That should be a welcome feature for new players, who now get the chance to practice against AI opponents before being thrust into multiplayer proper.īut the big new addition to Garden Warfare 2 is the Backyard Battleground.
You read that right – it's now possible to play whichever mode you want with just AI allies and opponents. Garden Warfare 2 changes that up by adding single-player quests, and AI options for every game mode. The latter is something that was missing from the original game – there were co-op modes, but no real single-player aspect to the game at all. That's because Garden Warfare 2 features everything I've already talked about (apart from Taco Bandits), and builds on it with six new characters and all-new single-player content. Once all enemies are dispatched, players must rush to a landing zone to finish the level.Īt this point, you might be wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about the original Garden Warfare. There are ten waves to tackle in all, with the fifth and final waves taking the form of bosses. This lets up to four players take control of plants with the objective of defending a garden from increasingly challenging attack waves of AI zombies. A capture the flag game called Taco Bandits, and Suburbination, a version of Domination, were added later as free updates. The other three original modes are Team Vanquish (a first-to-50 team deathmatch game), Vanquish Confirmed (a first-to-50 deathmatch variant that's similar to Call of Duty's Kill Confirmed, where you have to collect orbs from dispatched opponents to get credit for a kill), and Gnome Bomb (a version of Obliteration from Battlefield 4 where players attempt to detonate a bomb at one of their opponent's three bases). The plants' aim is to prevent the zombies from capturing the nodes: Each node has a timer, and if the zombies can't capture a node by the time the countdown expires, the plants are declared the victors. The zombies have to capture them by standing in their presence long enough to gain control of them, whereupon the action moves to the next node, and so on until the final objective is taken, winning them the game. The main headline mode, Gardens and Graveyards, takes its cues from the game's tower defense origins and pits teams of plants and zombies against one another in a battle over nodes. These special moves vary from character to character, but include options like throwing a grenade, firing a limited-ammo power weapon, casting healing spells, fast traveling, and executing an extra high jump.įinally, the game is also straightforward to play, and launched with just four multiplayer modes. Each features a default weapon, and three special moves that are on cooldowns. There are four classes per team: A basic assault character, a healer, a close-quarter combat specialist, and a sniper. Sure, you can still get wasted in short order if you run at the enemy without using cover, but assuming you have a modicum of good sense, it's possible for players with even poor skills to get into the thick of the action and make a contribution to their team's efforts before getting shot down.Īnother factor that's intrinsic to keeping Garden Warfare's design simple is uncomplicated characters. Garden Warfare's characters have bigger health pools than those in the likes of CoD and Battlefront, and offensive powers are relatively modest, ensuring that character survivability is reasonably high. Indeed, it's almost the antithesis of both those games that essentially reward the skilled and punish the inept. One of the design aspects that was key to Garden Warfare's success as an approachable shooter was the cadence of its action: It's slower and more forgiving than games like Call of Duty and Battlefront.
Despite it being a fiercely competitive, high-body-count multiplayer shooter, Garden Warfare was designed to be easy enough to play so that gamers of all skill levels could enjoy it.
It turned out to be quite a hit, and within its first 18 months, more than eight million players sampled its charms. It was surprisingly entertaining to play, and I ended up really enjoying what it had to offer. Zombies: Garden Warfare burst onto the scene and delivered a bright, colorful, pun-filled third-person shooter based on the highly popular tower defense game franchise.