During a time when the gaming industry is plagued with bland arena type games that lack substance, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 easily stands out as one of the most comprehensive multiplayer games ever. Expanding and improving upon its predecessor in almost every possible way, Garden Warfare 2 showcases an incredible amount of hilarious and rewarding content, and should be experienced by everyone.
Developer PopCap Games has completely done away with menus in this game, instead opening up a huge hub world called the Backyard Battleground for players to convene in. With the plants’ headquarters on one side of the region and the zombies’ on the other, fierce clashes between the two factions take place in the center realm often. You can switch between plants and zombies at any time, teleporting to whichever HQ you prefer. Rather than scrolling through typical menus to choose characters and game modes, you now physically interact with certain objects inside the HQ. Although this can be overwhelming at first, it soon becomes simple and convenient, and you never have to worry about loading screens. A portal will start competitive multiplayer matches while a flying van will launch cooperative Garden Ops or Graveyard Ops modes. You can invite a friend to join you in split-screen here, but, sadly, they still cannot assist you in online matches. After the initial confusion wears off, the Backyard Battleground is great. There are many hidden areas to explore and Easter eggs to find. You can even challenge a friend to a game of soccer in a small field near the plants’ HQ.
Each HQ has a notice board where you can choose challenges that you want to complete. Some of these challenges can be accomplished in the Backyard Battleground, and others must be completed during multiplayer matches. These usually require you to complete tasks such as vanquishing fifty zombies while playing as a Sunflower or participating in a certain game mode ten times, and reward you with XP multipliers, coins, and stars. Stars are used to unlock chests and other features hidden throughout the Backyard Battleground. Characters will also give you quests to complete, offering a little bit of exposition with the usual Plants vs. Zombies humor. Unfortunately these fall pretty flat, becoming boring and repetitive after the first couple times. Fetch quests and guarding an objective against a wave of enemies can only be entertaining for so long. Nonetheless, the badges and coins awarded for completing these missions are often motivation enough, and being able to play with a friend makes them far more tolerable.
Garden Warfare 2 brings back the eight characters from the original Garden Warfare and adds six more, three for the plants and three for the zombies, for a total of seven on either side. While most of the old characters were modeled after classes in standard shooter games – the Sunflower as a medic or the Cactus as a sniper – the new characters are far more varied while remaining fairly balanced. Captain Deadbeard and Super Brainz, for example, have two different attacks which allow them to excel at both close and long range combat, but struggle to put up a good fight in between. With his low health but powerful Z-Mech ability, the Imp is a high-risk, high-reward character.
On the plants’ side, Rose is a sorceress-like character who excels in crowd control, Citron is a mech that can morph into a mobile ball, and Kernel Corn fires rounds at an incredible speed to decimate zombies at medium range. There are currently nine additional character variants for each of the eight original Garden Warfare classes, and four for each of the new six classes, bringing the total character count up to an incredible 110. It’s incredibly satisfying to master alternate playstyles for each of these character variants as you unlock them, and I would expect even more to become available eventually through PopCap’s promised free DLC.
Even after you unlock a character, the amount of customization available is overwhelming. Hats, accessories, tattoos, and weapon skins can be altered, along with taunts and character abilities. Each character levels up individually, and the desire to bring each one to max level easily keeps you wanting to play more.
Combat feels more refined than ever, with a slight vibration coming from the motors in the Xbox One controller for every shot fired, and wonderfully optimized aiming that doesn’t suffer from any dead zone issues. The game maintains 60 frames per second easily, and even holds up a reasonable frame rate during split-screen. My only frustration was losing control of my character in tight spaces. When much of my team and I were guarding an objective, combat became dense and cluttered, and I felt as if I was bouncing off of my teammates, making it challenging and awkward to move around. Apart from that, there is nothing but fun to be had during skirmishes.
Every character model, object, and map is vibrant and intricate, creating a glorious atmosphere of backyard destruction. Twists on classical music create funky new soundtracks, with higher pitched, more cheerful songs associated with the plants and deeper, more ominous ones with the zombies. In objective-based missions and modes the music dynamically changes to emphasize the side that is winning, which is a neat way to reflect the state of the game through sound.
During my early access time with Garden Warfare 2, I was only given access to one of the seven multiplayer game modes, Turf Takeover, which takes place on the most expansive maps in the game. Although I was impressed with the level of detail in smaller maps like Colizeum and Zen Peak during my time in Garden Ops, nothing compares to the maps seen in Turf Takeover. Each of these dynamically changes as you play, with clashes moving from area to area, each much different from the last. These maps are colorful and pretty to look at, and are very unique in nature. Moon Base Z, for example, invites you to battle in low gravity atmospheres in order to destroy or save planet Earth, and Seeds of Time takes you through multiple locations in time and space. If a game of Turf Takeover goes on long enough it will end with some sort of hilarious challenge that perfectly fits in with the Plants vs. Zombies world. The plants might try to ruin a zombie party or the zombies might attempt to thaw out a yeti king from ice. It’s nice to end these long expeditions with something so special and amusing.
Summary
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is a game that everyone should experience. With 110 character variants, 12 lively maps, 7 game modes, and more to come in the form of free DLC, this is a multiplayer shooter that is more jam-packed with content than any other out there. Garden Warfare 2 can be enjoyed by children and adults alike, and although the online multiplayer is still far superior to the single-player and split-screen modes, there’s a lot more to do than there was in the previous installment. This is a big step forward for the franchise and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.
Be sure to check out Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 on Amazon
Tristan was a regular ICXM contributor between 2015–2017, publishing 51 articles across opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative. They post on X as @tbogost.