Plants vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville

Plants vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville
Also known as: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 3, Plants vs. Zombies Picnic Developer: PopCap Games Publisher: Electronic Arts Platforms: PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch Released internationally: October 18, 2019 (PS4, Xbox One, Windows) March 19, 2021 (Switch) This game has unused areas. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused music. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article This game has a notes page

To do: This page is coming along, though there's more that can be added. Namely: leftover assets from Garden Warfare 2 and Battlefield, more unused hats, an unused soldier gesture, unused emojis and statements, and other graphics.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

Plants vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville is the third installment in the Garden Warfare series (despite the developers saying it isn't.). Despite the name Neighborville (the town mentioned in the PvZ tie-in comics), it's not a comic adaptation, but instead a completely original game, featuring 6 new playable classes, a battle pass system called the Prize Map, an improved (and more reasonable) upgrade system for the classes, and an improved story mode.

As of September of 2020, the game stopped getting updates, most likely due to poor sales. This wasn't a long time coming, so there's a lot of unused content left over like the previous games.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Notes

Debugging Material Still waiting, Jeff...

Unused Customizations Looks like they didn't plan to end support for this game so soon.

Unused Graphics Scrapped graphics new and old to be found here.

Unused Upgrades The heck is confidence?

Leftovers From Other Games Battlefield leftovers? GW2 leftovers also.

Unused Game Modes

To do: Include information about the unreleased Ops Phase 3.

Golf/Minigolf

There is an unused area in Giddy Park that was supposedly for a golf minigame, judging by the grass tracks and holes. This can be proven more as in the files, Golfer Gnomes exist and also have a weapon used for golfing. We can assume that originally, you were able to play golf as a Gnome.

Gnome Tag

This unused minigame was basically tag, but with a twist. The player that is it would be a Shooty Gnome. The Shooty Gnome's abilities consist of a primary with large homing, a long warp, an ability where players get stuck in the air for a short amount of time (similar to Imp's Gravity Grenade), and an ability to throw a bomb, dealing 175 damage. The Gnome even has a sprinting animation, suggesting the minigame was almost finished at one point, but was scrapped.

Seasonal Events

Similar to the Food Fight scavenger hunt, there were three other seasonal events planned during the game's lifespan. The events were Gift Wrap, Snowman Tag, and Breaking Hearts. There are various files in the game defining logic for how the modes would have played out. Currently, the only thing we know about how the missions are played are based on the dialog (Snowman Tag does not have any dialog).

Feastivus - Gift Wrap

The dialog implies that it's similar to Food Fight scavenger hunt in a way where the goal is to collect an amount of items. In this mission, you are assisting a gnome named Gnolines, a gnome who has lost the presents of the Gnomish children. Upon finishing the quest, you are awarded with an unknown amount of Prize Bulbs.

Dialog

Mission Start

• "Yes yes, it's me, Gnolines, famous gnomish ac-tor. No autographs!"
• "Hold on. You look like a rough character. Can you help me?"
• "See, I'm "between roles," and took an "elf gig," delivering gifts of anvils to Gnomish children for Feastivus."
• "Gnomish kids LOVE anvils!"
• "But I messed up the chimney portal, and the unwrapped anvils are popping up around Giddy Park!"
• "Find them and wrap them! I'll give you a prize--and MAYBE an autograph."

Mid-Mission

• "You've gotta wrap more anvils, or I'll never act again!"

Mission Complete

• "You wrapped all the gifts and saved my acting career! Oh, and Feastivus."
• "King Gnomus himself has offered me the role of King Gnomus himself in his biopic: "King Gnomus, Himself"!"
• "I can't offer you a role, but I can offer you this prize! Exeunt!"

Post Mission

• "You deserve the Gnommey for "Best Supporting Supporter.""

Additional Strings

There's also a few additional strings while Anvils are around in Giddy Park.

• "AN ANVIL HAS APPEARED"
• "AN ANVIL NEEDS TO BE WRAPPED"
• "LOCATION OF GIDDY PARK ANVIL GIFT REVEALED"

Valenbrainz - Breaking Hearts

The dialog for this one implies that the player is looking for a certain character as per requested by

Dialog

Mission Start

• "Are you up for the ValenChallenge?"

Mid-Mission

• "Did you find my Twin, Valengnome B? He's in Cheesed Mines."

Mission Complete

• "TEMP: You heart breaker, you!"

Post-Mission

• "TEMP: Hope I can find another job as this one end at the end of the month. TEMP: Acting sure is tough."

Damage Falloff

Damage falloff is a feature that existed in both Garden Warfare and Garden Warfare 2 as a means of reducing weapon's effectiveness at longer range for balancing purposes, but is almost wholly absent in Battle for Neighborville for unknown reasons, save for the Sunbeam and Scientist's primary weapon.

Two of the unused upgrades present in the game data, Carbine Rounds and Increased Bullet Range, suggest that damage falloff was meant to be added into the game, but was cut during development, as these upgrades increase the damage falloff start and end distances.

Unused Weapons

Acorn

• Hey You: An ability for Acorn that when he turns into Oak, it could show where the Oak is, probably an early name for Invoke Oak.

