Prerelease:Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

The Art of Plants vs. Zombies

Included in The Art of Plants vs. Zombies book are several pieces of concept art for Garden Warfare. As this was the first 3D game in the series, there were several early designs for both the plants and zombies that looked rather... unusual, to say the least.

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Variants

To do: Discuss differences and provide sources for these

Several concept art pieces of the variants have been posted onto ArtStation, as well as shared from various interviews.

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Gravedigger

Quite possibly the most infamous piece of cut content from the original Garden Warfare, the Gravedigger was planned to be the main healer class for the Zombie team before the Scientist took that role. It's primary weapoon would've been shotgun-like, similar to the Scientist's primary weapon, and it's abilities include placing down a gravestone as a shield which would raise AI zombies and a hand grenade which would've, presumably, crawled towards plants and exploded, which would later be considered for the Scientist before being scrapped entirely, though remnants of it still exist in the final game.

According to the developers, one of the factors for it's removal was the lack of ideas for variants of it, causing it to be scrapped as a character class. Despite this, it was planned to reintroduce it as a boss, though was scrapped again in favor of Baron Von Bats. Interestingly, Baron Von Bats is referred to internally as 'gravedigger', suggesting he was built off from the Gravedigger when it was a boss.

All that remains of the Gravedigger in the game files is a Zomboss Slots and spotting icon. The Gravedigger would later make an appearance in the sequel, Garden Warfare 2, where it cameoed in the Z-Tech Factories map in one of the test tubes. It would also appear in Plants vs. Zombies 3's first pre-alpha, though with a slightly altered design.

Garden Warfare E3 2013 EA Conference

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare's gameplay was first introduced at IGN in June 10, 2013. PopCap prepared a demo of the game which would show the gist of Garden Ops.

[0:33-0:36] Pre-Wave

First off, the UI is noticeably different as it uses a dull, monochromatic design, the font for "Pea Cannon" uses a different font from PVZ1 and shows the ammo itself, the Hyper ability shows a Repeater with it's PVZ2 design running as a placeholder, the player list shows how many lives they have instead of waiting for a wave to end to respawn. At the garden scarecrow now, when "placing it," it already seems to be placed and doesn't have the transparent and holographic yellow visuals to it, but the shimmer still exists. It also appears that the scarecrow is an ordinary scarecrow and isn't the finalized sunflower resembling design, and the scarecrow has no seed bags around it, but instead shows small chompers, sunflowers, peashooters, and cacti.

[0:42-0:45] Pot Planting

This prototype appears to be in REALLY early development as it only shows 4 potted plants, the Pea Cannon, Gatling Pea, Bonk Choy, and Scaredy-Shroom, with each having placeholder icons with the Pea Cannon being the Peashooter from PVZ2, the Gatling Pea from PVZ1, the Bonk Choy from (its respective game) PVZ2, and the Scaredy-Shroom from PVZ1. All potted plants appear to have infinite uses, more likely for testing purposes before having a limited amount of them. The wave meter shows an early but more complex design, as it looks more fancier and marble-like, and has the zombie icons using placeholder heads from PVZ1.

[0:45-0:56] Begin of First Wave

The shooting sound for a pea is similar, but subtly different than the final game's. The coin icon when the Ally Save action occurs uses different coin sprites as it uses a "25" (probably meaning +25 coins earned) as the face instead of using a zombie, and also uses a different font from PVZ1.

[0:56-1:04] Chili Bean Bomb

Very interestingly, the Chili Bean Bomb is using it's Sombrero Bean design instead of the normal one, and again uses similar, but different sounds. Notably, this sound was heard again in the E3 Reveal trailer. The explosion sound is also different as well.

[1:40-1:53] Sunflower

The shooting sound once more is similar, but different. The coin face also has a different sprite as well, having a "10" this time.

[1:53-2:11] Cactus

There must a theme of having placeholder projectile shooting sounds in this prototype. At the end of the wave, the wave meter has a more noticeable explosion animation than the final's.

[2:11-3:01] First Boss Wave

A boss wave is signaled not by Zomboss Slots, but just following after the first wave saying "PREPARE FOR BOSS WAVE!" probably for testing. The Disco Zombie's intro animation is seen, but was also used in the final game as the Super Boss Wave intro for when you get 3 of the same boss in Zomboss Slots. The intro is more extensive than the final's with accompanying text at the start that displays "Boogie Your Brains Right Over Here, Disco Zombie, Zomboss Records." I guess Bloom and Doom Records was disbanded.

[3:01-3:50] Second Boss Wave

The Gargantuar's intro is also more extensive than the Super Boss Wave's intro, but with a more drastic addition the final doesn't have. The sequence first shows the screen cracking when the Gargantuar smashes the ground with its fist, with text saying it's name with a style similar to the "ZOMBIES" text in the main PVZ logo, and after it shows the Gargantuar happily petting the Imp while there is a calendar showing "BRING YOUR IMP TO WORK DAY," a riff on "Take your child to work day" and probably making a spin on the E3 Demo itself as the Gargantuar is "at work" playing a role in the conference event. After its intro, the Gargantuar when in the field has some different grunt and yell sounds. The Cactus' Garlic Drone has text saying when it's ready, which does not exist in the final game. Along with the drone when it is deployed, the corn strike seems to be available and ready to use by default, but there is also an animation showing when the corn strike is ready, which also does not exist in the final game.

[3:50-4:11] Ending

After the Gargantuar is vanquished, and the plants dance, but suddenly the Zombot mech from PVZ1 appears and lands on the Chomper, killing it and it loses a life. The Zombot looks to appear like it was going to be a boss at some point to which perhaps it was removed due to it being too strong. There exists a sound for this particular scene in this demo, and there also exists a Zombot model in the final game, but both went unused in the end.

Design a Peashooter Contest

Leading up to the release of the Suburbination DLC, PopCap ran a competition to design a Peashooter variant, in which the winner would be added into the game. Of the five candidates, the Plasma Peashooter won though it wasn't intended to be plasma-themed by the creator, with the other four losing to it.

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  Plasma Pea (the final winner)

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  Octo-shooter

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  Bomb Shooter

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  Ninja Peashooter

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  Wizard Peashooter

Merged Coop Maps

According to Level Designer Jeff Shaw, Zomboss Estate & Suburban Flats were originally connected as one map together. This was cut in retail releases though there are leftover map assets from the original connection, like dirt paths and trees. Other maps also have data for being connected, Port Scallywag and Sharkbite Shores both have some leftovers, however it seems that the connection in this case was blocked off with terrain. Chomp Town and Garden Center both also have connections, via roads and alleyways, which in the final game are blocked off by fences. The connection of Chomp Town and Garden Center also heavily implies that Garden Center was planned long before the games release, as the connection of coop maps appears to have been scrapped early on. By hacking the game, you can enable an unused teleporter at the entrance gate of Zomboss Estate that teleports you to Suburban Flats.