by Developer Team17 announced a new game in the Worms franchise, Worms Rumble, which deviates from the traditional Worms formula with battle royale gameplay.
The Worms franchise is mostly known for its tactical turn-based artillery gameplay. Instead, Worms Rumble will be a real-time battle royale game with 32 players fighting online to be the winner.
Battle royale games are immensely popular, so another addition to the genre isn’t exactly surprising.
This is Worms Rumble, our first ever real-time Worms game!
🌐Clash in 32-player online matches
🛡️Fight in Battle Royale & Deathmatch modes
🎮Play with your friends using crossplay!Blasting onto PS4, PS5 and PC late 2020.
Wishlist: https://t.co/U77xTTE5p9 pic.twitter.com/AR8mlwA6Y1
— Team17 (@Team17Ltd) July 1, 2020
However, fans of the Worms franchise are attached to the traditional artillery gameplay — it’s the reason why they like Worms in the first place, after all.
Fans are upset that they’re not seeing improvements to the traditional Worms gameplay that they’re familiar with. The latest addition to the Worms franchise, Worms W.M.D. introduced new gameplay elements like forts and vehicles, which fans appreciated.
Worms Rumble is doing the opposite. Instead of improving existing gameplay elements, Team17 toned down some of the franchise’s most beloved features, like destructible terrain.
Team17 promised that there will be some destructible terrain in the game, but that feature was completely absent in the most recent trailer.
Parts of terrain is destructible across the different maps.
We'll have more gameplay to show in the near future.
— Team17 (@Team17Ltd) July 1, 2020
Of course, people have pointed out that there are enough turn-based artillery Worms games to justify Team17 branching out into other genres. That’s a fair argument, but the new gameplay isn’t the only thing that fans are upset about.
Fans are also upset that Worms Rumble will only be available on PC, Sony PlayStation 4 and the upcoming Sony PlayStation 5.
Worms has not traditionally been exclusive to PlayStation, so this is a massive disappointment for gamers who play Worms on Xbox or Nintendo Switch.
Another huge issue with Worms Rumble is that it’s online multiplayer only. You will need 32 players online to even play Worms Rumble if the developers don’t include bots in the game.
Multiplayer only on this one!
— Team17 (@Team17Ltd) July 1, 2020
This is a massive issue considering how empty most Worms online servers are. In April 2017, Worms W.M.D. had an average of 50 players on Steam, and much of those players were playing single-player.
The average number of players have jumped to 400 since then, but you can see how a multiplayer-only game could run into issues with a relatively small playerbase, especially when fans are upset and vowing to completely ignore Worms Rumble.
Currently, the announcement trailer on YouTube is sitting at 1.6k dislikes, which is a sizable percentage.
Of course, there is a chance that Team17 will win some fans over when the free beta is released.
Worms Rumble is set to be released on PS4, PS5 and PC late 2020.
