Plants vs. Zombies: Evolution Origins

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Plants vs. Zombies: Evolution Origins (abbreviated as Evolution Origins or <choose uncached><option weight="10">EO</option><option>Next</option></choose>) is a third-person shooter game that takes place in the humble city of Townopolis, where plants and zombies have been fighting for generations. Evolution Origins takes a lot of inspiration from existing games, such as Garden Warfare, but has a lot of tricks and turns that set it apart in important and whimsical ways. From the streets to the fleets, there's a little something in it for everyone.
This is what each Edition of the game gives you when purchased:
*Standard Edition: The basic version of the game, no special perks. Just good ol' fashioned Evolution Origins fun. $29.99.
*Evolved Edition: A fully cosmetic upgrade that gives you a cool purple name and a big bunch of exclusive cosmetics. $39.99.
==Update History==
==Game Description==
Bash baddies brutally like never before in Plants vs. Zombies: Evolution Origins!
Rule the brawl when you evolve your character after vanquishing a number of enemies without being vanquished yourself. Take the power upgrade even further with Supercharge, where you can unleash a temporary burst of elemental power as an Evolved Character by continuing the streak! Unleash new powers such as Sparks and the reimagined Abilities system to dominate your foes and force them to submit.
Explore, uncover, and decorate your very own Redwood Retreat, where you can kick back and relax high up in the trees when not ruthlessly obliterating your enemies. Complete with training grounds, vending machines, and even a fully functioning mail system, it's fit for a king. Or, if that's not your style, hang out with the whole pack in the Cool Cat's Clearing, where dreams become realities and realities become dreams.
Keep an eye out for Gnome Patrols blinking in and out of the Cool Cat's Clearing, and harness weird technology to bring the fight to the gnomes in Timeless Trials. Destroy waves of gnomes and sworn enemies with up to five friends in the ever-shifting, ever-mysterious Timeless Temple, and turn the difficulty up to Evolved for a stinging fight! Unlock bountiful cosmetics and mythical champions from Timeless Chests. Ever wanted to play as a Yeti? Now's the chance!
==Core Gameplay (He/Him)==
The core is very heavy, and it is full of wondrous gameplay. This is a game, and as such there is some fun gameplay. It shares a lot of similarities with the Garden Warfare and Battle for Neighborville games. This is, of course, where it is rooted in as a third-person shooter. However, there are a lot of twists here and there that spice up the gameplay in ways that make them still be familiar yet feel new and exciting as well. It's a wonderful mix of ideas that makes some sense if you squint the right way.
===DaBasics===
As previously mentioned, a lot of the gameplay is taken from the Garden Warfare games. Players run around the way that they know they want to, and they shoot at other enemies with their assortment of weaponry. There is no sprinting, which is important to mention because it was a big sort of controversial feature in Battle for Neighborville and because there are more interesting ways to give the player mobility options. I'm listening to Featherfall right now and I just need to fill up this section so that it is full. Have you had any good cheese lately? Drop a comment.
===Cosmetics===
Slightly less related to the core gameplay but still being somewhat relevant (and without another good place to put this), cosmetics return from the previous games. They are, for the most part, relatively unchanged from Garden Warfare 2. The idea of having multiple slots for different sets transfers over from Battle for Neighborville, and the number of available slots is increased all the way from 3 to 99 because why not? There are silver and gold variants of items but they aren't part of the normal drop pool for cosmetic items so they won't pop up in places in place of actually interesting pieces of cosmetic wonderfulness.
===Variants===
In Evolution Origins, the variants system remains mostly unchanged at its core. The biggest difference beyond some additions we're about to get into in the coming sections is the addition of more rarities. Instead of there just being Rare, Super Rare, and Legendary character variants the lineup is expanded to include Common, Rare, Epic, Mythical, and Legendary character variants. The mathematically inclined among you will notice that is a total of 5 rarities instead of 3. It gives rarities a little more purpose and distinction from one another, since that wasn't really a thing in Garden Warfare or Garden Warfare 2 beyond the Legendary variants.
