Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare | Multiplayer Gameplay Tips | FTW February 2014

Learn some useful tips for multiplayer modes in Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare, from Creative Director Justin Wiebe and Game Designer Chris Fox.

Garden Warfare features two 12 vs 12 multiplayer modes, Team Vanquish and Gardens and Graveyards, so it makes sense to play as a team in order to succeed. This means putting together a team which features a variety of characters and tactics. For the plants, mix your team between the run and gun Peashooter, the healing powers of the Sunflower, the long range attack of the Cactus and the close-quarters capabilities of the Chomper. While mixing your team with these characters means you will have all bases covered, a crafty tactic can be to ask everyone on your team to spawn as the Chomper. The enemy will often not anticipate this which means you can eliminate many zombies right at the start of the round.

The zombies also have a number of characters with similar abilities to the plants. The Soldier shares similarities to the Peashooter and can use its Rocket Jump ability to get a better view of the action in hot combat scenarios. The Engineer differs the most from the plants as he acts as more of a support character; building turrets and hanging back to stun enemies. The Scientist can be both aggressive up close like the Chomper, and conservative with his healing like the Sunflower. How you choose to use this character will influence the game quite a lot. The All-Star is possibly the toughest zombie, with a lot of health and a weapon with a high-rate of fire. He can also use his abilities to deal high melee damage.

Matt Cuttle: Justin, Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare has a 12 versus 12 multiplayer mode, so I guess if you want to win you've got play as a team don't you?
Justin Wiebe: You have to put together a great team and use team tactics and character choice is really really important.

MC: Let's talk about the plants, what have we got?
JW: The Peashooter is a running gun specialist - like to take the fight to the enemy. The Sunflower is plant healer, she tries to stay in behind her fellow plants and keep them in the fight. The Chomper is more of a sneaky melee kind of character and he really tries to catch the enemy by surprise. The Cactus is the range specialist, so she really tries to keep her distance from the enemy and take them down.

MC: So for someone whose played other shooters how would you best relate these character types to tyoes people might have played in other games?
JW: The Peashooter is like a standard assault class, the Sunflower you might find as a medic, the Cactus is more of a range specialist like a sniper or a recon and the Chomper is more of a melee class.

MC: What's your ideal combination?
JW: I might do what I call a 'Chomper Blitz' which is to convince everybody in the next round to spawn as the Chomper immediately. Overloading on Chompers very early will catch them off guard and you'll be able to really rack a lot of vanquishes really quickly.

MC: So what's a good all round ratio of character types with a team?
JW: You want to have at least half the team as Peashooters because they're your assault specialists and they're going to bring the pain to the zombies. I think you will probably want about two to three Sunflowers, a couple of Chompers and a couple of Cactus to support them.

MC: So for someone who's familiar with other shooters, how would you relate Zombie classes to things they may be familiar with?
Chris Fox: The Soldier is your typical assault character, he should be very easy to pick and play espicially for new players. The Rocket Jump is great for getting him above the action, it allows him to look down and pick off some wayward plants. The Engineer is definately a support type character, he can build turrets, he can build teleporters and he can stun other plants. If you're playing as the Engineer you wanna kind of hang back from the battle a little bit and use your support abilities and give him some breathing space. If you're playing as the Scientist, you'll want to be on the frontline. His Goo Blaster is very very damaging up close. He's a little bit like a scout in that he can get up close very fast, can get in the battle very quickly and do a lot of damage with the shotgun, but he also has a healing station, so he is the Zombies healer and how you choose to play him detemines how that goes.

MC: So how would you relate that to something that someone's familiar with in other games?
CF: He's more like a battle mage, he's very very powerful but he can also heal his teammates.

MC: Finally the All Star, what's all that about?
CF: The All Star is bit of a tank, he has very high health, he has a very fast firing weapon and he can lay down surpressing fire for his teammates to advance. His tackle ability allows him to clear the objective really affectively and his football cannon with it's fast of fire can lay down a lot of surpressing fire.

MC: If you're going to have a team, what's the best ratio of Zombie classes to have?
CF: For me it's finding that right balance assault and the support type characters. Five or six soldiers on one team and then backing them up with a couple of Engineer's, a couple of Scientists, a couple of All Stars, but reacting to the changing tide of battle. That's key for me. Being aware, communicating, changing your roles to compensate what the plants are doing, and if you can keep doing that, you'll have a lot of success.

MC: So if you're a big Plants vs Zombies fan and you've only ever played the Tower Defence game, what's the best way to jump into this game - who do you play as first?
CF: The Soldier's probably the easiest character to pick up and play on the Zombie side, he's relatively straight forward in his abilities, he's fast and kind of good at everything.

MC: And what's your favourite weapon?
CF: The Soldier Tank Commander - he fires an explosive round. One shot. Very damaging. But if you're accurate, very very powerful...