Gawd, everyone’s doing an XCOM these days. Star Wars is doing an XCOM. Rainbow Six is doing an XCOM. Warhammer 40K has done, like, four XCOMs. Those squeaky wiggletubes of Worms are at it too, with Worms: Galactic Tactics, a turn-based grid battler coming sometime in 2027.

It’s a busy genre, then, though there might well be room for this one too. I played a few rounds with developers Absolutely Games at Gamescom last month and it shows real, shrewd promise, despite slaying some of the wider series’ sacred bombsheep.

It’s 3D, obviously (gasp). And, while a full set of online and local multiplayer modes are planned, it’s “singleplayer focused” (gasp), with a campaign that takes three named worms through a televised murder tournament in a roguelike (gasp) structure. Holy Hand Grenades? Concrete Donkeys? The mighty Prod? They’re here, but take the form of future upgrades you’ll likely be saving for across multiple runs.

It’s a bit surprising that Team17, who are publishing, greenlit this – the original devs seemingly having sworn off 3D Worms games for two decades. I liked what I played, mind, and there’s a very decent chance that Galactic Tactics could straddle the line between offering something new and that more intangible quality of still feeling Wormsy.

Aiming, for one, maintains both the precision and the potential for violent disaster that the mainline games always relied on. Rather than clicking on a target, judging a hit chance percentage, and cursing your idiot sniper for missing on 95%, projectile weapony in Galactic Tactics is pointed manually. Then, regardless of the weapon type, there’s a one-click, timing-based minigame to determine accuracy by thine own hand alone. Hit the sweet spot and you’re rewarded with critical damage, but fluff the green zone entirely and your munitions will swing wide, maybe even detonating your teammates. It’s a clever system: one that preserves skillshots while ensuring that any slapstick cockups are entirely your own doing. The brief window to make the click also injects some urgency back where the lack of a turn timer (gasp) had removed it.

Positioning, too, is as important here as it’s always been in Worms. Particularly, Galactic Tactics almost always offers a height advantage; while there are defensive bonuses to staying in cover or next to shield generators, that aiming system makes it far easier to land critical shots when you’re peering down on foes. Who, in turn, will find it trickier to effectively return fire. Instead of cowering behind crates, then, I’d routinely splurge my movement points on aggressively securing elevation, trading the safety of an easier retreat for the glory of multi-hit bazooka blasts.

All of this does, indeed, feel Wormsy, especially once those vantage points are compromised by yet more series-standard terrain deformation. Arenas are small, and ultimately still grid-based, rather than destructible on a pixel-by-pixel grade. But toppling perches and cratering the floor still open up new tactical possibilities and farcial hazards. In a late round, one of my Big Lad Worm’s flaming fists wasn’t quite enough to paste an enemy on attack damage alone. However, shifting to his side and thwacking him into the lava pool – revealed by an earlier explosive barrel chain reaction, ignited by my own whiffed bazooka – finished him off instantly.

It’s this interplay between smart moves and dumb accidents, between strategy and improv, that’s always ended up dragging me back to Worms, even with years-long breaks splitting up those bursts of interest. And, at least recently, the games themselves. I’d still want to see how multiplayer pans out, but Galactic Tactics does seem to grasp and respect the heavy systemicism that makes these games work, roguelike remixing or no. And if it doesn’t work, whelp, Absolutely are also making a classic-styled Worms game to launch further down the line. That’s a lot of squeaking wriggletubes.