Here is every variant in Evolution Origins, and its rarity. There are individual character pages linked here as well, but there is a big template at the top to help you with that, because this doesn't include every playable character.
====Peashooter====
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====Chomper====
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====Cactus====
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====Sunflower====
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====Foot Soldier====
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====Engineer====
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====All-Star====
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====Scientist====
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===Abilities Reimagined===
For Evolution Origins, we wanted to introduce new systems for characters to deepen them and expand their horizons. Instead of implementing something like an upgrade system we've chosen to go the route of expanding the ability system into something new and more personalized for each player. Every player can play the way they want to, and there are lot of new build opportunities. The new Ability system divides Abilities into two camps, Active and Passive.
*Active Abilities unleash a powerful effect when manually activated, though they will need to recharge for a time after being used, and those are the abilities you are probably familiar with from other games.
*Passive Abilities affect their character throughout the entire match without needing to be recharged, such as granting vampiric healing for successful hits or casting an aura of sorts.
All Abilities also come with some extra passive Character Boosts, such as a Health or Speed Bonus, that are active for the entire match, independent of the Ability's effects. One of these is Healing per Second, which passively heals the character after 3 seconds of not taking damage. Each character has a number of Abilities to choose from, but only three can be equipped at any given time. This means there are a lot of choices that have to be made when figuring out builds for your different variants.
===Evolutions===
This game's main breadwinner is the of course the Evolution system it has. It's in the name. You should have guessed that. Evolutions are stronger forms of individual character variants that power up their weapon and add new abilities or properties to it, as well as their Spark which is covered in a little bit. Characters will evolve after vanquishing a certain number of enemies or reviving a number of teammates, and will remain in the Evolution state until they are vanquished. If revived, they will revive as a normal character.
Evolutions are meant to award players for playing well and to encourage sort of aggressive yet smart playstyles, but also allow for supportive characters and variants to succeed as well with the whole reviving side. Evolutions also help to add more variety to the game and make each variant feel a little more unique compared to the others. For example, a certain variant might be somewhat on the weaker side normally but become very powerful when Evolved, which would be something to consider when picking a variant.
===Supercharge===
An extension of the Evolution gameplay is Supercharge. Each character class has its own type of elemental Supercharge, which is an extremely powerful form of character variant that massively improve its strength as a whole. Evolved characters can Supercharge manually after vanquishing a certain number of enemies, and will remain in the Supercharged state for a limited time. There are four different types of Supercharge, and all variants in a certain class will share the same element.
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Supercharges being class-wide is important to their design because it makes different classes feel more distinct. The actual power boosts vary as well as the elements, so by its nature two similar character variants that are in two different classes will play differently because they have different types of Supercharge, even if the other parts of their gameplay will overlap.
===Sparks===
Sparks are an additional ability tacked on to each character variant, and are unique in the same way that Evolutions are. Sparks are special powers that are unique to each character variant. They are charged by dealing damage or healing teammates, and can be activated whenever the player wants to. Sparks charge faster and have a shorter cooldown when the player is Evolved. In the same way that Evolutions reward aggressive gameplay, Sparks not recharging unless damage is dealt also works for that. Charging with healing also lets support characters again get a slice of the cake.
===What Does This Mean===
With Abilities, Evolutions, Supercharges, and Sparks all combined there is a ton of variation and diverse character options, with deep customization choices. Instead of in the past where players might be inclined to pick a variant and just sort of the stick with the base abilities, plus or minus one or two, in Evolution Origins players have to think about not just the special inherent weaponry and properties of the variants but also the other fun things that come along with them, in addition to picking a lineup of Abilities that compliments them in particular.
