The Legacy of Worms
The Early Years – From Worms
to the Directors Cut
The Golden Age – From
Worms 2 to mid W:A era
Fall From the Ladder – Late W:A
era to Pre Worms Blast
Rebirth of the Legacy – Worms
Blast to Pre Worms 3
The year is 1994 and
a game is about to be released to Amiga gamers that will be start one of the
most original and entertaining games series to date.
From the brain of
Andy Davidson (who was at this time, unknown to the masses.) and the talented
people from Team17 (previous titles included "Alien Breed" and
"Superfrog") came "Worms", a war game with a unique and
genre defining twist that went on to become an instant hit.
The graphics were
simple and the game had some minor flaws but the real thing which stood it out
from the other games at the time was its playability - Worms with a variety of
weapons battling it out on various landscapes had never been done before and it
made for a winning formula which would prove Team17's greatest triumph but
would also end up limiting their horizons.
With the popularity
of "Worms", an expansion pack was guaranteed and a year later in
1995, "Worms: Reinforcements" hit store shelves. Featuring new one
player missions, weapons and more it was later released with the original game
in one pack in the form of "Worms: United" (1996) and gave those
people who had failed to the buy the game in 94 the chance to partake in the
experience for the first time.
The end of this age
of Worms games was to end in 97, after "Worms: The Directors Cut" (A
variation on the original game) when Worms 2 came out for the PC. Worms would
never be the same again...
The Golden Age (1997- 1999/2000)
In 1997, the Golden Age of Worms began with the release of the much-anticipated “Worms 2” on the PC. “Worms” had been a good game but it was not until “Worms 2” that the Worms series went from being merely innovative to incredible.
With completely reworked graphics, new weapons, amazing editing tools and much more it reinvented the Worms genre. The possibilities were endless and two games were never the same. “Worms 2” was an even bigger success than the original game and left wormers everywhere clamouring for more from the intrepid invertebrates.
And more they were to get when in 1999, Worms: Armageddon was released and was billed as the last Worms game as we know it. W: A featured more weapons, options and a return to the quality of missions, which had been seen in the early Worms games (pre-W2). At this point the Worms community really took off as fans rushed onto the Internet (which was now becoming accessible to everyone.) to discuss the growing phenomenon.
The Allotment was the worm fan-website of the day and in collaboration with the official W: A website opened a semi-official forum that would get everybody talking together, fans as well as members of T17. A patch/update was announced to solve Worms Armageddon and members of the worms community were overjoyed with the news. All seemed well…for a while.
The Fall from the Ladder (1999-2002)
Everything had been going so well for Team17 up until this point. They had been climbing the ladder to success but towards the end of the W: A era, they would lose their foothold and fall from this ‘ladder’ into disrepute and distrust.
It started and ended in the forums. It had been a long time since Team17 had promised the W: A patch/update and certain members of the worms community were beginning to get agitated. Their questioning over it lead to short, sharp responses from members of the Team17 staff which indicated a growing lack of patience with the community at large. The Team17 feedback on the forum was getting less and less and at the same time the quality of the posts in the forum was decreasing in general.
Many would argue that the failure to deliver on the W:A patch/update was the cause for decline in support for Team17 over this period but there was another more important issue which soon came into play. Team17 had come to the end of their tether with the behaviour of certain contributors to the W:A forum and decided that in order to save their image, they would break away from the W:A forum and turning it into an Allotment forum, once more. This break away from support for The Allotment resulted in the eventual death of the Allotment and with it the gradual fall of the Worms community.
In 2000, Team17 released “Worms World Party”. This resulted in the closure of any remaining large worms fansites and hammered the nail in the coffin of the community. Despite being an excellent game, (in my opinion) many people thought that the lack of any new weapons showed that Team17 had not put any effort into the game and were just trying to make money after saying that the series would end with W:A.
A new forum was created towards the end of this era but the announcement of the fact that the next game – Worms Blast was to be a puzzle game appalled a number of diehard Worms fans and the forum seemed to be filling up with abuse about Team17. It was even worse than before!
To be fair to Team17, the community played a part in the problems of this era as well through the inconsistency of their wants. They begged Team17 for a sequel to W:A and they got it in the form of WWP and they moaned that it was too similar to W:A and that they shouldn’t have made a sequel but a different style of game. They then moaned about WB when it was announced that it was a different style of game and said that Team17 should have made a game more like the others. However, the community would soon be abated as the phoenix (Team17) would arise from the ashes for the second golden age, and the rebirth of the legacy…
Rebirth of the Legacy (2002 Onwards)
Team17 were to reinvent the Worms genre in the same way that “Worms 2” had with “Worms Blast”. Although initially discarded as being rubbish as it was a puzzle game by a number of wormers, (and still some now!) the release of a demo before the game out and then the release of the game itself soon changed many of the cries of horror into cries of acclaim.
“Worms Blast” was a puzzle game, there is no denying that. But Team17 had looked at traditional puzzle games such as “Bust a Move” and came up with a game which was unique (while still remaining true to the Worms series which we all know and love.) and had enough different modes to keep everyone happy.
Team17 furthered their ascent back up the ladder by announcing that they were to make patches/updates to not only “W:A” (as was planned back in Team17’s darkest hour) but also to “Worms 2” and “Worms World Party”. The moaning soon subdued, there was nothing left for anyone to moan about and support for Team17 began to rise once more.
The announcement of Worms 3 (see W3 FAQ for more details) and the return of Team 17 Staff who had been intimidated away from the forums back to them resulted in the return to prosperity for both the Worms community and Team17. Although scars from the fall from the ladder remain in the absence of a major Worms fansite, these are being healed through the emergence of new sites such as this one and Paul.Power’s Mission: Wormpossible.
The second golden age has begun in earnest and from the looks of Worms 3 looks set to continue for a long time yet. The worms community in its current state is probably the best community surrounding a computer game in the world and you can join the party on the Official Worms Forum at forum.team17.com. See you there!