Worms Armageddon

Worms Armageddon

Developers
	Team17
Publishers
Retail, North America and Europe	MicroProse
Retail, North America and Europe	Hasbro Interactive
Retail, Japan	Imagineer
Retail, Russia	Russobit-M
Retail, Poland	CD Projekt
Retail, German 2002 re-releases	THQ
Retail re-releases	Sold Out Software
Digital	Team17
Release dates
Windows	January 29, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Turn-based
Perspectives	Side view
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Artillery, Strategy
Series	Worms

Worms: Armageddon is a standalone expansion for the 1997 artillery game Worms 2, which includes new weapons, missions, game modes, map templates, audiovisual improvements, and balancing changes. It does not require the original game to play.

Since 2002, Team17 has authorized several community members to maintain the code, with the patches that would result of this collaboration becoming official. Aside from compatibility tweaks and bug fixes, these patches would bring new features such as native widescreen support, a replay system, improved controls, new localizations, and the official integration of the WormKit framework for community modifications, among other things. These updates are available for the original retail version as well as Steam and GOG.com releases, maintaining synchronicity. Despite the new codebase, the developers make an effort to maintain compatibility with systems from the time of the game's initial release, with version 3.8 from 2020 explicitly showcased running on Windows 95 through Windows 10. An abbreviated list of these changes can be found here, while a full version is available in the readme file and this webpage.

A proposed version 4.x was planned to port the game to the D programming language, largely overhaul the codebase, and import content from Worms World Party (the second expanded release of Worms 2 released in 2001), but as late as the release of Worms World Party Remastered in 2015, this plan was seldom brought up and possibly abandoned. The team instead focused on more conventional changes.

Armageddon remains the most frequently played title of the so-called second generation of Worms games, with the community still populating the official WormNET multiplayer server and creating modifications.

General information

Worms Armageddon Website (Team 17)

Worms Knowledge Base article

Worms Wiki

The Ultimate Site (TUS-WA) - fansite with competitive community and custom content

Dream17 Softography

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		US: Basic disc check. EU: SafeDisc 1.0.32 DRM. Updated to SafeDisc 1.06.0 DRM in version 3.0. Removed in version 3.5 leaving only basic disc check.
Amazon.com
GamersGate
GOG.com
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Steam

A demo is available.

Version differences

The CD version released in 1999 was updated as recently as 2020. New updates are still actively developed by volunteer maintainers, then approved and published by Team17.

The GOG.com and Steam versions come with the latest updates by default. New updates are released for the Steam and CD versions in sync and with some delay for the GOG.com version.

Sold Out version uses custom Setup.now.exe launcher from the publisher.

Essential improvements

Official patches

Patch v3.0 for the European release synchronizes the game to the later American version and fixes multiple bugs. It is available at ftp.team17.com, www.moddb.com and at soggi.org.

Official graphics update is needed on newer systems. (Team17 FTP; not required for patches v3.5.x.x onwards)

The latest update is v3.8.1 (formerly at the official website and the Team17 FTP). It is a result of Team17's permission given to two community members, Deadcode and CyberShadow, to update and patch the game. Other than fixing a multitude of bugs and adding some new features, the game is now more compatible with newer systems. These patches are officially distributed on modern digital distributions (Steam, GOG.com), but are not compatible with legacy ones like the TryMedia release.

Unofficial patches

Worms Armageddon Plus

An easy-to-install patch to which includes several community tools (such as SuperFrontendHD and WormNAT2), content cut from the digital releases, and certain Worms World Party maps and Forts mode.

Also automatically unlocks all cheats.

WormNAT2

WormKit module which enables players behind NAT or firewalls to host games which are joinable by other players.

Installation
Download archive from the link above. Extract wkWormNAT2.dll and madCHook.dll files from downloaded archive into <path-to-game>. Open the game and go to the Options Menu > Advanced and enable option Load WormKit modules.

High Quality Music Pack

Replaces low quality PC version music files with higher quality ones from various console versions of the game.

Installation
Download archive from the link above and extract archive's content into an empty folder. Run decompress.bat batch script. Drag all the generated .WAV files from folder with an extracted files into <path-to-game>\DATA\Streams folder.

Game data

Configuration file location

System	Location
Windows	%WINDIR%\win.ini HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Team17SoftwareLTD\WormsArmageddon\
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/217200/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\User\Teams\WG.WGT
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/217200/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game general settings.

