Screenshots of the cancelled PvZ game that began development in 2016 (it was going to be an action and adventure game instead of third-person shooter game) by PopCap Vancouver. I wish I found out about this earlier. Perhaps this is why BFN took so long to make? I wonder why it was canceled?https://twitter.com/SparkGameingTM/status/1359791751012118536

@shurikeninjaDoom and bloom sounds like a horde mode that could be implemented as a minigame survival mode in a shooter, also the thought of a foot soldier glory killing a sunflower in a doom style death sounds more interesting than it should.The mechanics and abilities were changed in a way that greatly mimics overwatch such as overheal which even functions and dissipates like overwatch, shield for citron and all star mechanics that are pretty much Reinhardt and Winston even copying how awful Winston's shield was for all star lol, 3 Insta warps that function instantly like tracers blinks, scientist now spraying a heal substance in a hose like fashion like moira, snipers using a charge system with cactus even having a submachine gun mode to defend herself that ties into her ammo count alongside deadbeard having a grapple like ability to get to higher ground alongside lights that reveal their position when scoped in with a projectile trail like widowmaker, imp does the dva pose alongside no zmech deaths when destroyed just like dva, superbrainz functions more like doomfist with brainium basher and relies on a weak shield to help him get into melee range like brigette, more characters given items or powers that give then wallhacks, rose's goatify can phase through walls like hanzo's ultimate, 80s flies up into the air and delivers a missile barrage like pharah, payload moved from a gimmicky minigame into a full mode where they float in the air and move at 3fps, engineer given a turret that provides status effects and can help troops reach the front line faster, rather than having a spray animation heal zombie just uses a zone that beals over time like Lucio, focusing on trying to introduce new characters every so often, and the overall greater focus on teamwork and skins for characters.Don't tell me they weren't going for an overwatch clone.I feel like 3d single player PVE game could do pretty good but I wonder what a combat system would be like if there wasn't any I mean the game is called plants vs zombies so there will most likely be two campaigns which need unique styles much like the alien vs predator games having to make the creatures levels and gameplay not bleed into each other.

Curious how it all went to be sure. Was the original plan to release 2 different PC/console PvZ games (this adventure game and the shooter we knew they were working on early in GW2's life)? Did they end up taking some of the ideas of the 2 games and end up making BfN instead of 2 separate games?As @stukapooka points out, they changed certain aspects of the shooter formula to be closer to OW (especially the snipers which both feel like Widowmaker to a high degree, but there are other parts as well), which is largely a step down for me as I uninstalled that game long ago and it's not doing so hot these days. It looks like they saw how well it did do at launch and wanted to combine that with the PvZ aspects and make a blockbuster, but something went wrong along the way as BfN is a buggier experience than OW, even if I like BfN much more than OW, and the promotion for the game was lackluster.PvZ has done so well over the years, it's essentially like printing money, so one wonders why they didn't end up making both and promoting them better than they did with BfN. It sounds like they needed more people working on BfN, much less 2 games, so that may be part of it.As someone who used to play MMOs, when they added the Backyard Battleground to GW2, it actually felt more alive as its own world than any I've seen in those MMOs. It's not static and you can go AFK and come back and see a small scale war there, or jump into the opposing base and start a much larger scale one. BfN's free roam zones had this feeling too, although they have fixed spawn spots and mob compositions that make them less dynamic in this regard, but love them at their core, my favorite parts of BfN for sure.I was hoping that BfN was going to be developed and grow into an experience that combined shooter and adventure game aspects for more long term replayability but with them cutting things off, it was never fully realized which is a shame. I would love a game that takes the best aspects of the PvZ shooters and added more PvE elements so we can have a game that has a ton of different and fun stuff to do for a long time.@shurikeninja thanks for sharing the tweet!

