A Super-Secret Facility, The Wild West, Customisations And More: PopCap Talk Zomboss Down

Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare gets even weirder in Zomboss Down. Creative Director Justin Weibe and World's Director Gordon Wang from PopCap Games talk all things Zomboss Down in our latest episode of For The Win.

Zomboss Down features even weirder shooter fun with the new Cactus Canyon Gardens and Graveyards Map, eight new playable characters, over 200 wild customisation items, an increased Level cap from 20 to 30 for each character, and all-new challenges to accomplish on Xbox One and Xbox 360.

In Zomboss Down the plants have blasted down Dr. Zomboss’s blimp and unleashed packs of zombies, who are now roaming the desert and battling their way through the wreckage to reach the local golf course.

This golf course doubles as a super-secret facility housing a Cactus army on the unbelievable new Gardens and Graveyards Map, Cactus Canyon. Players will also enjoy increased character levels and eight fun new characters like the Archeologist Zombie, the Wrestling Star Zombie, the Law Pea and the Sun Pharaoh. In addition, players will discover weapon upgrades and skins for new characters, new accessories, tattoos and facial hair, and even more.

Creative Director Justin Weibe and World's Director Gordon Wang from PopCap Games talk all things Zomboss Down in our latest episode of For The Win

Justin Weibe: It going to be a pretty big deal for at PopCap. The idea was that the zombies were going to bomb this plant installation that they think is buried underneath the 18th hole of a local golf course. Their big ZomBomb Blimp is crashed in the desert and they now to traverse through the map in order to try to get to the golf course and destroy the plant facility.

Matt Cuttle: There's a lot of customisation in this pack isn't there.
Justin Weibe: For this, there's this sort of a desert resort themed exapnsion for us and we wanted to make sure that we bring some of that flavour in to our customisation. You're going to see things like zombies with flippers on their heads and just ridiculous things. The other day I saw an Engineer with nachos for glasses. There are literally thousands of items and gestures, weapons and unlockable characters. The Peashooter is going to have a sheriff Peashooter so going to be like a six shooter shot. The Chomper's going to have a very futuristic metallic Chomper who's going to have a lot more health, but he's maybe going to be a little bit slower as a trade off. The Scientist, we're looking at doing more of an archaeologist, so he's going to have some cool fun abilities there.

Matt Cuttle: This is were the Blimp has crashed down in Zomboss Down, do want to talk us through this level?
Gordon Wang: This is where the zombies will start off, they find themselves crashed down in this desert area of our map. So that's the garden, once the zombies defaet that garden and rasie the tombstone, we're on to the next area. As the zombies carry on, they're thinking they're in desert but they're actually in a back yard of a trailer park, and it takes you to this little picnic area, that's where the plants will have their little garden and this is where they will battle.

Matt Cuttle: Once that's destroyed where does it take us to next?
Gordon Wang: Across the road and we're in this kind of surburban neighbourhood. We built up these little properties with a lot of rooftop action and this where the plants have set up there little defenses for there little gradens.

Matt Cuttle: When designing a map such as this, is there a lot of play testing to actually work out where these routes are for flanking advantage points for example?
Extremely. We can block it out and assume that if it looks great on paper it's going to work, but we find out very quickly in a play test that what you have on paper does not work and we make our adjustments and tweaks after that. With this level we're trying to push each area and each theme and make it really distinguishable.