In-game advanced settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			The in-game settings menu is rendered in 640×480 resolution, but the game itself is rendered at the selected resolution. Use the SuperFrontendHD Wormkit module to render the menu at higher resolutions.
Multi-monitor			See D3D9Wnd for version 3.7.2.
Ultra-widescreen			Interface does not scale with resolution. The game is letterboxed to 1920×854 for cavern levels (on standard-size maps), and 640×480 for the main menu. The main menu problem can be fixed with SuperFrontendHD.
4K Ultra HD			Interface does not scale with resolution and can be very small in 4K. The game is letterboxed to 1920×854 for cavern levels (on standard-size maps), and 640×480 for the main menu. Use the SuperFrontendHD Wormkit module to render the menu at higher resolutions.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		Introduced in the v3.8 update.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Introduced in the v3.8 update.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Full support (predictive tweening) added with the v3.8 update.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Color blind mode

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		wkRemapKeys WormKit module
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus		Mouse wheel support added with the v3.8 update.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles		Short of worm responses, there is no speech.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Czech				Fan translation.
Dutch
Finnish				Introduced in the v3.8 update.
French
German
Hungarian				Fan translation.
Italian
Japanese				Local retail version only.
Polish				Local retail version only.
Portuguese				Until version 3.7.2.1, only the main menu text was in Portuguese and ingame the text in Brazilian Portuguese. Version 3.8.1 discarded Portuguese to Brazilian Portuguese.
Brazilian Portuguese				Local retail version. On version 3.8.1, Portuguese was swapped for Brazilian Portuguese.
Russian				Community-translated (by Mr.X), incorporated in 2008 with the v3.6.29.0 update, followed with updates performed by CyberShadow, Shtirlitz, and StepS. This translation is not the same as the Russobit-M translation (made in 2002).
Spanish
Swedish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play		6	Hot seat Up to 6 teams, each with up to 8 worms can be present in the game.
LAN play		6	LAN lobby is available in the Network screen. Up to 6 players plus one spectator can participate in one game.
Online play		6	Via WormNET. Up to 6 players plus one spectator can participate in one game.

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated		Through a hosting bot (HostingBuddy).
Self-hosting		Default port is 17011 and can be customized.
Direct IP		Default port is 17011 and can be customized. Newer versions of the game can also use the custom wa:// protocol to host and join multiplayer games, with documentation available here.

Ports

Protocol	Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP	17011

This game supports Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) for automatic port configuration.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	7, 9	Selectable from advanced options window (since v3.7.0.0).
DirectDraw	2	8-bit and 32-bit (since v3.6.31.2b). 8-bit supports Hardware Rendering, but unsupported on Windows 8 and later (color palette shielded since v3.6.30.0)
OpenGL	1.0, 4.0	Selectable from advanced options window. (since v3.8)

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Command line arguments

Command	Description
/nointro	Disables the intro
/host	Hosts a direct IP multiplayer game with default settings
/register	Re-registers replay file and wa:// associations; automatically handled by patch installers
/play [filename]	Plays a replay file (.WAGame file extension). Replays can also be loaded without the /play argument, i.e. by merely stating the filename
/playat [filename] [time]	Plays a replay file (.WAGame file extension) at a specified time index
/getmap [filename]	Extracts the map from a replay file to <path-to-game>\Users\SavedLevels
/getscheme [filename]	Extracts the scheme from a replay file to <path-to-game>\Users\SavedLevels
/getlog [filename]	Exports a textual log of a replay file
/sanitize [filename]	Removes players' private messages from a replay file
/repair [filename]	Repairs certain errors in a replay file
/q (or /quiet)	Suppresses certain error message dialogs
/crash	Intentionally crashes the game to test error report generation
/handlecrash	Displays error message after crashing
/disablecrashhandler	Disables error report generation
/silentcrash	Disables displaying error messages after crashing
/novirtualdesktop	Optimizes relaunching the game under Wine.

Changing versions by hex editing

You can change version of your game between Steam, GOG and retail by changing bytes in game's exe file.

Hex offset may vary depending on game version. Instructions below are for 3.8.1 version of the game.

Changing retail and Steam version into GOG version makes it DRM-free.

Instructions
Open WA.exe in a hex editor (e.g. HxD). Search for the hex offset 297702 (in HxD, it is the second line of bytes in the 297700 offset). Change it to respective number: 00 - Retail (CD version) 01 - Steam 02 - GOG and save the modified file.

System requirements

Steam

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo AMD Athlon 64 X2
System memory (RAM)	2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	2 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT ATI Radeon HD3650 Intel HD3000 256 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0 compatible
Sound (audio device)	DirectX 9.0 compatible

Disc Version

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95 OSR2
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 100 MHz	Intel Pentium II 200 MHz
System memory (RAM)	32 MB	64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	100 MB (CD) 600 MB (Steam/GOG)
Video card (GPU)	DirectDraw, DirectX 7 or OpenGL compatible 2 MB of VRAM	4 MB of VRAM DirectX 9 compatible