@stukapooka I wouldn't agree with that but I do get what they mean. BFN was hurt by being this hybrid game. It was partly why we had the Founders sprinting mess (sprint is necessary for open world). But the bigger issue is that the PvE, while being the best in the series, was still a letdown and not very good. Mainly because it was a hero shooter game. So of course the gameplay would have to work for a massive cast of characters. I'm assuming this game would've had a smaller cast, with maybe each character playing a different role with different gameplay gimmicks. Definitely more interesting and fun. Looking at Respawn's Star Wars single-player game, yeah there is definitely room for success there. I'm sure that the PvZ community would buy it, and we need more kids action adventure games. Ratchet and Clank is good I guess, but that's platform exclusive.Usually when cancelled games are leaked, they're shown off at the later/latest stage of development, so I'm just going to assume that this game never got far unfortunately. But it does seem like maybe it got cancelled after EA saw the success of OW, and told the team to make another multiplayer hero game? Obviously the devs probably liked OW too at the time but that narrative makes sense to me.But BFN never felt like a blatant overwatch clone chasing it's trendiness, even with the old TTK. But seeing how blatant the inspiration is, I do wonder if BFN was originally going to be more of an overwatch clone.I do agree with you on wanting to see this game through to release. While there is room for a Garden Warfare 5 and 6 and so on, I wish that they would try different genre. I can come up with a lot of ideas.Plants vs Zombies Doom and Bloom: Doom clone but with Foot Soldier facing off the plants. Instead of hell, it's a fun pvz garden setting.Zombies Vs Plants: Borderlands clone with Foot Soldier and his mech, Super Brainz and Engineer. Semi-open world hubs, some vehicular gameplay, lots of loot, interesting enemy types, more in depth upgrade and customisation systems etc. Although EA would probably change it to a Destiny clone instead (ahem Anthem)Plants vs Zombies "Legion": Open-world watchdogs legion clone, play as any plant and zombie in the city, freeform mission design. BFN PvE I guess, kinda contradicts my statements but it could work. Or you could just do an open world game with only 3 characters on each side.Birds eye view action-adventure game with up to 4-player co-op. Puzzles, combat, platforming, etc.I know they're clones but I don't care goddamit!

With all the evidence and tid bits we have gotten recently, it can actually point to a new Plants vs. Zombies console game- but not a shooter. Instead, an action/adventure/platformer. Recently, we got some screenshots about a scrapped adventure Plants vs. Zombies console game that was in development in 2016 but got cancelled for Battle for Neighborville. Additionally, Melvin Teo (a PopCap employee) said they have no shooters in development, but another genre is possible. On top of that, there was the new poster we got just a week ago or something? Which featured a new plant, Ginger-Zap- possibly making his debut in this new game. There's not enough there, but hey, you never know. They may just restart development on this game because of the interest in the offline Switch game. Team would probably have more success because they're not good at balancing lol

@stukapookaFair enough, it's hard to disagree with a lot of what you said here.

Screenshots of Popcap Vancouver's canceled action/adventure PvZ game

18 Replies

stukapooka
Legend
5 years ago
@shurikeninja. I remember a lot of people saying bfn felt like a alpha pve experience with PvP elements slapped on last minute and this really doesn't disprove that theory.
Also this raises another question? How long was bfn actually in development for?, because as I pointed out in another post concept is really hard to find of bfn compared to the garden warfare series. The history of this game gets wierder and weirder by the day.

I would honestly want to see how this game would turn out over bfn tbh, it probably would have opened up the series to a new genre, characters, and fans without feeling like a blantant overwatch clone chasing it's trendiness from 3 years ago.
One complaint I have about those screenshots is while I know they aren't finished is that besides the house screenshots just like bfn none of it really looks like it has a pvz aesthetic and looks like it could belong to any other type of game (just like bfn imo).
shurikeninja
5 years ago
@stukapooka I wouldn't agree with that but I do get what they mean. BFN was hurt by being this hybrid game. It was partly why we had the Founders sprinting mess (sprint is necessary for open world). But the bigger issue is that the PvE, while being the best in the series, was still a letdown and not very good. Mainly because it was a hero shooter game. So of course the gameplay would have to work for a massive cast of characters. I'm assuming this game would've had a smaller cast, with maybe each character playing a different role with different gameplay gimmicks. Definitely more interesting and fun. Looking at Respawn's Star Wars single-player game, yeah there is definitely room for success there. I'm sure that the PvZ community would buy it, and we need more kids action adventure games. Ratchet and Clank is good I guess, but that's platform exclusive.

