We recently had the chance to ask John Dennis of Team 17 some questions about the upcoming Worms: Ultimate Mayhem. Check out the full interview after the jump! Worms: Ultimate Mayhem will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade on September 28, retailing for 1200 Microsoft Points.

Can you start us off by giving us an overview of what Worms: Ultimate Mayhem is?

Hi, of course, Worms Ultimate Mayhem, for us, is the definitive 3D Worms game. The game is a “best of” compilation of the very best content from both Worms 3D and Worms 4: Mayhem, so it’s got loads of the weapons, tons of the customization options plus a selection of new ones, making for well over 100 individual customization elements in total, and it has 60 single player missions from games both as well, making it a just massive game.

We’ve also taken the opportunity to improve and enhance on what was there already too. It’s not often you’ve get the chance to revisit titles that you remember fondly, so our starting point was wanting to do the 3D games justice. This meant going back to consumer reviews and fan feedback, and seeing what people liked and where they felt improvements could be made. The main bugbear seemed to be the camera, so this is where we started… we made a number of improvements, from making it less interfering, to adding a picture-in-picture function that means you can both retreat your worm and see where your shot lands at the same time without ever losing sight of either – this makes each shot more rewarding. We also set about making the game more approachable, and to this end we added a new utility (the Binoculars) that helps you aim, an introduction sequence to guide you through the menu system and an automatic shot assist mechanic that helps your shots find their targets in easy mode. It all adds up to making the game feel much friendlier and more approachable for players who’ve never had the Worms experience in 3D.

In terms of visual improvements, we’ve brought the game up-to-date with a raft of enhancements. New water effects, up-scaled textures and fonts, higher polygon counts, specular materials, real-time lighting and dynamic shadows all add to the game looking a little more modern while still retaining its attractive cartoon style visuals. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget the audio improvements either… we’ve a whole bunch of new music in the game, or all of the cut-scenes have been re-edited, voice-acted and lip-synced, which makes a massive difference!

Tell us what’s so different about developing a 3D Worms game like Ultimate Mayhem, compared to the traditional Worms approach, which is 2D.

Taking the game into 3D was a massive challenge. There were many hurdles to overcome, the largest of which was probably being able to create a completely deformable 3D landscape. It hadn’t been done before, and without it the concept of Worms in 3D kind of falls down, so the first question was “can we create a completely deformable terrain in 3D?” Once we had a technical solution for that, there was still a whole lot of work to do in making the game play well, but it very much felt like things were easier, after the challenge of the landscape.

The creation of the single player content was also massively different. Aside from all the landscapes needing to be created in our own in-house landscape editor (due to the nature of the deformable 3D landscape), the fact that the game has a third dimension and was powered by a highly flexible scripting system meant we could do some really different things that we really couldn’t do in 2D with 2D worms and 2D landscapes. For example, you may find your worms having to re-wire a computer, search graves for treasure or hold strong points until reinforcements arrive. The single player is pretty diverse!

Will there be any major differences between the XBLA version of Ultimate Mayhem, and the PC version which will be available on Steam?

Yes indeed… not only do we have some really nice bespoke Avatar support, a really nice free ‘Trial Game’, and of course XBLA Achievements, but the original challenges from Worms 3D appear as exclusive content in the XBLA version.

Xbox Live Arcade seems like the perfect venue for a developer like Team 17. Can you tell us a little bit about your experiences working with Microsoft on XBLA?

It’s been an absolute pleasure working with the Microsoft and the LIVE Arcade team. We’ve had a long and very fruitful partnership with them since Worms first arrived on LIVE Arcade in 2007, and as you probably know, the platform has been very good for our game. The LIVE Arcade team are a really nice bunch of guys, so it’s always fun to hook up with them and work on our titles with them.

Ultimate Mayhem is scheduled to make its way onto Xbox Live this year. Can you tell us when it will be releasing and how much it will be selling for?

Sure, Worms: Ultimate Mayhem will cost 1200 Microsoft Points on Xbox LIVE® Arcade, and will be released for Xbox 360 from Xbox Live Arcade on Wednesday 28th September 2011. Not long to wait now!

Beyond Worms: Ultimate Mayhem, what should fans of Xbox Live Arcade be looking forward to from Team 17? Assuming the world doesn’t end when 2012 rolls around of course.

The world’s going to end in 2012? Wow. I missed that memo! We’ve actually got some *very* cool things in development at the moment… some things that I think will really surprise people, but (and I guess everyone’s bored of developers saying it) we can’t really talk about them just yet. Honestly, our Head of Marketing would do me some serious damage if I started announcing stuff already. He really would. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry ; )

One last question…Tell our readers why they should buy Worms: Ultimate Mayhem when it hits Xbox LIVE Arcade on September 28th.

Well, they could buy it for the unique 3D deformable landscape and the satisfaction of destroying EVERYTHING they can see. They could do that… and that would be a good reason. It’s pretty satisfying blowing things up.

They could buy it because of the humor and genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, the crazy weapons, the worms mugging to camera or the silly story sequences. They could do that too, and that wouldn’t be a bad reason at all. Everyone likes a laugh.

Perhaps they could buy it because they like customizing things: from what their worms wear and what they say to tailoring individual game settings to their own tastes. Maybe they’d even like creating their very own secret weapon, deciding how it’s launched, what effect it has and what it looks like. I wouldn’t fault them for that. It’s fun making stuff your own.

Or I guess they could buy it for the insane amount of content: 60 single player missions, 20 challenges, 10 deathmatch challenges, 6 FMVs, 5 online and offline multiplayer modes, 1,000,000+ game style choices via Wormpot, 23 speech-banks, 115 customization items, 38 weapons and 5 Easter eggs. That would also be a very good reason to buy the game.

I guess there are a few reasons your readers might want to pick it up. Whatever they decide, I hope they have as much fun with the game as we have. It’s been brilliant going back to two games we remember so fondly and re-discovering the fun all over again. If they have even half as much fun playing the game as we have, then I’ll be very happy :)