Worms: The Director's Cut/Development

(Up to Worms: The Director's Cut)

This page chronicles the known development history of Worms: The Director's Cut from its initial announcement in 1996 up to the present day.

Prologue: Worms on the Amiga

The Amiga and CD32 versions of Worms were released in late 1995, published by Ocean Software and developed by Team17. Largely built on Andy Davidson's original code for Total Wormage, and with Davidson taking up lead coding duties. Due to this, the Amiga and CD32 versions have the subtitle "THE DIRECTOR'S CUT!" on the main menu, later causing confusion among fans of later games exploring previous entries in the series.

Though the PC MS-DOS version would receive an expansion in the form of Worms: Reinforcements, the Amiga version did not see an official expansion. Instead, in 1996, Team17 announced that an enhanced edition of the game was in the works for the Amiga.

Initial Announcement

The first press coverage for the game that would become Worms: The Director's Cut came in the September '96 issue of CU Amiga Magazine, which featured a two-page preview. The game was named as Worms: The Next Generation, and was touted for a release "Before Winter". This was the first reveal for a number of new features including many new weapons, improved graphics, and Graffiti Mode.

Later, a one-page preview of the game - now subtitled The Director's Cut - appeared in the November '96 issue of Amiga Format. This preview took the form of an interview with Paul Kilburn, who is credited as a Producer on the game. In this interview, new features such as Cavern levels and WormPrefs are elaborated upon. The Ninja Rope is discussed - referred to as the Batrope - with "Tarzaning" described as a new feature. This constitutes the earliest known press coverage concerning what would come to be known as roping in the 2nd-gen games.

For both previews, screenshots of the game show the same HUD as was used in Worms: Reinforcements, with a + symbol after the Worms logo. This would be replaced with a clapperboard in the final version of the game.

Known Development Versions

Amiga Format Preview Version (aka "WormsDCAF") - Nov 11 '96

See: WormsDCAF

Released Versions

v1.0 - Mar 4 '97

WormsDC was released in 1997 by Ocean Software, then again in 1998 by Guildhall Leisure. Both releases include v1.0 of the game.

This tool for this version has a creation date of "04-Mar-97 12:00:58". Typing VERSION in this release of the game indicates a compile date of March 4th, 1997.

v1.05 - Oct 17 '97

See also: Patch (WormsDC)

The first and, to date, only patch released for WormsDC brings it up to v1.05. The patch disk was not widely distributed but was made available upon request to Team17. This patch disk was made publicly available in .adz format by English Amiga Board user MadMatt, then converted into the ADF format more commonly used for Amiga emulation by Squirminator2k. The ADF version was then given a wide release on Dream17.

By default, this release of the game will show the version upon loading the main menu. It indicates a compile date of October 17th, 1997. The file itself does not have a stored creation date - Workbench will thus report the file's "Last Changed" date as "12-Jul-78 19:50:03".

Final Reviews

CU Amiga and Amiga Format went on to review Worms: The Director's Cut in their December '96 and Xmas '96 issues respectively.

• CU Amiga scored the game at 91%, while Amiga Format scored it a 90% (or 45% for people who owned the original Worms).
• The Guildhall Leisure release would get reviewed again in the September '98 issue of Amiga Format, again scoring 90%.

Of note, the German magazine Amiga Joker offered a preview of Worms: Reinforcements, speaking of an Amiga release as a foregone conclusion. However, an Amiga release was never planned.

The future of WormsDC

On June 1st 2018, Andy Davidson posted a screenshot of the WormsDC title screen showing the text "V1.5 ALPHA - 2/5/18", and indicated he was working on an update. According to posts made to a French Amiga group at the time, this update was intended to include Worm Select, retreat time, and Sudden Death sinking.

In October 12 2024, Davidson confirmed work on the update had resumed. A post on the English Amiga Board dated October 14, 2024 suggested a January 2025 release.