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Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville (abbreviated as PvZ: BfN, PvZ: Battle for Neighborville, Plants vs. Zombies: BfN, or simply Battle for Neighborville) is a third-person shooter and platformer video game developed by PopCap Games and published by Electronic Arts. It was released as a 'Founder's Edition' on September 4, 2019, and was available to purchase until September 30, 2019, with the worldwide release coming out on October 18th. On June 5th, 2020, it was made available for purchase on Steam. On September 1st, 2020, however, PopCap announced it would be discontinuing the game in a month due to its commercial failure. On September 29th, 2020, Battle for Neighborville received its final content update.[2] Despite this, a 'Complete edition" of Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville came to the Nintendo Switch on March 19, 2021.


Setting[]

Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville takes place after the events of Garden Warfare 2. The plants presumably won the battle for Zomburbia and trapped all of the zombies in a "Smell Jar". The plants once again had control of Suburbia, and humans did not have to worry about their brains being eaten until the zombies escaped. Now the Plants and Zombies battle once more.

Nintendo Switch version differences[]

The differences from other versions include an option to play the game without an internet connection; running at a lower framerate, being 30 FPS compared to 60 FPS. Rainbow Stars are removed, with items instead being purchased with Coins. Due to Nintendo Switch's hardware being weaker compared to PC/PlayStation/Xbox, the graphics are rather crunchy and a bit pixelated. The PvE regions are strictly singleplayer-only as opposed to being able to co-op with friends, and the Turf Takeover is 8v8 as opposed to 12v12, making it identical to Turf Takeover Tactical. In addition, players can now interact with all 12 Prize Maps at any time, and the prize bulb limit is now 999 instead of 50. In Garden and Graveyard Ops there are fewer spawnable pots or bot spots. The PC/PlayStation/Xbox versions have 8ā€“11 spots placed on the corners and main base, while the Switch version only has 4, making for a weak defensive set-up.

There are new features that take advantage of the Nintendo Switch's capabilities, such as the ability to use motion controls to aim, along with the ability to interact with UI touch menus throughout the game using touch inputs like map zoom and more, assuming if the player plays on handheld mode.

Description[]

Founder's Edition description[]

Welcome to Neighborville, where all is well.

Except that a crazy new coniferous conflict between brain-less and botanicals is brewing. Join us as a Founding Neighbor in this early edition and be a part of the community that battles for Neighborville ahead of worldwide launch!

With the Founderā€™s Edition, youā€™ll play through six weeks of weekly content releases as we progress towards worldwide launch on October 18. Earn exclusive rewards for the first four weeks when you log in*, become part of the Founderā€™s community, and help make Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborvilleā„¢ better for all just by playing. Itā€™s a no-brainer! You also get to be one of the first on your block to experience the game ā€“ even Zomboss will be jealous when you tell him.

Over the six weeks of content drops youā€™ll enjoy 20 fully customizable character classes in one social region, three free-roam regions, one PvE mode and six online multiplayer modes, including Battle Arena, with split-screen couch co-op** in every mode.

How do you become a Founding Neighbor? Itā€™s simple:

  • Get the digital-only, Founderā€™s Edition ā€“ only available for purchase from September 4 ā€“ 30
  • Play through six weeks of fresh content drops from September 4 ā€“ October 17, with your progress rolling over to the standard edition of the game
  • Enjoy the same content as the Standard Edition product on October 18 at no additional cost

*Requires Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville on applicable platform (sold separately), all game updates, EA account and persistent internet connection.

**Split screen couch-op only available on PS4/Xbox One

Final description[]

Time to shake up the neighborhood block party.

Welcome to Neighborville, where all is well. Except that a crazy new coniferous conflict between brain-less and botanicals is brewing! What are you gonna do ā€“ call the crops? Soil your plants? Prepare to kick some grass in a plant-on-zombie conflict that will take you to the outer edges of Neighborville and back again.

