Plants vs. Zombies | |
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Genre(s) |
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Developer(s) | PopCap Games |
Publisher(s) |
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Creator(s) | George Fan |
Artist(s) | Rich Werner |
Writer(s) | Stephen Notley |
Composer(s) | Laura Shigihara |
Platform(s) | |
First release | Plants vs. Zombies May 5, 2009 |
Latest release | Plants vs. Zombies 3: Welcome to Zomburbia January 17, 2024 (soft launch) [1] |
Plants vs. Zombies is a video game franchise developed by PopCap Games, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts (EA). The series follows the affiliates of David "Crazy Dave" Blazing as they use his plants to defend against a zombie invasion, led by Dr. Edgar George Zomboss. The first game, Plants vs. Zombies (2009), was developed and released by PopCap before its acquisition by EA. After PopCap Games's acquisition, EA expanded the game into a franchise with games on many different platforms.
2009 | Plants vs. Zombies |
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2010–2012 | |
2013 | Adventures |
Plants vs. Zombies 2 | |
2014 | Garden Warfare |
2015 | |
2016 | Garden Warfare 2 |
Heroes | |
2017–2018 | |
2019 | Battle for Neighborville |
2020–2023 | |
2024 | Plants vs. Zombies 3: Welcome to Zomburbia |
On April 1, 2009, PopCap released a music video for the song "Zombies on Your Lawn" by Laura Shigihara to promote Plants vs. Zombies . [2] A PopCap spokesperson, Garth Chouteau, revealed in an IGN interview that Plants vs. Zombies would be released soon on PC and Mac. [3] On April 22, 2009, PopCap released an official game trailer of Plants vs. Zombies on YouTube. [4] [5] During the promotion of Plants vs. Zombies, PopCap released a demo version of the game that could be played for thirty minutes. [6] Plants vs. Zombies was officially released on May 5, 2009, for PC and Mac, [7] by 2013 switching from a $2.99 gameplay cost to free-to-play on iOS and Android devices. Critics on mobile devices give the game an average of 4.3-4.8 star ratings. [8]
PopCap Games and its assets were bought by EA on July 12, 2011, for 750 million US dollars. [9] Fifty employees were laid off in the Seattle studio of PopCap Games on August 21, 2012, to mark a switch of focus to mobile and social gaming. [10]
On August 20, 2012, PopCap announced that they were working on a sequel to Plants vs. Zombies. [11] Its release date would be set at late spring of 2013. [12] However, the game's status was in doubt shortly after the announcement when the company went through a period of layoffs. [10]
In May 2013, PopCap Games released a trailer revealing a sequel to the first game, titled Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time . [13] [14] The game was soft-launched for the iOS in Australia and New Zealand on July 10, 2013, [15] and was officially released on August 14, 2013, as a freemium title. [16] The game featured new locations and plants along with the addition of plant food, a power-up that can be used to enhance a plant for a short period and can either be bought using in-game currency or acquired by defeating zombies that are glowing green. [17] There are four other power-ups in the game, all of which are bought with coins, the in-game currency. Along with these new add ons, the game continues to make updates from time to time. According to EA News, the Arena and Penny's Pursuit updates, which are different game modes within the game, have been some of their latest major updates, aside from all the mini add ons. [18]
In July 2019, EA announced Plants vs. Zombies 3, another free-to-play mobile title in the series. It was launched in a pre-alpha state for Android in July 2019. [19] [20] The game soft-launched in February 2020 in the Philippines, Romania, and Ireland. [21] It was then made unavailable in October 2020, becoming unplayable in November 2020. EA has plans to release an improved version of the game in the future. [22] On September 7, 2021, Plants vs. Zombies 3 was soft-launched again with substantial changes, such as two-dimensional graphics and the return of the Sunflower as a plantable plant, having the same purpose in the previous iterations. [23] On January 17, 2024, Plants vs. Zombies 3 was soft launched again, this time as Plants vs. Zombies 3: Welcome to Zomburbia in select regions, [1] adapting storylines and characters from the Plants vs. Zombies comic book series (written by Paul Tobin, illustrated by Ron Chan, and published by Dark Horse Comics), including Tugboat the Zombie and Patrice Blazing. [24]
A spin-off called Plants vs. Zombies Adventures was announced in March 2013 [25] and was released on May 20, 2013 on Facebook. The game added new locations and new plants. It also had a gameplay feature in which the player had a limited amount of plants and had to grow more plants at an in-game farm. [26] In July 2014, it was announced that Plants vs. Zombies Adventures would close on October 12, 2014. [27]
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare was announced at E3 2013 as a multiplayer third-person shooter game made for PC and consoles. [28] [29] Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare was released on February 25, 2014, in North America and on February 27, 2014, in Europe. [30] A sequel, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 , was teased in June 2015 and was officially announced at E3 2015. [31] [32] The game was released on February 23, 2016. [33] On March 10, 2016, PopCap announced Plants vs. Zombies Heroes , a digital collectible card game in the style of tower defense. It was soft released to certain countries on the same day, [34] and was fully released internationally on October 18, 2016. [35]
In August 2019, a closed beta of a sequel to Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 codenamed "Picnic" was made available to select players through invites. [36] On September 4, 2019, EA announced the sequel's title; Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville . It was released in an early access state that same date. The game was fully released on October 18, 2019. [37] [38]
A cancelled single player Plants vs. Zombies game had been in the works within EA from about 2015 to 2017. Known as "Project Hot Tub" in reference to Hot Tub Time Machine , the game was to have been an action game along the lines of the Uncharted series but maintaining its family-friendly nature, featuring two teenage siblings that travelled through time to fight zombies. The game was being developed by PopCap Vancouver. While a vertical slice of the game had been shown off to EA executives in 2017, EA opted to cancel the project to pull in more resources to Visceral Games to support their work on the Star Wars game under the name Project Ragtag , which had been languishing for several years. Despite this, EA cancelled Project Ragtag in October 2017, shutting down Visceral Games, and the former PopCap Vancouver team was relocated across other EA studios. [39]
Since July 2013, Dark Horse Comics has published a Plants vs. Zombies ongoing comic book series, following teenagers Nate Timely and Patrice Blazing as they protect Neighborville from the zombie armies of Dr. Edgar Zomboss, with the help of Patrice's uncle, David "Crazy Dave" Blazing, and his own legion of genetically-modified sentient plants, accessible via the Plants vs. Zombies Comics app. [40] Elements from the comic book series were later adapted to the franchise's video game instalments, and vice-versa. [41]
Infinity Ward, Inc. is an American video game developer. They developed the video game Call of Duty, along with seven other installments in the Call of Duty series. Vince Zampella, Grant Collier, and Jason West established Infinity Ward in 2002 after working at 2015, Inc. previously. All of the 22 original team members of Infinity Ward came from the team that had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault while at 2015, Inc. Activision helped fund Infinity Ward in its early days, buying up 30 percent of the company, before eventually fully acquiring them. The studio's first game, World War II shooter Call of Duty, was released on the PC in 2003. The day after the game was released, Activision bought the rest of Infinity Ward, signing employees to long-term contracts. Infinity Ward went on to make Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, the Modern Warfare reboot, and its sequel.
