Our town’s the best town, let’s go kick some GRASS!
Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville is a third-person Hero Shooter video game developed by PopCap Games. Released on October 18, 2019, the game is a follow-up to the Garden Warfare spin-offs, retaining much of its gameplay and expanding on it. The game definitely engages in Sequel Escalation, with 20 fully customizable character classes, one social region that functions like an online version of Garden Warfare 2's Backyard Battleground, three free-roam regions that contains numerous quests and story missions, and numerous game modes.Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville contains examples of:
- Absurdphobia: One of the NPCs named Brick Fistmissile, states that he's afraid of plants, large bodies of water, small bodies of air, and the zombie un-infection.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Played fairly straight with the story mode bosses.
- Artificial Stupidity: The Turning Point map has a habit of tricking AI plants into thinking the large rock with a pirate ship crashed through it is actually something they can walk through. Expect to see one dumbass plant kissing the mast of the ship at all times.
- Art Shift: One of the biggest changes to the Garden Warfare formula is the art style, which eschews that series's more "realistic" (for lack of a better word) textures in favor of a more stylized, cartoony aesthetic.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Blight Cap, the Final Boss of the zombies side and Dreadwood to a lesser extent.
- Big "NO!": The zombie ending of Peachy District has the signature "NOOOOO!!!" sound play when a zombie pops out of a television in a human's home.
- Boss Subtitles: Bosses in the campaign and Ops.
- Chain Lightning: Electric Slide's primary weapon functions like this, making her the only character to be able to arc damage between multiple enemies.
- Cosmetically Different Sides: While the Garden Warfare games averted this for the most part, Battle for Neighborville attempts to make the two sides more balanced in terms of playstyles. The Engineer, for example, has had all of his abilities altered drastically to make him more of a straight support class like Rose.
- Cult: The zombies have one, worshipping a sentient sports dummy shield of all things.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: A large amount of classes were revamped in this game, and the original keys have been switched for most old characters. In generally, previous abilities that used to be for mobility (Sprint Tackle, Heroic Kick, Husk Hop) no longer provide that same mobility, which is now substituted for with the sprint button. Old players may instinctively use these abilities in place of sprinting when trying to flee. And the respawn has also been moved from the B/Circle button to the A/X button. Change character from X/Square to B/Circle.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Night Cap is quite spooky in appearance and has some devious tricks, but she's definitely fighting for the good guys. However...
- Dark Is Evil: The same cannot be say for Blight Cap, a giant version of Night Cap who is spreading mushrooms to weakening the zombies.
- Deflector Shield: Both Citron and Super Brainz possess one. For this game Citron's shield is activated using the Zoom-In button. Super Brainz's his shield is new to this game and, like Citron, replaces his Zoom-In button (Eliminating his Heroic Laser).
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Like in Garden Warfare, being vanquished is just a minor setback. Even if your allies can't revive you, you just respawn back near your base or the last checkpoint. You might be in for a bit of a walk, but that's about it.
- The Engineer: The Engineer zombie class, who now functions more for his namesake, having the ability to buff his teammates and construct AI-controlled turrets wherever he pleases (as opposed to the Zombot Turrets that can only be built in certain spots near teleporters in Turf Takeover modes).
- Escort Mission: There is now an entire 'Push the Payload'-type mode, bringing to mind the climax of Garden Warfare's Cactus Canyon map.
- Find the Cure!: According to Dr. Real Doctor, the only way to cure zombies from the Zombie Un-fection, is the stinkyness of your playable zombie, and in order to stop the plantish fiend that caused it (i.e. Blight Cap), is to create a stink bomb to stop the shrooms causing it.
- Forced Transformation: Rose retains her Goatify ability from Garden Warfare 2, allowing her to transform zombies into (nearly) harmless goats.
- Hub Level: Giddy Park.
- Inelegant Blubbering: One of the emotes you can put on the plants and zombies is them crying out, very loudly.
- The Lost Woods: Weirding Woods, one of the free-roam regions, seems to be this. Trees are seen continuously sprouting up, and some of them even serve as enemies when playing as the zombies. The forest is also inhabited by a giant tree named Dreadwood.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: One of the NPCs around Preassure Pier is named Dr. Real Doctor. According to 5 of 5 doctors, he's not an actual doctor himself, only when he's around a television. According to 4 of 5 doctors, it's also said that he's dumb.
- Put on a Bus: Torchwood and Hover-Goat 3000 from Garden Warfare 2 are nowhere to be seen, although the former is reimagined as Acorn's partner Oak and the latter's status as a buffer class is given to the Engineer.
- Rise to the Challenge: The battle with Major Problem takes place in a cheese volcano that's about to erupt, with the cheese rising in between phases, and the player has to stay above it.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the statements you can use in the game: "I have the POWER"
- One of Nightcap's emotes “Shadow Dance” is an adorably bad attempt at the Turk Dance in Scrubs. However, you're more likely to associate it with the “Default Dance” featured in Fortnite, which also references the Turk Dance, popularized it, then made it infamous.
- In the sewers of Peachy District (the Zombie Team's first spawn room), a red balloon can be seen in the back.
- In the final area of Peachy District, hidden below one of the cliffs is a plastic sword embedded in an unlit campfire. Next to the campfire is an onion, which is a reference to the Knights of Catarina of that setting, whose armor is known for its onion-like shape.
- Inside one of the sewage pipes of Daisy Drive contains boxes of pizza, as well as some sort of radioactive green ooze.
- Unknown Rival: Brick Fistmissile considers Brian as his number 1 enemy. Brian however considers Brick as his #651st enemy, tied in with out-of-service escalators.
- The Virus: In the zombies' campaign of the Town Center, it's said that there's a strange infection that caused the Zombies around to behave like normal members of society and give up brainz forever! Said virus is named "The Zombie UN-fection".
- When Trees Attack: Acorn & Oak. Also in the zombie campaign, Dreadwood is an invasive tree species that ended up overgrowing and destroying the Z-Tech factory.
- Zerg Rush: The new Swarm class, represented by the Wildflower for the plants and the TV Head for the zombies. They have below-average stats, but gain armor when standing near Swarm teammates and AI allies. This incentivizes the Swarm players to group up to maximize their effectiveness.
