At its E3 2015 press conference, EA together with developer PopCap Games provided a gameplay demonstration of the forthcoming Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2.
After announcing that the original Garden Warfare attracted over six million players, Senior Creative Director at PopCap Games Jeremy Vanhoozer set the scene for its sequel. After the war depicted in the first game, zombie head-honcho Dr. Zomboss has finally figured out a way to thwart the plants in Suburbia and create the Zomburbia that he’s always dreamed of.
For players, this now means that the plants shift from being a defensive force to an aggressive horde as they now take control of the zombie horde in an effort to halt the tide of the furious flora and fauna.
The map that was on show was called Zomboss Factory and here the zombies were fighting the advance of the plants on all fronts by using a number of different classes and abilities. Able to utilise six different characters from the past, present and future, a wide variety of different zombie classes were on display.
Starting with Imp, the smallest and fastest zombie in the game, he can use grenades and John-Woo style twin-pistol attacks to destroy his foes. The massive Super Brain zombie on the other hand, prioritizes devastating melee attacks over ranged harassment while the brilliantly named Deadbeard, is the first ever zombie sniper; dispensing destruction from extreme distances.
If the inclusion of these classes seems like it might unbalance the whole, Vanhoozer quickly put that notion to rest as he showcased the first of many bosses that Garden Warfare 2 will include, starting with the towering flaming tree, Giga Torchwood.
Aside from co-ordinating all the unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses that each class has, players will also have to use all the gadgets and tools that are available at their disposal too. Chief among these is a deployable mech (not entirely dissimilar to the Titans in Titanfall), which when summoned, can be clambered into and dish out huge amounts of damage while being able to absorb a large amount of punishment in return. The fact that these stomping monstrosities look hugely impressive doesn’t hurt either.
Elsewhere, Garden Warfare 2 looks like it’ll have a lot of content to keep folks going. As well as a four-player cooperative mode called Graveyard Ops, Garden Warfare 2 also boasts properly solo play for the first time. Rather than restricting the game modes that might be available to solo players, EA and PopCap have instead made all the game modes ready to go from day one and even better yet, players can elect to take a friend with them in split-screen mode as well should they so wish.
As additional icing on the cake (or mud on the grave, depending on your loyalty), Vanhoozer also revealed that just about all unlocked characters in the original Garden Warfare can be transferred over to Garden Warefare 2 at launch. In a move that should further please the Garden Warfare fanbase, the PopCap boss confirmed that all content releasing after launch would be available at no extra cost.
Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is set to release on PS4 in spring 2016.