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PopCap Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Seattle, and a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. The company was founded in 2000 by John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka.
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Plants vs. Zombies is a 2009 tower defense video game developed and published by PopCap Games. First released for Windows and Mac OS X, the game has since been ported to consoles, handhelds, and mobile devices. The player takes the role of a homeowner amid a zombie apocalypse. As a horde of zombies approaches along several parallel lanes, the player must defend their home by placing plants, which fire projectiles at the zombies or otherwise detrimentally affect them. The player collects a currency called sun to buy plants. If a zombie happens to make it to the house on any lane, the player loses the level.
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is a 2014 multiplayer third-person shooter and tower defense video game developed by PopCap Games and published by Electronic Arts. The third game in the Plants vs. Zombies franchise, the basic premise revolves around plants defending humankind from a zombie invasion. In the game, players assume control of either the Plants or the Zombies, as they fight in various cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes. Upon completing matches and finishing objectives, players earn coins to acquire stickers that unlock customization items and character variants.
Plants vs. Zombies 2 is a 2013 free tower defense video game developed by PopCap Games and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to Plants vs. Zombies, and was released worldwide on Apple App Store on August 15, 2013, and Google Play on October 23, 2013. The player defends the lawn from zombies by placing a variety of plants. The player must battle the zombies in different time periods, including Ancient Egypt, the Golden Age of Piracy, the Wild West, the Last Ice Age, Mesoamerica, the future, the Early Middle Ages, the 1980s, the Jurassic Period, the 1960s and the present.
Peggle 2 is a casual puzzle video game developed by PopCap Games and published by Electronic Arts. It is the official sequel to Peggle (2007), although a previous follow-up to the PC game was released in 2008. In production since 2012, Peggle 2 was announced during the E3 2013 press conference and also as a timed exclusive for the Xbox One. Although the gameplay mechanics remain mostly the same, Peggle 2 features a different set of masters, with Bjorn Unicorn and Jimmy Lightning (DLC) the only returning members among a set of five other new ones. There are also new gameplay options, in-game features, and more. An Xbox 360 version of the game was released on May 7, 2014, as well as a PlayStation 4 version on October 14, 2014. Critically, Peggle 2 was praised for its new masters and the implementation of them; its vibrant visuals; soundtrack; and the addition of trial levels and challenges. However, it was also criticized for not having enough facets that made it truly different from its predecessors.
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Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is a 2016 third-person shooter video game developed by PopCap Games and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. It is the sequel to Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare and the fourth game in the Plants vs. Zombies franchise. The game was released in February 2016. A successor, Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, was released in October 2019.
Plants vs. Zombies Heroes is a digital collectible card game and the sixth installment in the Plants vs. Zombies series, developed by PopCap Games and published by Electronic Arts. On March 10, 2016, it underwent a soft launch in some countries on iOS, before being internationally released on October 18, 2016. Heroes is the first mobile release in the Plants vs Zombies series in which players can play on either the Plant team or the Zombie team, with the former pursuing the latter under Crazy Dave's leadership following the Hero-Tron 3000's malfunction.
Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville is a third-person shooter developed by PopCap Games and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. It is a continuation of the Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare spin-off series of Plants vs. Zombies, being the third overall installment. The game was released as an early access title in September 2019 before its full release in October the same year. It received generally positive reviews upon release.
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George Fan is an American video game designer who currently works as the creative director of All Yes Good. He designed Insaniquarium (2001), Plants vs. Zombies, Octogeddon (2018), and Hardhat Wombat (2023). Before going into game design, Fan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000 with a degree in computer science. After graduating, he worked under Arcade Planet to develop games for their website, Prizegames.com. He eventually formed Flying Bear Entertainment and created Insaniquarium, which became a finalist for the 2002 Independent Games Festival. He then joined Blizzard Entertainment and worked there while simultaneously developing Insaniquarium further for PopCap Games, releasing the "Deluxe" edition in 2004.
PC and Mac initially, with other platforms under consideration.