Plants vs. Zombies™ Garden Warfare 2: Deluxe Edition

I came into Garden Warfare 2 the same way I come into any PopCap-adjacent shooter: deeply skeptical that anything built around cartoon plants and goofball zombies could scratch the itch I usually reserve for tighter, more mechanically demanding games. I was mostly wrong, and that is worth being honest about. What PopCap built here is a class-based third-person shooter sitting in the same neighbourhood as Splatoon - light-hearted, team-reliant, and deliberately accessible. There are 14 playable classes split between Plants and Zombies, and the roster depth is legitimately impressive. On the Plant side you have returning faces like the Peashooter, Chomper, Sunflower, and Cactus, joined by newcomers Kernel Corn (airstrike via a pad of butter, yes really), Rose (who transforms enemies into goats), and Citron (an orange-tank with a shield). Zombie additions include the mech-piloting Imp, the melee-focused Super Brainz, and Captain Deadbeard with his parrot drone. Beyond the 14 base classes, over 100 character variants each carry their own tuned abilities, so the matchup layer is real - there is generally a counter-pick available if someone is running over your team. Time-to-kill is on the softer side compared to something like Valorant or even Overwatch, and cover mechanics are minimal, but the ability-driven combat fills that gap well enough that you stop missing the sprint button within a few matches. The multiplayer suite covers standard team deathmatch, a modified Rush-style mode with progressive hold points, a Kill Confirmed variant, the large 24-player Herbal Assault, and the wave-based Garden Ops and Graveyard Ops co-op modes playable solo or with up to four players. The Backyard Battleground hub ties all of it together - a shared social space where you pick quests, manage loadouts, and trigger impromptu faction skirmishes around the Flag of Unimaginable Power. It is a clever wrapper. Netcode is acceptable for what the game is; this is not a game where a 10ms ping difference decides rounds, but servers are clearly not maintained with the same attention they received at launch, and queues for less popular modes can stretch depending on time zone and hour. That brings us to the elephant in the room: concurrent players on Steam sit in the low hundreds to low thousands on a regular day in 2025-2026, with spikes only during discount events. Mixed mode and Turf Takeover tend to have the healthiest lobbies; stray into niche modes and you may be waiting. The single-player content - hub world quests, solo Garden Ops runs, and the campaign missions for both factions - is there if lobbies are thin, but it is padding at best. Missions are mostly fetch quests or horde waves, progression is slow, and the solo mode famously will not let you pause. If you are buying this exclusively to play offline, the value equation is weak. The Deluxe Edition bundles in additional character variants and cosmetic accessories on top of the base game, which adds meaningful roster width for players who care about variant abilities. Steam reviews across roughly 20,000 submissions sit at 90 percent positive, which tracks - the core loop is genuinely fun, weapon feel is satisfying for a casual shooter, and the visual chaos of 24 players firing solar beams and popcorn launchers simultaneously is its own reward. The EA account requirement and the EA app layer are the usual friction tax you pay for any EA title on Steam, which is annoying but not a dealbreaker.

Fred · Scout Team

Shooters

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