KEY FEATURES

  • Customize Every Character for Battle - Join the newest bloom in the age-old battle between plants and zombies with 20 fully customizable classes at launch, including a Team Play class for each faction. Bring the unique abilities of each character class to 6 PvP modes ā€“ including the new Battle Arena ā€“ and experience the unbeleafable thrills of combat.
  • Venture to the Outer Edges of Neighborville - The tension across the terra has expanded with 3 free-roam regions and one PvE mode that extend beyond the town of Neighborville. Squad up with up to 3 friends in the Giddy Park social region and take back Weirding Woods, Mount Steep and Neighborville Town Centre. Itā€™s grow time!
  • Play with Your Favorite People in Every Mode - Connect with up to 3 players and battle through flourishing free-roam regions, or jump into the fray with up to 24 players in online multiplayer across a gigantic suburban skirmish.

Complete Edition description[]

Now on Nintendo Switch, tackle hilarious missions and defeat epic bosses in the Weirding Woods, Mount Steep, and Neighborville Town Center to collect medals and unlock outrageous outfits. Party with up to three friends and goof around in Giddy Park or dive into some 8v8 multiplayer in Turf Takeover, vanquishing opponents, blasting gnome bombs, bouncing on pink ooze ā€“ itā€™s the most fun youā€™ll have since sliced bread.

Take your system anywhere, and prepare to kick some grass offline and online in a plant-on-zombie conflict that will take you to the outer edges of Neighborville and back again!

  • Venture to the Outer Edges of Neighborville Offline - Discover Giddy Park, PvE free-roam regions and Private Play modes all without an internet connection.
  • Customize Every Character for Battle - Earn in-game coins only through play, and spend them at the Rux store to unlock cool customization items, characters and perks.
  • Play with Your Favorite People - Party with up to three friends and goof around in Giddy Park or dive online into some 8v8 multiplayer in Turf Takeover, vanquishing opponents across a gigantic suburban skirmish.
  • Motion Controls & Touch Menus - Use motion controls for aiming, with a full range of settings to customize to your preference. Interact with UI menus throughout the game using touch input including map zoom.
  • Prize Map Selector - Choose from and interact with all 12 prize maps at any time, and exchange prize bulbs for unbeleafable rewards!

Gameplay[]

Similar to its predecessors, the game is a third-person shooter where players take control of the Plants or the Zombies in either a cooperative or competitive multiplayer environment. The game features 23 customizable gameplay classes, seven of which are new to the franchise, and they are classified into three groups: attackers, defenders, or support. Each camp also has a new team play class that allows players of the same class to combine forms when they fight against enemies. Players can compete against each other in various competitive multiplayer modes, including the objective-based Turf War mode and the team deathmatch variant Team Vanquish. The game also features several player-versus-environment open zones which allowed players to explore, find collectibles, and complete quests. Split-screen local multiplayer is also available for all gameplay modes.

Controls[]

Xbox[]

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PlayStation[]

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PC[]

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Nintendo Switch[]

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Modes[]

Most of the modes from the previous Garden Warfare games are returning (all except Infinity Time and the Mystery Portal modes, i.e. Super Mix Mode, Cats vs. Dinos, Boss Hunt, Capture the Taco and Soil Survivors), while several new modes have been added, such as the social region of Neighborville, the four free roam regions for both Plants and Zombies, and the new 4v4 Battle Arena elimination mode.