• Acorn Alternate primary: Acorn has multiple alternate primaries, with most lacking data in the final patch. However one of them remains, it shoots black spiky looking balls at enemies which do massive damage and have a large amount of bullet gravity.

Space Cadet

• Astronaut Dock: An ability for Space Cadet that could work similar to Hey You, probably an early name for Station Inflation.

Unused Gestures

To do: Add the gestures.

Although you can see a few of these gestures by any of the CPU players, they are complacently unattainable.

• 

  Hip Dance Moves

• 

  Belly Dance

• 

  Unknown. Does not exist in-game as a Gesture. (Perhaps the developers did not have time to add it)

Unused Firework Gestures

Originally, all of the classes except Wildflower and TV Head where all going to have a firework gesture however the only classes that don't have that gesture are Chomper, Nightcap, Snapdragon, Sunflower, Electric Slide, and Scientist.

• 

  Hurl Rocket

• 

  Pyroelectric

• 

  Night Lights

• 

  Fireworks

• 

  Explosive Sneeze

• 

  Kabloom

Unused Classes

Iceberg Lettuce

To do: Documentation for Iceberg Lettuce's upgrades are needed.

Iceberg Lettuce is another plant from PvZ2 that was going to be added into the game.

Class: Defense

HP: 200

Snowflakes (Primary): has 8 ammo, shoots like scientist, and deals 6 damage per pellet. It creates floating ice particles which when a zombie touches them, inflict damage.

Shield Deploy (Ability #1): Places a ice shield that last 15 seconds.

Back Dash (Ability #2): When used, Iceberg Lettuce jumps back and drops a frozen chili pepper, which explodes freezing anyone in its radius shortly after.

Snowball (Ability #3): throws a snowball dealing lots of damage. Seemingly cut as it lacks a U_ file and is not used by AI Iceberg Lettuces.

Self heal (Ability #4): Heals Iceberg Lettuce and nearby teammates for a large amount of health.

Berry Brigade

An unused plant class. It had various weapons and a work-in-progress model, but was cut shortly after it was first data-mined.

Super Bean

Another cut plant class, this time of the Super Bean boss! He was almost fully playable before being cut, with 3 abilities

Cape Twirl (Ability #1): An AoE attack that damages a pushes back zombies nearby Super Bean.

Team Shield (Ability #2): A shield that gives Super Bean and all nearby plants shields.

Warp (Ability #3): A basic teleport ability.

Miscellaneous

There are more unused classes mentioned in the code, but not much is known about them other than their internal names and some weapon data.

cabbage

squash

mini gargantuar

toxic

eric

Unused Bosses

Several unused bosses are mentions in the game's files.

Super Chili Bean: A scrapped boss from Garden Warfare 2 who was planned to finally appear in this game under the new name 'Mexi-Bean,' but was cut. You'll get your chance one day, big guy.

Captain Smasher: The final boss from the Plant's side of Garden Warfare 2's story mode was planned to appear in this game, but demoted to a regular boss.

Crab Machine: Another unused boss from Garden Warfare 2 who was planned to show up in this game, but went unused again.

Sasquatch: One of the many Boss Hunt bosses from Garden Warfare 2 was planned to appear as a regular boss here, but went unused. I'm starting to see a pattern here...

Chompzilla: Chompzilla from Plants vs. Zombies Heroes! It looks like she was planned to be a Zombie Boss, but was cut. Also the only cut boss to not originate from Garden Warfare 2, used or unused.

The Yeti King: Another Boss Hunt from Garden Warfare 2 who was planned to appear in this game. He was scrapped too, probably because there was already the regular Yeti as a boss.

Unused Music

Gnome King Boss Theme

The Gnome King fight theme from Garden Warfare 2. Most likely to be used in a battle against the Gnome King, which never happens in the game.

Alternate Dreadwood Phase 2 Theme

An alternate version of the Dreadwood boss theme during Phase 2, which is at a slightly lower pitch.

Old Dreadwood Intro

An old version of the Dreadwood boss intro found in the game's launch files. The audio is exactly the same as the intro to the Final Boss music from New Super Mario Bros. Wii. It's likely it was used during the game's development due to the file being found in the "Sound/Test/AleksTest/Muisc_dreadwood_Daren" directory, it no longer exists in the current version of the game.

Unused Areas

Season 12 Giddy Park

An unused variation of Giddy Park meant for Season 12. It is completely barren, with a lot of objects and details missing.

Internal Project Name

The game's codename is referred to as 'Picnic,' as seen in debugging material and the game's closed beta test.

Deprecated Settings Menu

There exists an unused settings menu which contains remnants of Garden Warfare 2's settings UI. The menu retains most functionality of the current menu.

Oddities

Preserve Pastures

In the Turf Takeover map, Preserve Pastures, there are two areas hidden out of bounds that were likely used during the map's development.

This first area located right next to the first objective has a nice looking area that houses a handful of the props that gets used within the map. You could make the assumption that the developers were creating a mock-up environment with the resources at their disposal.

The second area looks like it was used for creating props and seeing how they would look in the game.

The pictures above represents an unfinished version of the final objective. It contains a lot of whiteboxing and layout differences than the final product.

Weirding Woods

Weirding Woods houses a strange Magenta Cube far out of bounds.