As with the first game, players control their team of worms in combat against each other, using a wide collection of rockets, grenades, firearms, explosives, and air strikes, some eclectic and others bizarre.

It was released to generally very positive reviews, with critical acclaim going to the expanded customisation, the ability to be played over the Internet, a level editor, and the humour.

[4] Should a specified amount of time in a round pass and there still be multiple hostile teams alive, sudden death is enabled, during which either or both of these events occur: the landscape sinks under water, or each worm is reduced to one unit of health.

[10] In addition to quickly starting a game without setting up options,[11] the player can also opt to complete single-player missions in order.

Others are more fanciful and cartoonish, such as banana bombs, holy hand grenades, falling concrete statues of donkeys, and the sheep, which serves as a mobile explosive.

[23] Weapon settings include the initial stock each team begins with in a match, the explosion bias, the amount of damage the weapons deal, their interaction with the wind, the time within which the worm can retreat after use,[24] the delayed availability of certain items in a number of turns, the quantity of refills for each individual item,[25] and the relative frequency of their appearing in crates.

However, Worms creator Andy Davidson felt that the aforementioned improvements would not be enough to justify a sequel, and he also wanted to bid a farewell to users of the Amiga, which saw waning support and popularity.

To do this, Team17 allowed him to spend his time working on Worms: The Director's Cut, an expansion pack to the original designed for late Amiga computers.

Whilst The Director's Cut would become the last Amiga software by Team17, aside from graphical and memory improvements, it introduced a new level editor and additional weapons such as the Concrete Donkey.

[44] Worms 2 received generally very positive reviews, being praised for the customisability,[a] integrated online play,[b] the level editor,[c] and the humour.

[d] Trent Ward of GameSpot lauded the destructive environment and described the physics as being "minute-to-learn-lifetime-to-master", citing the latter as the reason for the addictive gameplay.

Harald Wagner of PC Games described it as occasionally being seemingly overwhelmed to the point that it will unintentionally hit its own worms instead, but also remarked its skill in ballistics.

[42] However, the Italian magazine Games for My Computer insisted that the AI was balanced, instead citing the simple campaign lacking various objectives as the drawback.

[53] Andy Martin of PC Zone also thought that the higher-resolution graphics gave the game "character", whilst saying that the gameplay makes up what the visuals lack, although he complained about the limited field of view and the inability to zoom out.

He also found that apart from the new graphics, expanded options, and the ability to play online, players of the first Worms game risk finding the sequel worthwhile.

[54] PCmanía considered Worms 2 to be one of the 100 essential programs of 1997, remarking its achieved feat of having high levels of both simplicity and addictiveness.

[55] In 1998, PC Gamer US declared it the 30th-best computer game ever released, acclaiming what they called an original and addictive blend of action and strategy genres, as well as the humour.

[56] The editors named it the best turn-based strategy game of 1998, writing, "Worms 2 serves as evidence that sometimes a genre's salvation can be found in the unlikeliest of places".