Worms 2

Worms 2 is a turn-based tactical game. Players take turns controlling teams of worms across two-dimensional landscapes. Worms are randomly placed across the landscape at the start of each level. During a single turn, a player can move only one of their team's worms.

Worms can crawl and jump, as well as swing by ninja-rope, parachute, teleport, and bungee when the appropriate items are available. The objective of a traditional match or campaign mission is to defeat all opposing teams by killing their worms and become the last surviving team. When hit with a weapon, a worm will lose health depending on the power of the weapon and the directness of the hit. A worm can be killed either by having its health reduced to zero or being knocked into the water around and below the level.

Worms 2 was confirmed to have been in development since at least April 1996. It was at first meant to be a minimal sequel to the original game with only a new engine and added online play. However, Worms creator Andy Davidson felt that the aforementioned improvements would not be enough to justify a sequel, and he also wanted to bid a farewell to users of the Amiga, which saw waning support and popularity. To do this, Team17 allowed him to spend his time working on Worms: The Director's Cut, an expansion pack to the original designed for late Amiga computers.

The two simultaneous Worms projects each had their own separate team. Whilst The Director's Cut would become the last Amiga software by Team17, aside from graphical and memory improvements, it introduced a new level editor and additional weapons such as the Concrete Donkey. Those new features formed the basis for Worms 2, and would appear in later titles of the franchise.

Worms 2 launched in Europe with a shipment of 200,000 units to retailers. In the United States, PC Data reported sales of 68,396 copies for Worms 2 during 1998, which accounted for about $1.88 million (equivalent to about $3.71 million in 2025) in revenue.

Worms 2 received generally very positive reviews, being praised for the customisability, integrated online play, the level editor, and the humour. Trent Ward of GameSpot lauded the destructive environment and described the physics as being "minute-to-learn-lifetime-to-master", citing the latter as the reason for the addictive gameplay. Fernando de la Villa of the Spanish magazine PC Top Player lauded the sound effects, voice acting, and soundtrack, whereas Andreas Wallström of the Norwegian magazine Tekno felt that the soundtrack started off as boring before swinging for the better, as if the tracks were ordered by the date they were created. The humour has been characterised as tragicomedy and exemplifying the "superiority theory", where the humour is derived from the fact that inexperienced players often hurt their own worms unintentionally.