The Zombies are coming...
Plants vs. Zombies is a video game franchise by PopCap Games. The games follow an ever-escalating duel between an army of anthropomorphic plants and a horde of brain-hungry zombies, a plot that started with the 2009 game of the same name. Since then the plot's expanded across time and the world, with a wide assortment of sequels and spinoff games detailed below.
Plants vs. Zombies and related media include:
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Video Games (Main Series)
- Plants vs. Zombies 1 (2009)
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time (2013)
- Plants vs. Zombies 3: Evolved (TBA) — Another free-to-play mobile title in the series. It was launched in a pre-alpha state for Android in July 2019 and soft launched in March 2020 in selected territories. Now with 3D graphics and some new features, such as the ability to connect with friends to share items and the new "Tacobility" feature. The player has to climb the zombie-filled Devour Tower while also driving back the other zombies at various locations. In November 2020, the game was withdrawn from the market indefinitely for the purpose of "making bigger changes". It doesn't have an official return date in the US. It returned in 2021 in certain countries (such as Australia) with a more cartoony art style, a smaller amount of plants and zombies and an odd lack of Plant Food and Tacobility, before going through another rework whose beta was released in October 2025.
Video Games (Spin-Offs)
- Plants vs. Zombies Pinball (2012) — A Pinball Spin-Off for the Zen Pinball and Pinball FX platforms.
- Plants vs. Zombies Adventures (2013) — A tower defense Facebook game. Crazy Dave has tasked you with slowly restoring the town from the zombies. You must grow your plants, construct and repair homes and buildings, place plants along the paths leading to the buildings, and defend the town against zombies. After a certain amount of progress into the game, you ''will'' be required to find friends to assist you or pay with real money to advance further. The game was shut down on October 12, 2014.
- Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare (2014)
- Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2 (2016)
- Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville (2019)
- Plants vs. Zombies: The Last Stand (2015) — An Arcade Light Gun Game released by Sega. It puts the player at the control of a cabinet-mounted Peashooter to stop advancing waves of zombies. Not to be confused with the Last Stand minigame.
- Use Your Brainz EDU (2015) — An educational version of Plants vs. Zombies 2 developed by GlassLab Games, it's basically the lite version with physical lesson plans.
- Plants vs. Zombies Pinyin Adventure (2015) — A Chinese Edutainment Game version meant to teach the pinyin of the Chinese language.
- Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes (2016)
Comic books
- Plants vs. Zombies (Dark Horse Comics): A Comic-Book Adaptation by Dark Horse Comics which has Crazy Dave and two new human Kid Heroes, his niece Patrice Blazing and her friend Nate Timely, pitting in regular plants-vs-zombies action.
- Plants vs. Zombies: Lawnmageddon (2013)
- Plants vs. Zombies: Timepocalypse (2014)
- Plants vs. Zombies (2015-)
- Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (2015)
- Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (2018-2019)
Literature
- Plants vs. Zombies: Brains and the Beanstalk (2013) — A comedic retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk.
- Plants vs. Zombies: The Three Little Pigs Fight Back (2013) — A comedic retelling of The Three Little Pigs.
- Plants vs. Zombies: Plant Your Path (2013)
- Plants vs. Zombies: Brain Food (2013) — An activity book.
Other Adaptations
Manhuas
- Plants vs. Zombies (Manhua Series) — Licensed by PopCap Shanghai, a series of manhuas were published in Southeast Asia, available in English through a Malaysian distributor. Edutainment-oriented with the occasional Very Special Episode, they focus more on the plants' and zombies' own society referenced in the Almanac, as well as new adventures for the characters introduced in Heroes. Though publicly available, information about the series in circulation is scarce outside the regions they were published in. Currently, 21 serializations exist, containing anywhere between three and over 30 volumes each.
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: Historical Comics — A spinoff series centred around the core cast such as Sunflower, Peashooter, Wall-Nut and Bonk Choy recalling or learning about various fables from Chinese History to deal with incidents in their daily lives. Not that they necessarily learn the right lessons from them.
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: Robot Comics — A spinoff series focusing on the adventures of the Plant Heroes from Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes (most prominently Green Shadow and Solar Flare), as well as the titular robots. Takes quite a few creative liberties regarding the original Heroes lore.
Tabletop games
- Risk: Plants vs. Zombies (2013) — A two-player only version of Risk with three play modes: mission objectives, tower defense, and total domination.
Crossovers
- The Peacebloom VS. Ghouls mini-game in World of Warcraft is based on PvZ, and completing all of its stages earns you a Sunflower as a non-combat pet that follows you around.
- The series has also made its way into The Sims 3, in which pre-ordering The Sims 3: Supernatural (which has zombies) unlocks Peashooters to fight back as well as zombie-based clothing, such as the cone hat. The Sims 3 store also released a greenhouse with a sunflower that produces sunlight which can be used to make plants grow better.
- They co-starred with Angry Birds and Scrat from Ice Age in a Edutainment Game to teach programming here
. - The Chinese version of Plants vs. Zombies 2 also crossed with its version of Subway Surfers.
Tropes found in more than one installment:
- Firewood Resources: Sunlight is a currency-like resource needed to grow most plant units throughout the games. It's depicted as yellow sun icons falling from the top of the screen or being produced by Sun Producers like Sunflowers and Sun-shrooms. Of course, photosynthetically-active radiation is very abstract, compared to the simplified represention it's given in-game.
- Transformation Conventions: Plants are the good guys who defend you from the zombies. Zombies are an Always Chaotic Evil species that only seeks to eat people's brains. This is reflected by what they get turned into via the Forced Transformation spells of Wizard Zombie and Rose. Plants become peaceful sheep while Zombies get transformed into goats (animals famous for eating everything).