==Progression==
===Coins===
Coins are the main currency in Evolution Origins, obtained (as you may expect) from just playing the game. Throughout each match, everything you do will net you some number of coins. They're awarded at the end of each matches to ensure players don't leave early and abandon their team, and the number of coins you actually earn is based on how well you performed during the match (and if you team actually won or not). Coins can be used to purchase cool cosmetic items and some other things because, honestly, who wouldn't want to purchase cosmetics? That sounds great to me.
Here's how coin gains work:
*Scoring a vanquish: +20 coins
*Vanquish streak bonus (2+): +5 coins 
*Vanquish streak bonus (5+): +10 coins 
*Vanquish streak bonus (10+): +15 coins 
*Reviving a teammate: +20 coins
These are the boasts available for Evolution Origins. Unlike Boasts in the other Plants vs. Zombies shooter titles, Boasts in this game are chosen per team (for example, a First Strike for the plants AND for the zombies). Each Boast the player receives will increase their coin earnings by 5%. Boasts are not awarded in Ops mode, so there is just a passive 15% increase to coin earnings to sort of compensate in a strange way. It also just makes that mode a bit more valuable for coin grinding.
*Vanquish King: Obtained by scoring the most vanquishes
*Streak Lord: Obtained by scoring the highest vanquish streak
*Assist Ace: Obtained by earning the most assists
*Healing Master: Obtained by healing the most health
*Guardian Angel: Obtained by reviving the most teammates
*Objective Hero: Obtained by playing the objective the most
*First Strike: Obtained by scoring the first vanquish in a match
Assists are earned by dealing at least 35% of the enemy's health in damage, while shared vanquishes are at least 75%. Winning the match gives you an additional 20% coins on top of however many coins you've earned, giving you a little bit of an extra incentive to do your best. The 20% bonus is applied after all the Boast bonuses or any other bonuses, so it has extra weight.
===XP===
XP is a secondary sort of pseudo-currency present in Evolution Origins. XP is less of a currency than it really is more of a point system, but for our purposes we've included it here anyway. XP is earned just like you'd expect it to be earned: scoring vanquishes, reviving teammates, destroying parts of the map, doing other things as well, pretty much everything gives you some form of XP unless it's either not productive or not enjoyable. XP is used to rank up individual variants through an indefinite number of Levels, and those Levels for the individual variants are all combined for a Class Level that encapsulates the entire class and progress that class through a track of rewards, such as new abilities or variants.
This is a list of some XP events to give you an idea of how things operate. Mode or character specific events are not included, as well as some other fun ones because we don't want this list to be too long. We all know you're not here to read our list of exciting, yet probably boring, XP events. It's okay. We still love you. There are a whole set of other ones for the PvE modes as well. Here's how XP gains work:
*Vanquish (125 XP): Obtained by scoring a player vanquish alone or landing the final blow
*Shared Vanquish (100 XP): Obtained by dealing at least 75% of the vanquished player's health 
*Assisted Vanquish (75 XP): Obtained by dealing at least 25% of the vanquished player's health
*Streak Bonus (25 XP): Bonus XP event when a vanquish streak of 2-4 is achieved
*Super Streak Bonus (50 XP): Bonus XP event when a vanquish streak of 5-9 is achieved
*CRAAAAAZY Streak Bonus (75 XP): Bonus XP event when a vanquish streak of 10+ is achieved
*Revived Teammate (125 XP): Obtained by reviving a teammate alone by initiating the process
*Assisted Revive (75 XP): Obtained by reviving a teammate after revive was already started
*One-Shot! (25 XP): Bonus XP event for vanquishing a full health enemy player with a single attack
*Healing (10 XP): Obtained for every 25 health you heal a teammate for with any healing effect
*Topped Off (50 XP): Bonus XP event for healing a teammate from <10% health to full health
*Landscaping (10 XP): Obtained by destroying a minor map decoration, such as a cactus
*Bulldozer (25 XP): Obtained by destroying a larger map decoration such as a breakable wall
