Worms Burrow Back To Wii Retail

Following on from Wii’s first Worms title, A Space Oddity, Worms: Battle Islands was originally announced as a WiiWare-exclusive entry into the popular strategy series. A year later, though, and Team17 have announced that the game will now be released worldwide on Wii disc in partnership with THQ, via the publisher’s global Partners program. In addition, the game will also be coming to PlayStation Portable, self-published by Team17 through PlayStation Network.

As far as we can tell, other than the switch to retail, Worms: Battle Islands remains the same as before, which seems quite reasonable considering that we were told almost a year ago that Team17 were treating the WiiWare game as if it was a retail one and putting it through a similar development cycle to a disc-based game anyhow. The information that THQ has announced also seems to indicate that this will be a budget title ($19.99 in the United States), which makes the swap from download to disc far more palatable.

When we played Battle Islands last year at Nintendo’s WiiWare/DSiWare conference, we remarked that "it takes all recent titles in the series and expands, expands, expands - it's incredible that they've managed to fit it all in". The features list released by THQ earlier seems to match what we were told and shown back then: online multiplayer with ranking systems, achievements, custom levels and weapons, a mass of campaign and puzzle levels and multiple control schemes, including one that uses the Wii Remote to cause devastating damage to opponents. Presuming that they remain the same, you can read all about some of these features in our hands-on preview from last year.

We’re currently awaiting information on just why Worms: Battle Islands has made the jump from WiiWare to Wii retail, particularly as Team17 are shifting towards digital distribution, and will let you know as soon as we receive an update. Stick with Cubed3 for more Worms: Battle Islands news as we approach the November global release date, and check out our media album for some new screenshots.

What do you make of Worms: Battle Islands’ switch to retail? Will it affect your purchasing plans?