Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2

EA and PopCap Games revealed Plants vs. Zombie Garden Warfare 2 today. The zany third-person shooter is getting a new storyline and more over-the-top characters in the sequel. During a Pre-E3 event held in Santa Monica, I went hands-on and discovered more about the game.

PopCap has taken plenty of fan feedback into consideration from the original Garden Warfare and they didn’t want to leave those fans who poured hours into the first game out in the cold.  Not only will there be free content updates after launch, but players will be able to transfer almost every one of their unlocked characters from the first game into Garden Warfare 2.

This time around, Dr. Zomboss has finally taken over suburbia, turning it into Zomburbia, a place for the zombies to live free from persecution. The plants just aren’t going to sit down and take that; they are ready to fight back for control. For the first time, the plants are on the attack, and PopCap has created all new game modes to cater to that, including all new plant bosses. For example, a mode called 24-player Herbal Assault lets you go on the offense as plants and Graveyard Ops is a four-co-op experience where, as the zombies, you must defend against an assault from the plants.

Garden Warfare 2 also features six new classes that tap into the series’ zaniness, such as Super Brainz, a zombie superhero who acts like he’s straight out of an ‘80s action film. During my hands-on time, I played four-player co-op and tested out Deadbeard, who made a good impression on me. The peg-legged captain is good for both long range and melee. He’s a zombie sniper class, something that hasn’t been in Garden Warfare before. 

To defend our base, I used an arsenal of attacks to keep the plants at bay. Deadbeard has a parrot pal who you can take control of, and while flying through the air can use his laser eyes and egg bombs. However, my favorite attack is the barrel blast, which allows the captain to protect himself in barrel and roam around the field. A bonus? You can lights its fuse and explode right in front of enemies for up-close damage. This was essential for taking out a groups of plants at once. Deadbeard also has a cannon rodeo, which lets him ride on a cannon and blast foes. It works just fine, but I found myself alternating more between barrel blast and my parrot pal to get the job done. At the very least, I found Deadbeard to have an easy learning curve and found myself satisfied with my progression each match.

Deadbeard seems like a very balanced character, but I still need to try out the other classes. They all seem to have their own creative perks, like Citron, a bounty-hunting cyborg orange from the future. The game will ship with twelve maps that include fun backdrops, such as Time Travel Theme Park and the final frontier. Garden Warfare will also allow you to set up private matches, and play locally either solo or co-op split screen. 

Garden Warfare 2 launches this spring on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.