Just as a quick recap, collecting the XP for a variant will add to its Level, as previously mentioned. The amount of XP you need to progress to the next Level is equal to that level multiplied by 1000 (so going from Level 2 to Level 3 would be 3000 XP and going from Level 81 to Level 82 would be 82,000 XP), and the XP meter resets after each level up so it increases gradually over time, plus all variants start at Level 0. Each level up also awards the player with 1000 coins. The Class Level is classwide and is the combination of all the Levels for the individual variants, and the Class Level is the important part. This is the stuff you get based on the Class Level of the class:
*Class Level 1: Unlocks the first Ability
*Class Level 2: Unlocks the second Ability
*Class Level 3: Unlocks the third Ability
*Class Level 5: Choose a Common variant to unlock
*Class Level 10: Unlocks the fourth Ability
*Class Level 20: Choose a Common variant to unlock
*Class Level 30: Unlocks the fifth Ability
*Class Level 40: Choose a Rare variant to unlock
*Class Level 60: Unlocks the sixth Ability
*Class Level 80: Choose a Rare variant to unlock
*Class Level 100: Unlocks the seventh Ability (if applicable)
*Class Level 150: Unlocks the eighth Ability (if applicable)
*Class Level 200: Choose an Epic variant to unlock
*Class Level 250: Unlocks the ninth Ability (if applicable)
*Class Level 300: Choose an Epic variant to unlock
*Class Level 400: Choose a Mythical variant to unlock
*Class Level 500: Choose a Mythical variant to unlock
*Class Level 1000: 250,000 coins
*Class Level 1500: 250,000 coins
*Class Level 2000: 250,000 coins
*Class Level 2500: 250,000 coins
*Class Level 3000: Unlock the Legendary variant
There is also a special kind of consumable item called XP Boosters, which increases by 50% the next X amount of XP earned depending on how many XP Boosters the player has. XP Boosters are placed as rewards in certain places for all sorts of fun and games, and act as a replacement for the XP multiplier that was featured in Garden Warfare 2.
==Hub Gameplay==
Like in the previous games, there is a special hub world in Evolution Origins. As we mentioned at the top of the page, the game takes place in Townopolis, which is the equivalent more or less of Neighborville or Suburbia from the other games. The hub experience is split between a more personal Redwood Retreat and a more community-oriented Cool Cat's Clearing that contains more combat and party experiences. It's a sort of expansion almost on Giddy Park from Battle for Neighborville but with a bit of the mechanics from the Backyard Battleground.
===Redwood Retreat===
When you enter Evolution Origins, you will spawn in at your own personal Redwood Retreat. Your Redwood Retreat is your personal retreat, like in the name, where you can buy things and do all the tasks and stuff you would expect a personal hub world to have. High up in the sky above the forest floor, the Redwood Retreat is safe from any sort of dangers that might one day happen and cause the high ground to become more valuable. Just saying.
The Redwood Retreat contains a few basic functionalities; the Multiplayer Portal, Trial Portal, Mr. Mailbox, Changing Booth, Smithing House, Shiny Forge, Rux's Emporium, and Training Grounds.
*Multiplayer Portal contains multiplayer and singleplayer gameplay functionality as well as the Content Creator, so all of that stuff is in one place.
*Trial Portal contains all Timeless Trials functionality in one place, making it easy to find your way into the Timeless Temple. If the right conditions are met, the Trial Portal can also summon gnomes during either type of Gnomish Raid.
*Mr. Mailbox allows you to send messages and game invites to friends, and to also receive those same messages and game invites in a more immersive and game-focused way.
*Changing Booth allows the player to switch characters or teams, but since both teams use the same space there's not a world of difference.
*Smithing House is where the player can equip different Victory Slabs and Punchers to customize that part of the experience. They can be collected as cosmetic items through Rux's Emporium but also from some other places in the game.
*Shiny Forge is where the player can reinforce cosmetic items of their choice using excess coins to unlock their silver or their gold variant. The silver and gold variants are fully recolored items and have fun sparkle visual effects to give them more weight.
