A PvZ Shooter Should Be Made, Either Garden Warfare 3 or BFN 2
After the recent news and the lifespan of BFN, I think it is safe to assume that BFN is not coming back. There are its chances, but it is small.
I don't believe Popcap and EA should give up on the PvZ shooter series, it has proven to be very successful financially and with the community. But if they do make another game, there are some weird questions to arise.
The Main Question Is To Take What Path
There are two main paths, BFN2 or GW3, each having some concerns that could be troubling for the series.
The GW3 Path
This is the more likely choice. It is apart of a formula that has been proven to work. But they are some questions concerning content however.
Problem 1) Amount of Characters & Balance
If they take all characters from GW2, make variants for the BFN classes and original classes, and also make new classes with variants, then we are sitting well around 180 to 220 characters. Very unique and fun, but a much higher chance for an unbalanced mess.
Problem 2) Abilities and Changes From BFN
What would happen to the new abilities in BFN? GW2 already has many abilities, and although the new ones would be nice, how would balance that out as well. How long would that take? What about the new changes such as Slobber Shot, SB's charge weapon, etc.? Would they delete those changes and revert to GW2 Chomper or would they be willing to make new primaries for all these variants
Problem 3) Team-Up, Sprinting, Etc
Would GW3 include sprinting or differing speeds? What about team-up and passenger kits for Acorn and Space Cadet, how much would they change? The sheer amount of changes and decisions for character unique abilities such as Wizard with Co-Star would make people wonder if both primaries would be changed or just one.
GW3 is a much safer option, but it also brings many weird questions to balance and amount of content. Although the more the merrier, would it be too much for some people or the devs?
The BFN2 Path
This is the less likely choice, they are more problems and a lot of work to do. I would like to see it done and wonder how it would go, but I doubt it will happen.
Problem 1) Reputation. The name alone would discourage players without certain marketing tactics which BFN has not shown to do at all.
Problem 2) Upgrade System. Would we enhance it, or leave it the same? It lacks with changing gameplay all that much so player might be bored fast.
Problem 3) Characters. Will we have a lot more characters or would it be very lacking? Will they give us a roadmap to have characters to release by certain times and maps as well?
Problem 4) Community Communication. Although this could go for both, it is way worse with BFN as we have no idea what is really happening unlike other games such as Rainbow with a whole year roadmap. We have very little to almost none, so how would we deal with certain things in the game.
Problem 5) Bugs. BFN has way too many bugs in its foundation it seems and many times more bugs appear with every patch. How will this be dealt with?
Overall
The future of this series is unknown and very vague, but hopefully we can get BFN to live longer or another PvZ shooter to redeem this franchise. I love this series a lot and I don't want it to die. I don't think mobile games would be the way to go for the long-term, but I hope that they are trying to make an amazing PvZ shooter game and are buying time with these other games. Don't get me wrong, these mobile games could also be a lot of fun, I just don't want the series to cut itself loose of the shooter genre.