Familiarity is the spice of life.

Back when I reviewed Worms Clan Wars, I said it was good because it was essentially Worms Revolution. Worms Battlegrounds is just Worms Clan Wars. Not even essentially, it is full on just Worms Clan Wars renamed for the console space. I can only presume they renamed it to avoid the stigma of definitive editions arriving on next-gen consoles.

So yeah, it’s Clan Wars. Same gameplay, same campaign, same Katherine Parkinson narrating and not being as good as Matt Berry was in Worms Revolution. I’m not going to talk about all the stuff that was the same in Clan Wars again, but rather what has changed.

Considering this is just a straight port, you’d expect not a fat lot, but Worms Battlegrounds does bring with it a feature that Worms fans in the console arena will happily debase themselves for in gratitude; a solid frame rate. Worms Revolution ran like absolute arse on the Xbox 360 and I heard things weren’t much better on the PS3, an earth-shattering feat considering the rather low-key graphical style of the game. The fluid mechanics and 3D engine soaked up a lot of the blame for these problems, but the advent of the current gen machines has meant that once again, Worms runs silky smooth.

Clan Wars mode has been replaced with, you guessed it, Battlegrounds mode. When I say replaced, I mean renamed. It might have had a few tweaks during the transition to consoles, but nothing you’ll notice. Here you can create a clan, or join a public clan, and then battle against other clans online. The matchmaking is pretty quick and I never had to wait long to find a game, though obviously this is dependent on the playerbase sticking around past the first few weeks from launch.

Linford is about to be smited. Worms is all about doing the lord’s good work after all.

There are also a few new weapons that are good for a chuckle, but none of them amused me like the old favourites. Holy Hand Grenade massif represent. At this point I really am out of things to talk about without rehashing my review of Clan Wars. It’s Worms, at this point you know what you’re getting with this series. It gives you everything you’d expect from a Worms title, but not a penny more.

Speaking of pennies, I hope you’ve been saving yours up if you want to pick up Worms Battlegrounds, because it’s not coming cheap. The digital version is £20 which is already pushing its luck, but if you’re after a retail copy, you could be looking at paying up to £35. What really blows my mind is that I checked out the box of the retail version and as far as I can tell, you get nothing extra for your £15. At least Trials Fusion threw in the season pass.

Despite all these complaints though, Battlegrounds is still a Worms game and they never really lose their charm. It’s an almost primeval level of video game entertainment and it will be a sad day when people don’t get a laugh out of throwing an exploding sheep at someone.

At its current price point, Worms Battlegrounds is hard to recommend but if you’re a fan of the series then you won’t find it lacking, but maybe wait for it to go on sale. The solid frame rate alone wins Battlegrounds big points over the last console entry, but it lacks anything new. However if previous entries didn’t win you over, you’ll get nothing but déjà vu and disappointment from Battlegrounds.