For now we’re going to disregard things like gameplay, community, or map design and focus on what is perhaps the biggest draw of Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare; loot. Well alright it isn’t necessarily loot. Usually, players are rewarded with a healthy wallet full of coins at the end of any game. These coins are then open to be spent on sticker packs. Within sticker packs are things like consumable items, aesthetic upgrades, or the much-coveted class variants.
Class variants are unlocked by collecting five stickers from the packs for that character type. This is possible via semi-random collection (you’ll never get doubles) or buying the more expensive sticker packs which include all of the stickers for a particular variant. At launch, each of the classes had at least five different variants with more now available thanks to free DLCs.
Yeah that’s right. In a post-Evolve world, free DLC sounds altogether strange and scary. It did exist though, and still does.
Collecting enough coins for one of these character packs is one of the driving forces behind progression in Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare. On average, a game of Gardens and Graveyards would net a player about 10,000 coins with the full packs costing 40,000. That’s four games to probably unlock a new character type. Just enough to keep the player excited while not dangling the carrot on a stick that is a little too long.
Of course, this being an EA title, you could advance in the multiplayer circuit through the purchase of coins for cash. They’re £7.99/$9.99 for 200,000 and give players the opportunity to unlock a grand total of five new variants for the price. Sound like too much? Well it might be for some, but for the amount of time you’ll save it isn’t a bad investment for those who can afford it and really want to get a Peashooter with a Revolver for a face.
To those who felt the paid route was too pricey, Popcap threw in multiple free DLC packs at the player base to keep them interested. A grand total of seven free DLC packs were released with one being offered as a free code from packs of Cheetos purchased in the US. From those came multiple new character variants, maps, and even game modes like Gnome Bomb or Suburbination.
Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare‘s leveling system was itself a fairly novel thing too. Rather than rewarding someone for constantly playing the game, something done more easily through giving them coins, players would be given challenges to complete for stars. These challenges were unique to each different class and the total makes up each players perceived “level. As it turns out, this system was a pretty damn ingenious way to keep people playing just to make their number a little bigger. Players were and are even able to skip these if they’re too difficult using Skip Challenge Stars found in Sticker Packs.
Combine these systems with some fairly solid gameplay, a playing field that looks fairly good in Frostbite 3, and a level of accessibility to almost everybody through some fairly simple controls, then you’ve got a look at why Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare saw and still sees some success. Yes it isn’t changing the gaming world, but it made a piece of the world for gamers who enjoyed it a great place to be.
Almost a year later, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare still has a fan-base on all platforms. Load up the game on any console and you’ll be able to find a match. It might take a little time on the PlayStation versions and sometimes on PC you can be waiting around for a while (because Origin), but there are people out there still playing the game. Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare turns one year old on Wednesday, so raise a glass and call out a toast to the little game that could.
Hell, there are probably more people talking about it than there are Titanfall. Oh yeah, I went there.
