Plants Vs Zombies 3 Soft-Launches Today, Worldwide Release Coming Later This Year

17.01.2024 - 21:46 / thegamer.com

EA has announced that Plants vs. Zombies 3: Welcome to Zomburbia will be soft-launching for mobile today in select markets, with a full worldwide release happening later this year.

Despite being one of its most popular mobile games (one that's even gone on to make appearances on consoles thanks to the third-person Garden Warfare), Plants vs. Zombies has been surprisingly quiet in recent years, with the last major release having been 2019's Battle for Neighborville.

That long wait is finally over, though, as EA has officially announced that the next major entry in the series is coming this year. Not only that, but it's actually soft-launching in the UK, Netherlands, Australia, and the Philippines today, so if you're lucky enough to be in one of those areas you can make a head-start on the series' third game with a "near-launch-ready build".

As revealed by EA, Plants vs. Zombies 3: Welcome to Zomburbia has a brand-new storyline that can be completed by doing the typical tower-defence challenges that the series is known for. That's not all, however, as story progression will be mixed up a bit with new "puzzle-adventure gameplay elements".

EA also notes that the "streamlined experience" also offers puzzle battles that let players use a variety of refreshed veteran plants alongside sprouting seedlings that can be discovered. The main story-driven experience will have an episodic narrative that's new for the series and lets players experience different neighbourhoods. No doubt that no matter where you go, it'll still have the trademark Plants vs. Zombies sense of humour.

“Wabby wabbo – they’re back! Get ready, seedlings, let’s show these zombos some real plant power!”

The soft-launch period is to allow EA and PopCap to gather feedback from any early adopters of the game and then use it to polish Plants vs. Zombies 3 up before it launches properly later this year. This seemingly includes new elements to streamline combat further, an option to "allow players to create their own custom version of Neighborville", and to expand the lore and characters.

The announcement of a new Plants vs. Zombies game won't be too surprising to the biggest fans of the series out there, as EA actually announced the game originally back in 2019. At that time, it was launched in a pre-alpha state for Android devices only, before being soft-launched in 2020 and again in 2021. Those soft-launches seem to have just been a trial for the full thing, however, as this appears to be the last one before the worldwide release.