, shared-screen competition and mix of careful artillery calculation with slapstick outcomes make it a defining 2D Worms installment for local multiplayer sessions.