Usually when cancelled games are leaked, they're shown off at the later/latest stage of development, so I'm just going to assume that this game never got far unfortunately. But it does seem like maybe it got cancelled after EA saw the success of OW, and told the team to make another multiplayer hero game? Obviously the devs probably liked OW too at the time but that narrative makes sense to me.

But BFN never felt like a blatant overwatch clone chasing it's trendiness, even with the old TTK. But seeing how blatant the inspiration is, I do wonder if BFN was originally going to be more of an overwatch clone.

I do agree with you on wanting to see this game through to release. While there is room for a Garden Warfare 5 and 6 and so on, I wish that they would try different genre. I can come up with a lot of ideas.

Plants vs Zombies Doom and Bloom: Doom clone but with Foot Soldier facing off the plants. Instead of hell, it's a fun pvz garden setting.

Zombies Vs Plants: Borderlands clone with Foot Soldier and his mech, Super Brainz and Engineer. Semi-open world hubs, some vehicular gameplay, lots of loot, interesting enemy types, more in depth upgrade and customisation systems etc. Although EA would probably change it to a Destiny clone instead (ahem Anthem)

Plants vs Zombies "Legion": Open-world watchdogs legion clone, play as any plant and zombie in the city, freeform mission design. BFN PvE I guess, kinda contradicts my statements but it could work. Or you could just do an open world game with only 3 characters on each side.

Birds eye view action-adventure game with up to 4-player co-op. Puzzles, combat, platforming, etc.

I know they're clones but I don't care goddamit!
shurikeninja
5 years ago
With all the evidence and tid bits we have gotten recently, it can actually point to a new Plants vs. Zombies console game- but not a shooter. Instead, an action/adventure/platformer. Recently, we got some screenshots about a scrapped adventure Plants vs. Zombies console game that was in development in 2016 but got cancelled for Battle for Neighborville. Additionally, Melvin Teo (a PopCap employee) said they have no shooters in development, but another genre is possible. On top of that, there was the new poster we got just a week ago or something? Which featured a new plant, Ginger-Zap- possibly making his debut in this new game. There's not enough there, but hey, you never know. They may just restart development on this game because of the interest in the offline Switch game. Team would probably have more success because they're not good at balancing lol
stukapooka
Legend
5 years ago
@shurikeninjaDoom and bloom sounds like a horde mode that could be implemented as a minigame survival mode in a shooter, also the thought of a foot soldier glory killing a sunflower in a doom style death sounds more interesting than it should.

The mechanics and abilities were changed in a way that greatly mimics overwatch such as overheal which even functions and dissipates like overwatch, shield for citron and all star mechanics that are pretty much Reinhardt and Winston even copying how awful Winston's shield was for all star lol, 3 Insta warps that function instantly like tracers blinks, scientist now spraying a heal substance in a hose like fashion like moira, snipers using a charge system with cactus even having a submachine gun mode to defend herself that ties into her ammo count alongside deadbeard having a grapple like ability to get to higher ground alongside lights that reveal their position when scoped in with a projectile trail like widowmaker, imp does the dva pose alongside no zmech deaths when destroyed just like dva, superbrainz functions more like doomfist with brainium basher and relies on a weak shield to help him get into melee range like brigette, more characters given items or powers that give then wallhacks, rose's goatify can phase through walls like hanzo's ultimate, 80s flies up into the air and delivers a missile barrage like pharah, payload moved from a gimmicky minigame into a full mode where they float in the air and move at 3fps, engineer given a turret that provides status effects and can help troops reach the front line faster, rather than having a spray animation heal zombie just uses a zone that beals over time like Lucio, focusing on trying to introduce new characters every so often, and the overall greater focus on teamwork and skins for characters.

