''Plants vs. Zombies 2'' (originally known as ''Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time'') is a 2013 free

tower defense Tower defense (TD) is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive struc ...

video game developed by PopCap Games and published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

. It is the sequel to ''

Plants vs. Zombies ''Plants vs. Zombies'' is a video game franchise developed by PopCap Games, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts (EA). The series follows the affiliates of David "Crazy Dave" Blazing as they use his plants to defend against a zombie invasion, led ...

'', and was released worldwide on

Apple App Store The App Store is an app store platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS Software Devel ...

on August 15, 2013, and

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...

on October 23, 2013. The player defends the lawn from zombies by placing a variety of plants. The player must battle the zombies in different time periods, including Ancient Egypt, the

Golden Age of Piracy The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation for the period between the 1650s and the 1730s, when maritime piracy was a significant factor in the histories of the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, the Indian Ocean, North America, and West Africa ...

, the

Wild West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

, the Last Ice Age,

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...

, the future, the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, the

1980s File:1980s replacement montage02.PNG, 420px, From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, ''Columbia'', lifts off in 1981; US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ease tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the ...

, the

Jurassic Period The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

, 1960s and the present.

Plot

The protagonist of the game uses a

time machine Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...

named Penny to travel to different

pseudo-historical Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohi ...

settings with their neighbor, Crazy Dave, to find Dave's taco. The protagonist is engaged in a race through time with Dr. Zomboss, the main antagonist of the previous game, who is trying to prevent a

paradox A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...

Gameplay

''Plants vs. Zombies 2'' is a free game, unlike its predecessor, supporting in-app free coins to use certain power-up abilities: Plant Food, a new power-up, allows plants to power up for varying amounts of time. Each plant has its own ability when given Plant Food. Players can complete the whole game without purchasing these abilities, some of which can be earned throughout the game instead of being purchased. Additionally, users can level up their plants using Seed Packets (found in-game real money) to allow them to permanently enhance their abilities. Players can start an optional tutorial in front of the player's house. Afterward, the player travels to Ancient Egypt and can win in-game World Keys by completing Day 25 to unlock new worlds (this required a certain number of stars in earlier updates). Worlds include Pirate Seas, Lost City, Jurassic Marsh, etc. The Chinese version has five additional worlds, which are Kongfu World, Sky City, Steam Age, Heian Age, and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

Age. As players go through levels, they unlock new plants each with advantages and unique boosts.

Development

In August 2012, PopCap announced that they were working on a sequel to their previous game, ''

'', and that it would include "new features, settings, and situations". In a later announcement, the company confirmed that the new game would be released on July 18, 2013. On June 26, 2013, PopCap announced on their Twitter page that the game would release later than previously announced. On July 9, the game was released in Australia and New Zealand on the iOS App Store and came out worldwide on August 15, 2013. The Android version was released worldwide on October 23, 2013.

Release

The game was first expected to launch on

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

on July 18, 2013. On June 26, it was announced that the game was delayed until later in the summer on the game's official Twitter account. The game soft-launched in Australian and New Zealand

App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...

s on July 9 to test server capacity. It launched worldwide on iOS on August 15 and, in five days, topped the free app charts in 137 countries. On September 12, PopCap Games soft-launched the game for Android in China in Baidu AppSearch and announced that it would be coming to

worldwide later in the year. On October 2, the game soft-launched on the Australian and New Zealand Google Play stores.

Reception

The game received mostly positive feedback from users and critics, despite using

in-app purchase Microtransactions, often abbreviated as mtx, are a business model where users can purchase virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransac ...

s. Critics mostly praised the gameplay and graphics. It has a

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

score of 86/100 based on 36 reviews. PopCap Games announced at

Gamescom Gamescom (stylized as gamescom) is a trade fair for video games held annually at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since 2018, it has been organised by ''game – Verband der deutschen Games-Branche'' (English: Associ ...

on August 20, 2013, that the game had been downloaded 15 million times, making it the most successful EA mobile game launch. Ten days later, it was announced that the game had been downloaded 25 million times, exceeding the lifetime downloads of the first game. Apple chose ''Plants vs. Zombies 2'' as a runner-up for 2013 iPhone game of the year.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Plants Vs. Zombies 2013 video games Android (operating system) games Free-to-play video games IOS games Electronic Arts games 2 PopCap games Single-player video games Video games about time travel Video games set in prehistory Video games set in Egypt Video games set in the 17th century Video games about pirates Video games set in the 19th century Western (genre) video games Video games set in the 1960s Video games set in England Video games set in the Middle Ages Video games set in the 20th century Video games set in the 1980s Video games set in the 24th century Tower defense video games Video game sequels Video games about plants Video games scored by Peter McConnell Video games about zombies Spike Video Game Award winners Video games developed in the United States