  • Neighborville: A social region which acts as a hub for the player, which is a large map split into three sections; Dave Manor (the Plant base), Zomboss HQ (the Zombie base), and Giddy Park (a combat area in-between the bases). In each side's base, the player can access the multiplayer modes through the Multiplayer Portal, as well as customize their characters in the Changing Booth and also switch teams. Furthermore, the player can access the free roam regions of Town Center, Mount Steep, and Weirding Woods, visit Rux in Rux's Emporium to receive gifts and buy rare items, and promote their characters to new ranks. Target ranges are available in each base for the player to practice their aim, or the player can simply enter Giddy Park to fight AI as well as enemy players. The player can also spend the Coins they earn on the Mr. Reward-o-tron 9000 in each base to buy new customizations for their characters.
  • Free Roam Regions: These areas allow the player to fight against AI enemies in a large PvE region either by themselves or with friends. In each region, there is a set of story missions for the player to complete, with each one ending with a boss fight. There are also several activities the player can partake in, such as bounty hunts, skirmishes, completing Gnome challenges, Ops, varying battles within the Battle Chests, vanquishing rare enemies and earning medals. There are also Chests, Golden Gnomes, and Diamond Gnomes hidden around the regions for the player to find. While playing, the player can earn in-game currencies specific to that region which they can use to buy specific customizations and item maps. The different free roam regions are:
    • Town Center: A PvE region for both Plants (set during the day) and Zombies (set during the night) split into three sections; the large suburban town of Sundrop Hills, the bustling town of Up-Down-Uptown, and the beachside port of Pressure Pier.
    • Mount Steep: A PvE region for Plants split into the western town of Olde Town, the desert cheese factory of Rocky Flats, and the underground Steep Mines where cheese is mined for the people of Neighborville.
    • Weirding Woods: A PvE region for Zombies split into Camp Near-a-Lake, the overgrown ruins of Z-Tech Factory, and the Stirring Swamp.
  • Garden Ops: A cooperative mode where up to four players take control of plants defending a garden through five zombie waves, with the fifth wave being a boss wave represented by a slot machine, hosted by Dr. Zomboss, which spawns 1-5 bosses for the players to fight. The players must survive all five waves to win the match.
  • Graveyard Ops: A cooperative mode where up to four players take control of zombies defending a tombstone through five plant waves, with the fifth wave being a boss wave represented by a slot machine, hosted by Crazy Dave, which spawns 1-5 bosses for the players to fight. The players must survive all five waves to win the match.
  • Turf Takeover: A game mode where players must either capture or defend several objectives across an expanding map, which including either capturing/defending a point or escorting/stopping a payload. Plants and Zombies will be rotated to either capture or defend depending on the current map.
  • Team Vanquish: A team deathmatch variant, where two teams of Plants and Zombies fight against each other to take down opponents. The first team to reach 50 vanquishes wins, however reviving a teammate takes one point off the enemy team.
  •  (Archived content) Mixed Mode: A playlist consisting of three different game modes; Gnome Bomb, Suburbination, and Vanquish Confirmed!. Only the playlist was removed, not the actual game modes.
    • Gnome Bomb: A game mode where players attempt to secure a bomb (strapped to the back of a helpless gnome) and plant it at various enemy bases while defending their own. Once a bomb has been planted, the enemy team has a short time to defuse it before it destroys the base. The first team to either destroy all three enemy bases or destroy the most bases before the time runs out wins. It is similar to Obliteration mode from Battlefield 4. Only available in Private Play and Weekly Events.
    • Suburbination: A domination variant, where two teams attempt to capture three points, A, B, and C around the map. If all three areas are captured, 'Suburbination' occurs and the team who captured them all get bonuses until they lose an area. If a team has at least one point captured, they earn points until they lose all capture points. The first team to reach 100 points wins.Only available in Private Play and Weekly Events.
    • Vanquish Confirmed!: A game mode where players must collect 'Crazy Orbs' from fallen opponents to receive credit. Players can also pick up orbs from fallen teammates to deny the enemy team credit. The first team to collect 50 enemy orbs wins. This mode shares the concept with the "Kill Confirmed" mode from the Call of Duty series.Only available in Private Play and Weekly Events.
  • Battle Arena: A 4v4 elimination mode where the two teams of Plants and Zombies carefully select the characters they play as before the round starts in a unique map called the 'Funderdome'. Once the round starts, the players must try and vanquish all the enemy players on the other team to win the round. If a teammate is vanquished, the other players have a short amount of time to revive that teammate to get them back in the match, otherwise they are out for the rest of the round. If there are still players left on both teams when the time limit ends, a capture point appears in the center of the map, and whichever team captures the point wins the round. When a round has ended, the character that the player was using the previous round will be 'locked out' so the player can't use that character for the rest of the game, causing the player to choose wisely with their team. The first team to win four rounds wins the match. Only available in Private Play and Weekly Events.
  • Weekly Events: A limited time game mode that changes randomly every week.

