All New World of Lemmings

Lore & Background

The storyline continues where Lemmings 2 left off. Of the twelve tribes that escaped from Lemming Island, the adventures of three tribes are followed: the Shadow tribe, the Classic tribe, and the Egyptian tribe. Each tribe leaves the flying Ark they escaped on and finds its own island to explore.

Gameplay is similar to the original games, requiring the player to lead all lemmings to their exit by giving them appropriate skills. The game represents lemmings with larger graphics than previous entries and introduced enemies and an alternative way of giving skills. It has 90 levels, 30 for each tribe, and lemmings saved in one level carry over to the next. Five skills are available per level, while others can be obtained when a lemming picks up an item. A new replay mode allows automatic redoing of previous actions with the option to continue. Practice levels are available with every item to experiment with.

Development was marked by mixed feelings. Programmer Mike Dailly recounted that 'Lemmings 3 was a bit crap … more to end our commitment to Psygnosis than actually do a good game.' He noted the larger character size spoiled it, done because the Children's Television Workshop wanted bigger characters. DMA Design head David Jones remarked, 'We needed a break for a while after Lemmings. Three years of hell.' A 3DO Interactive Multiplayer version was announced at E3 1995 but never released for unknown reasons.

Reader's Guide

All New World of Lemmings holds significance as the final Lemmings title developed by DMA Design, marking the end of an era for the studio that created the series. Its larger character graphics and introduction of enemies represented a shift in design, though the development team expressed dissatisfaction with the direction. The game's legacy is tied to its position as a transitional entry: it retained the core puzzle mechanics of the original while experimenting with new features like item-based skill acquisition and a replay mode. Reception was mixed, with a Next Generation reviewer giving the MS-DOS version three out of five stars, praising the larger lemmings, new backgrounds, and added features as 'an excellent new perspective on an old stand-by.' The game's storyline, following three tribes from the previous installment, was abandoned in the next series entry, 3D Lemmings (1995), which dropped most features from Lemmings 2 and All New World of Lemmings. Thus, the game stands as a unique experiment within the franchise, remembered more for its development controversies and technical changes than for critical or commercial success.

Did You Know?

• The game was named The Lemmings Chronicles in North America.
• It was the last Lemmings game developed by DMA Design.
• A 3DO Interactive Multiplayer version was announced at E3 1995 but never released for unknown reasons.
• The larger character size was requested by the Children's Television Workshop.