PvZ worlds
One thing I was going to add to @TheSprinter85 's post on how to improve the franchise, but I feel it’s worthy of its own thread, is how GW2 and BfN create worlds to play in that go beyond the simple lobby system of the original GW and most other online multiplayer shooters. This isn’t a dig at the original game as it’s a great game and still worth playing, but part of why it’s my least played of all 3 games is the lack of a consistent place to just hang out and experience some PvE content alone or with friends/bots.
A lot of modern games try to do this, with varying degrees of success; many open world games, MMOs, survival games, and so on, all try to create a virtual universe for us to hang out in. I would love for the next PvZ shooter to do this again as a large part of why I do have so many hours in BfN and even more in GW2 is exactly because we can more or less live in the worlds of these games while still actually playing them. The PvZ universe has so much potential and due its silly nature, it’s a great place to hang out after a bad day at work, and if you’re not in the mood for a PvP match, you can just chill in the world that GW and BfN have.
I find I prefer GW2 for this as the Backyard Battleground is more immersive and complete than Giddy Park, but BfN’s free roam zones have more to do as far as puzzles and events, although once you 100% them, their appeal goes down drastically as the AI mobs are mostly static, whereas in the backyard, they are quite diverse, especially if you play there for awhile and get the bases on alert so bosses and champions join in, and then there’s the gnomiverse which I’d love to see more of, and even infinity time while it gets repetitive was a blast the first few times there.
There’s just something about feeling like you’re in a world rather than just jumping into battle from a menu that made GW2 one of favorite games of all time (and I’m old so we’re going back to when the Atari 2600 was the console of choice), and made me play BfN as much as I have, even with its issues. While they lack the massive worlds of most MMOs or games like Minecraft, GW2 and BfN still capture that living world idea, and with PvZ’s quirky and wondrous world, you really can’t go wrong. Having a new game take what we have in GW2 and BfN and going further would be ideal. I’ve touched on this before, but imagine what we could do if they give us the world to explore, fight, and laugh in, if the devs took the ideas from the PvZ universe and gave us grand places to explore; take a trip the moon, head to ancient Zgypt, meet Crazy Dave’s ancestors, help Zomboss conquer the pirate seas, and so much more! With years and years of books, games, and toys to draw on, there are very few limits for what can be done in the PvZ universe, unlike games that are more bound in reality, so let’s see them take advantage of that in future!