*Rux's Emporium is where players can purchase cosmetic items for coins. They can buy a completely random item for a heavy discount, whatever they want for regular price, or one of five daily highlighted items for a moderate discount.
*Training Grounds is a larger area of sorts comprised of multiple smaller places where the player can practice their combat against training dummies and targets. They can also summon false enemies to practice their skills on as well.
The Redwood Retreat is extremely customizable via decoration items and other options that can be unlocked for coins and also through some special achievements or class levels or some other places. It's sort of like the Backyard Battleground like that, but the shape of the Retreat can be changed in addition to stuff being placed in it. The Retreat can also be customized with special traps and weapon defenses that will defend it against raiders. What kind of raiders? You'll have to wait for the Timeless Trials content in the next section to find out.
Players can only hand out in the Redwood Retreat with themselves and their friends for the most part. However, players can also invite their friends to come over and take a look at their cool stuff. PvP is disabled by default in the Redwood Retreat, but if you're going for a sillier type of hangout session you can turn it on and have at it with your most wonderful, battle-ready buddies.
===Cool Cat's Clearing===
From the Redwood Retreat, players can drop down the hole into the Cool Cat's Clearing, which is a public area on the forest floor that many different players can mingle and interact in. The Cool Cat's Clearing is quite large and filled with fun and games. There is an upper area that has PvP enabled as well as passive plant and zombie spawns (from the Ops pool, with more aggressive spawning as the fight rages on) as well as a lower area that is more relaxed and equipped with utilities like a dance floor or a parkour course to just sort of hang out with randoms. The focus of the Cool Cat's Clearing is much more on the social experience than the individual experience of the Redwood Retreat.
Activities are events that occur at random intervals in the Cool Cat's Clearing. There are a grand total of six wondrous activities: Treasure Chest, Bounty Hunt, Target Shooting, Super Parkour Course, Treasure Hunt, Gnome Patrol, and Coin Shower. Gnome Patrol is the most important one, by the way. Activities show up at random intervals around 7 or so minutes after completion. The activities scale with the number of players participating in them, sometimes adding additional challenges or just becoming more engaging to cater to the larger audience.
The different events are:
*Treasure Chest (18% chance): This activity requires the players to find a hidden treasure chest in the upper area of the Clearing. If none of the players can find the chest within 3 minutes, the game will highlight the location of the chest for 2 minutes before the chest vanishes. The chest takes a few moments to open, so it's important to secure the area before starting. The contents of the chest is a random amount of coins, and the amount of coins is larger before the location is highlighted.
*Bounty Hunt (18% chance): This activity begins with the player having to vanquish either a player from the opposing team when the activity starts. Those who manage to score a vanquish will then need to accept the bounty offer that appears within a 5-minute time limit. Afterwards, they need to defend themselves while the other players or increasingly powerful AI enemies attack you and score 30 vanquishes within 10 minutes to escape their bounty. If the bounty target manages to vanquish 30 enemies, the bounty event ends and a large number of coins will be awarded to the bounty player. However, if the bounty target is defeated by another player, that player will receive the coins instead.
*Target Shooting (18% chance): This activity requires the player to shoot a number of targets that will pop up across the entire upper area of the Clearing. There will most commonly be red targets, which are worth 1 point each. Yellow and blue targets can also appear which are worth 2 and 3 points each respectively, but they are less common and will appear in trickier spots. The Target Shooting event will conclude after a total of 5 minutes, and the top three players per team in terms of points will be awarded coins based on position.
*Super Parkour Course (18% chance): This activity requires the player to complete a long, daunting, randomly generated parkour course that floats in the air above the upper area of the Clearing. The course has numerous obstacle types and checkpoints scattered throughout to provide some relief, but falling off the course will reset the player to the last checkpoint they reached. The event has a time limit of 7 minutes. Players who successfully reach the end of the course within the time limit will get a lot of coins, but the coins are reduced for each player who has already finished.
