We get six new characters three for each faction. In the previous title outside of the multiplayer you only had the plants to play as, now the zombies get just as much love with their own versions of play modes the plants originally got.īut this wouldn’t be a sequel if it didn’t introduce new character classes to play as. Both factions have been treated equally this time around, too. Split screen was restricted solely to the Garden Ops wave based horde mode in Garden Warfare, but here you can do all the single player content and all the extra hub based activities, not to mention online in private parties, you can’t say that PopCap hasn’t been flexible with what it’s created here. This is made better by the fact it can all be undertaken in split screen, which improves another aspect of the original title. There’s the occasional original mission, and some genuine laughs to be had with some of the missions, but it feels a little like filler content, even if it’s a nice diversion from the multiplayer. For the most part these are formed of repurposed multiplayer content complete with AI compatriots to help keep the heat off when things get busy. As well as that there are single player campaigns added for both Plants and Zombies.
There’s a triggerable horde mode in the centre of the map, bounties to run for NPCs, chests to find and open, and even a game of football that you can indulge in with other people (complete with PEA Sports logo in the centre circle). PopCap has populated the Backyard Battleground with a multitude of things to see and do. This isn’t just some bland substitute for menus though. In a stroke of genius here they’ve completely removed the menu system and created the Backyard Battleground, an overworld hub in which you can do all the things the original games menus allowed you to do, but you can also explore. It was fun to play, and earning coins to buy sticker packs was a great hook, but if you didn’t fancy playing with others online then your options were pretty barren.
If there was one main criticism about the original it’s that outside of the multiplayer there just wasn’t anything to do. Not ones to favour ease the Peggle developers decided to shake things up a little, and with the help of DICE’s Frostbite engine Garden Warfare was born. The mobile titles had proved to be huge successes, and all PopCap had to do was keep the fans in with cartoon flora and they could rest easy. The idea of Plants vs Zombies being anything other than a bright and playful Tower Defence game was an alien concept in 2013.