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!
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! 😎