Development[]

The Plants vs. Zombies Twitter account confirmed the development of a new Plants vs. Zombies shooter in February 2019[3]. An alpha testing for the game, which was codenamed "Picnic", was held in early August. The game was shown behind the doors for journalists at Gamescom 2019. The game was officially announced and released as an early access game on September 4, 2019. Players who purchased the Founder's Edition would receive regular content updates until the game's full launch on October 18, 2019 and exclusive cosmetic items upon the game's official release.

A port for Nintendo Switch was announced at Nintendo Direct on February 17, 2021[4] and released on March 19, 2021. Prior to the announcement, the game, along with Knockout City and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered was one of three games published by EA rumored by the industry insider Jeff Grubb to be released on Nintendo Switch.[5]

Downloadable content[]

  • Deluxe Upgrade ($9.99 USD)
  • Seasonā€™s Eatingz Upgrade ($9.99 USD)

Characters[]

Plants[]

Main article: Plants (PvZ: BfN)

Returning plants[]

Classes[]
Pots[]
Weeds[]


Bosses[]

New plants[]

Classes[]
Weeds[]
Bosses[]


Zombies[]

Main article: Zombies (PvZ: BfN)

Returning zombies[]

Classes[]
Bots[]
Zombies[]
Bosses[]

New zombies[]

Classes[]
Zombies[]
Bosses[]

Maps[]

Hubs

Free Roam Regions

Team Vanquish

Turf Takeover

Glitches[]

Main article: Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville/Glitches

Achievements[]

Main article: Achievements (PvZ: BfN)

Pre-release and unused content[]

Main article: Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville/Concepts

Version history[]

Founder's Road Map[]

With the founders edition of the game, new content is added every week for 5 weeks along with a special founders edition reward.
Week 1:

Week 2:

Week 3:

Week 4:

  • The Reinforcements PvP Weekly Event available in the Multiplayer Portal for a limited time.
  • The Plant PvE region of Mount Steep is also added.
  • Founders Reward - Pea of Valiance costume for Peashooter.

Week 5:

  • Battle Arena becomes available in the Multiplayer Portal.
  • Lawn of Doom festival live.
  • The Zombie PvE region of Town Center is also added.
  • Daily, Weekly, and Character challenges are now available.

October 15, 2019

  • Released to users with Origin Access.

October 18, 2019:

  • Full release
  • Deluxe Edition version and DLC released.
  • Users that login between the release and Nov. 1st get a special customization for the Chomper.

Full Release[]

After the game has been fully released, new content is being added on a monthly basis in the form of balancing patches and new content. However, since July, no new content is being added as the game has been discontinued.

November 1st, 2019:

December 2nd, 2019

January 2nd, 2020

February 3rd, 2020

March 2nd, 2020

  • Luck O' the Zombie festival goes live.
  • The Wizard zombie class goes live.
  • Shogun-Guard Legendary Upgrade for Kernel Corn can now be purchased from Rux as the Valenbrainz prize map is over.

April 1st, 2020

  • Springening festival goes live.
  • Thorn Apart Legendary Upgrade for Rose goes live and can be unlocked through the prize map.
  • Wizard can now be purchased from Rux as the Luck O' the Zombie prize map is over.

May 1, 2020

  • Birthdayz festival goes live.
  • Steam Blaster Legendary Upgrade for Scientist goes live and can be unlocked through the prize map.
  • Thorn Apart Legendary Upgrade for Rose can now be purchased from Rux as the Springening prize map is over.

