Team 17 on Worms WMD, tanks, buildings, and the new worm

We take a world exclusive first look at Worms WMD and talk with Team 17's creative manager Kevin Carthew about what's new in the next entry in the multiplayer series.

There's several new noteworthy features coming in this iteration, with the most notable among them being the new vehicles that players will be able to drive around the maps. The studio were, however, keen to maintain balance and make sure that the tanks weren't overpowered.

"We didn't want the vehicles to necessarily be a fore[gone] conclusion, as in, you get into the tank, you've won the game," Carthew explained.

"It fires a barrage of shells, it's quite hard to concentrate the tank's fire. There's an element of skill involved. Sometimes it makes more sense to use one of the game's existing weapons, so we're keeping that balance of strategy in the game."

Another interesting new feature, and one that will certainly come into its own during online matches, is the new enterable buildings:

"They act like mini-fortresses," the man from Team 17 explained. "So again it's an area of the landscape that I'd say plays to the strategic strengths of the game. If you get inside a building, your worms that are inside the building are hidden from view to everybody outside the building."

Worms games have, over the years, all looked fairly similar, and while WMD won't stray too far from what we're used to, there are going to be a few visual changes.

"The game is all 2D. Of course it's all-new artwork, beautiful, high-definition. Everything is a hand-crafted digital painting," Carthew told us.

"The approach for creating the landscapes hasn't really changed since the very first version of worms... We wanted the random landscape generator, which is a big part of Worms, to always look like it was presenting a hand-drawn piece of art, and so we took a completely different approach for this."

It's not just the background that has changed, as WMD will see the first character redesign for a while. "This new worm, he's all new, he is a redesign. We're looking for something that looks a bit more contemporary, something that looks a bit more modern."

"The two art styles are purposefully contrasting; the landscape looks like hand painted images, the worm looks a lot simpler, clean lines. He's a little bit more angular. And that's intentionally done because it makes it visually more easy to read for the player. It's obvious what should be the landscape, and what are the interactive elements."

Worms WMD is heading to PC and Xbox One (first), and you can read more about our initial impressions of the game right here.