Don't tell me they weren't going for an overwatch clone.
I feel like 3d single player PVE game could do pretty good but I wonder what a combat system would be like if there wasn't any I mean the game is called plants vs zombies so there will most likely be two campaigns which need unique styles much like the alien vs predator games having to make the creatures levels and gameplay not bleed into each other.
shurikeninja
5 years ago
@stukapookaFair enough, it's hard to disagree with a lot of what you said here.
Iron_Guard8
Legend
5 years ago
Curious how it all went to be sure. Was the original plan to release 2 different PC/console PvZ games (this adventure game and the shooter we knew they were working on early in GW2's life)? Did they end up taking some of the ideas of the 2 games and end up making BfN instead of 2 separate games?
As @stukapooka points out, they changed certain aspects of the shooter formula to be closer to OW (especially the snipers which both feel like Widowmaker to a high degree, but there are other parts as well), which is largely a step down for me as I uninstalled that game long ago and it's not doing so hot these days. It looks like they saw how well it did do at launch and wanted to combine that with the PvZ aspects and make a blockbuster, but something went wrong along the way as BfN is a buggier experience than OW, even if I like BfN much more than OW, and the promotion for the game was lackluster.
PvZ has done so well over the years, it's essentially like printing money, so one wonders why they didn't end up making both and promoting them better than they did with BfN. It sounds like they needed more people working on BfN, much less 2 games, so that may be part of it.
As someone who used to play MMOs, when they added the Backyard Battleground to GW2, it actually felt more alive as its own world than any I've seen in those MMOs. It's not static and you can go AFK and come back and see a small scale war there, or jump into the opposing base and start a much larger scale one. BfN's free roam zones had this feeling too, although they have fixed spawn spots and mob compositions that make them less dynamic in this regard, but love them at their core, my favorite parts of BfN for sure.
I was hoping that BfN was going to be developed and grow into an experience that combined shooter and adventure game aspects for more long term replayability but with them cutting things off, it was never fully realized which is a shame. I would love a game that takes the best aspects of the PvZ shooters and added more PvE elements so we can have a game that has a ton of different and fun stuff to do for a long time.
@shurikeninja thanks for sharing the tweet!
stukapooka
Legend
5 years ago
@Iron_Guard8 While I hate overwatch I would have to say I overall think it handles its ideas and design better than bfn as bfn suffers from an identity crisis in trying to be overwatch while also trying to beg garden warfare fans to come back with familiar gamemodes (seriously the only new mode is battle arena) and they ended up getting neither gw or overwatch fans in the process as the fans of both would only really see a downgrade in terms of options of no variants, less spawnables, less original boss variety (bitter dill is the only non boss hunt reskin in bfn), less event modes like Dr junkenstien or the omnic crisis, and differing mechanics for gamdmodes and characters that make them feel more braindead to play in an attempt to attract more players (changes to turf overtime and suburbination 2 points rule). Overwatch fans however also lack the character selection and capabilities of overwatch's cast that don't really work when mashed together with an example being citron and allstar trying and failing to be Reinhardt and Winston who even someone like me that hates overwatch would argue work better than bfn's characters.

Both groups would also lose the aesthetic and tone of their respective games in bfn.

Seriously what does bfn aesthetic and tone tell a newcomer about pvz? That's cartoony?

While gw1 and 2 were cartoony they were able to have a consistent visual worldbuilding and style in their maps and took their conflict in universe semi seriously like all the apocalyptic symbolism in gw1 with map design treated the plants like local heroes by designing statues, fountains, and events after them.

How characters would scream upon being injured while animated blood came out of their bodies or the graveyards the zombies would usually have in their territory or spawn in when starting a map (is their even a single grave in bfn!?)

People say bfn resmbles pvz 1 the most, How? Even pvz 1 while being a parody of the zombie genre admit in almanac entries that people were killed by zombies and thats how screen door got his shield for the game and gw1 was a parody of the serious, dark, and edgy shooter genre. The buckethead doesn't even have blood on his helmet in bfn!