June 1, 2020

  • Garden Party festival goes live.
  • Steam Blaster Legendary Upgrade for Scientist can now be purchased from Rux as the Birthdayz prize map is over.

July 1, 2020

  • Summer Nights festival goes live.
  • Brainium Basher 9001 Legendary Upgrade for Super Brainz goes live and can be unlocked through the prize map.

August 1, 2020

  • Summer DayZ festival goes live.
  • Brainium Basher 9001 Legendary Upgrade for Super Brainz can now be purchased from Rux as the Summer Nights prize map is over.

September 1, 2020

March 19, 2021

  • Complete Edition is released on the Nintendo Switch.

Reception[]

Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville was given positive reviews. Destructoid gave the game on PlayStation 4 a 7.5/10 and said about the game as "Battle for Neighborville doesn't go out of its way to surpass expectations, but it's a silly, strange, joyful game ā€“ one I'm glad was greenlit." Game Revolution gave the Microsoft Windows version 3/5 stars and said "Unfortunately, aside from its more robust PvE offering and unique new characters, most of the other changes that have been made in Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville havenā€™t been for the better."

On review aggregation website, Metacritic, the Microsoft Windows version of the game has a score of 77/100, and 76/100 from both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Despite the favorable reviews by critics, the game was not well-received by fans, due to lacking character variants from the first two games. The Steam version has received Mixed reviews.

Gallery[]

Plants vs. Zombies Wiki has a gallery for Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville.
Plants vs. Zombies- Battle for Neighborville
Visit this page to see it.
Plants vs. Zombies- Battle for Neighborville

In other languages[]

Please note that only official translations are used.

Language Name Description
United States of America English Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville
Japan Japanese Plants vs. Zombies ćƒć‚¤ćƒćƒ¼ćƒ“ćƒ«ć®ęˆ¦ć„ on the Japanese box cover
South Korea Korean Plants vs. Zombies ė„¤ģ“ė²„ė¹Œģ˜ ėŒ€ė‚œķˆ¬ on Korean box cover


Trivia[]

  • This is the first (and only) Plants vs. Zombies game to use the refurbished logo for the entire Plants vs. Zombies series. Plants vs. Zombies 3 initially used the refurbished logo but later changed to a logo resembling the original one.
  • This is the first Plants vs. Zombies game since the original Plants vs. Zombies:
    • To be released on Steam following EA's partnership with Valve in October 2019.
    • To be released on a Nintendo system (in this case, Nintendo Switch.) The Nintendo Switch port also marks the debut of Frostbite engine, which is EA's proprietary engine created by DICE, used by many games published by EA including the previous Plants vs. Zombies shooter games on a Nintendo console.
  • This is the third national Plants vs. Zombies game to be discontinued, after Plants vs. Zombies Adventures and Plants vs. Zombies Heroes.
  • On Microsoft Windows, the game has two different icons depending on the launcher:
    • The Origin icon only shows the Peashooter from the cover art, similar to Garden Warfare's PC icon.
    • The Steam icon shows the whole cover art minus the logo.
  • The game was released for free to members subscribed to Prime Gaming during April 2022.
  • Despite the game's discontinuation in September 2020, it received a small update in March 2022, which adds Linux compatibility to make the game able to run on Steam Deck due to the Steam Deck runs on SteamOS, which is based on Linux.
    • Prior to this update, attempting to launch the game on Linux would simply result in the game failing to launch because it's unable to initialize Easy Anti-Cheat, which is not compatible with the Linux.
  • According to producer Melvin Teo in an interview, the developers had difficulties with porting the game to Nintendo Switch, development for the Switch version started following launch and spent a year and half to get the Frostbite engine to run on the Switch for the first time, with Teo compared the game running at 2-3 frames per second when booting up to a slideshow. PopCap later contacted QLOC to help up with porting process, with many engineering decisions and optimizations (with the console's 4GB of RAM was one of many limitations according to Teo) were made to make the game running at 30 frames per second.[6]

External links[]

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