Pvz was always childish and cartoonish but bfn ramped it up to 11 imo. "Oh bfn isnt meant to be related to gw" well the devs screwed that notion with the pve areas information.

Sorry for this rant its just something I've wanted off my chest for a while and its made worse by the fact that pvz lore is now a black hole thanks to bfn.

Pve despite being the best part of bfn ultimately killed the PvP with copy amd paste maps that simply don't work in a multiplayer setting and its obvious they were designed for pve in the first place with sprinting in mind as multiplayer maps, especially in turf are filled with filler areas where no combat really takes place.

Besides all the bugs, glitches, and hundred other problems, I think bfn's underlying death was a part of popcap trying to change everything fans loved about the series and trying to cater to people who werent interested to begin with and ultimately appeased neither.
TheSprinter85
Hero
5 years ago
I had actually heard and seen leaks about this PvZ Action/Adventure game that was in development (on YouTube, I think). I never knew it was cancelled until I read this thread, and I’m not sure whether it was cancelled fairly recently or whether it was cancelled ages ago. It seemed like an interesting game, I wonder why it was cancelled in the first place? Perhaps because of BFN’s development!
Thank you for sharing the screenshots, they looked cool! 😎
benn1nat0r
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
@shurikeninja is always there to share these interesting articles and leaks 👍! Thank you so much for sharing it with us, I would have never noticed it otherwise 🙂.
Update:
Some BfN devs replied to the tweets.
They all agree that the cancelled game had a great dev team and that the game had an awesome story, unlike anything PvZ had before.
Rob Davidson, one of the producers of BfN, said he was originally hired by EA for this game, before moving over to the BfN team.
What is interesting here is the wording. Moving over to the BfN team. This means a BfN team already existed at the point of cancellation, which is said to be in 2016.
That brings up other questions:
Considering BfN´s unfinished state at launch, how could it have been in active development for 4 years?
If it had less dev time, from 2018-late 2019, what was the "BfN Team" from 2016 up to before BfN?
@Iron_Guard8 said they were working on a cancelled shooter. This seems plausible considering the tie bits.
Is there any source for this info? I would like to read more on the topic 🙂
Another thing I'd like to bring up:
In my thread uncovering the truth behind BfNs cancellation, I shared a tweet from Shaun Laker from 2018. It said they were looking to do a community testing environment for their next game, but couldn't promise anything yet.
This suggests they were in the early conceptualization phase for BfN in 2018
(https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/BfN-cancelled-months-before-the-official-cancellation/td-p/9648798/page/2)
My Theory:
There were 2 dev teams at PopCap Vancouver in 2016, just after GW2 launch.
GW3 & Action Adventure PvZ
AA-PvZ was cancelled in 2016 and the devs combined with the GW3 team.
GW3 was cancelled in late 2017 and reborn as BfN
Active Development for BfN started in 2018
The game was Cancelled in July 2020, as proven in my thread
September 2020: EA lied to us and said they listened to the community and might bring back BfN, as well as claiming bug fixes and balancing would continue
2021: Complete Edition of BfN wasn't cancelled in order to fulfill promises made to investors about the number of switch games that would be released by EA. The port was mainly done by an external studio with the help of the remaining BfN team members.
stukapooka
Legend
5 years ago
@benn1nat0rI highly doubt bfn actually had 4 years in development as it practically impossible to find any major plans or concept art of the game until about early 2019 when walnut hills was re-released.

This story gets weirder as the subreddit pointed that in code bfn is called gw3 but why?

The story behind bfn development gets stranger and stranger every minute, we could potentially never find the real awnser of what crapshow went down behind the scenes that resulted in bfn being well bfn.

As I said before bfn feels like a Frankenstein monster put together to try and draw in overwatch fans while also pasting over whatever they still had from garden warfare, heck you can even see gw1&2 assets and props in bfn, so why didn't the devs just make a true gw3 over an untested gamble that ultimately didn't pay off, was it because of overwatch's relative success and EA wanted to milk that cash cow just like how they created apex legends to jump on the battle royal stage?

This situation just gets stranger and stranger.