*Treasure Hunt (18% chance): This activity spawns continuously Marigolds and Treasure Yetis that run around the upper area of the Clearing. In the 10-minute period provided, the Marigolds and Treasure Yetis can be vanquished to award players with coins. The Marigolds and Treasure Yetis give fewer coins than they usually would elsewhere, but not enough less to make the event not be worthwhile for the prospective player. The player who vanquished the most Marigolds/Treasure Yetis during the event will receive a bonus of coins.
*Gnome Patrol (9% chance): This activity spawns a small group of Shooty Gnomes and a Giga Gnome somewhere in the upper area of the Clearing, which despawns after 5 minutes if not interacted with. This activity is not broadcast, unlike the other ones, but there are visual cues. This means you will have to be in the vague area to know it's happening. The Giga Gnome cannot be damaged until the other gnomes are destroyed, and when the Giga Gnome is vanquished all players who got at least an assist will receive a Gnomish Curse. The Gnomish Curse can be taken back to the Redwood Retreat to start a Gnomish Raid, but if a cursed player manages to vanquish 6 enemies of any kind on the way back they can upgrade their curse to an Evolved Gnomish Curse which strengthens the Raid it creates.
*Coin Shower (1% chance): This activity causes a number of coins to rain from the heavens upon the upper area of the Clearing. That is literally it, it's just a ton of money for free with absolutely no effort required by anyone. This can only happen after at least 3 activities have occurred in the lobby already, so players will run into it naturally instead of trying to skip around to force it.
Players can boot up a private lobby of the Cool Cat's Clearing, but the Coin Shower event can only occur in public lobbies, which bumps Gnome Patrol chances up from 9% to 10%.. The coin and XP rewards of all the other events are reduced by 75% in private lobbies to encourage players actually using the Clearing to interact with friends and family across the globe, while still giving them the option to find Gnome Patrols as a hermit.
As previously mentioned, vanquishing the Giga Gnome in a Gnome Patrol (the golden child of Clearing activities) can lead to a Gnomish Raid. What is a Gnomish Raid and how is it initiated? The Gnomish Curse can be taken to the Trial Portal in the Retreat, and a screen pops up that allows the player to confirm whether they want to start the Raid or not. If the player says they don't want to start the Raid, the Gnomish Curse will be removed from them. This is the only way to get rid of the Gnomish Curse, even being vanquished doesn't get rid of it. The Trial Portal is very important to the Gnomish Raid, so it's not just a random choice of piece.
Initiating the Gnomish Raid locks the main set of interactable pieces (like Smithing House for example) and causes the Trial Portal to overflow with gnomish energy, which makes it spawn waves of gnomes that invade the Retreat with a fiery passion. There are a total of 5 long waves, each far more powerful than the last, and it adapts to the number of players helping to defeat it in the Retreat as well. The gnomes from the Gnomish Raid will drop coins and award a lot of bonus XP, which makes it not only very fun to play around with but an efficient option for leveling up characters. Each player has three lives during the Gnomish Raid. Completing the Gnomish Raid awards a ton of coins, XP Boosters, and one of a bunch of exclusive cosmetic items. Better ready your Retreat defenses!
If the player has an Evolved Gnomish Curse, an Evolved Gnomish Raid will appear instead of the regular one. The Evolved Gnomish Raid has 10 waves instead of 5, spawns more and stronger gnome enemies, causes the raiding Trial Portal to call energy airstrikes upon players, and provides random positive status effects to the gnomes every once in a while. However, the rewards are a lot better than the regular Gnomish Raid ones despite it being incredibly difficult, and there is another batch of exclusive cosmetic items that are unique to the Evolved Gnomish Raid and that cannot be obtained, ever, from the regular Gnomish Raid variant.
==Timeless Trials Gameplay==
Gnomes are important to Evolution Origins, and etta, of course. Not only do they blink in and out of the Cool Cat's Clearing in the form of patrols, and directly enter your Redwood Retreat through raids, but they can be directly fought through our delightful Timeless Trials experience. After successfully completing an Evolved Gnomish Raid, the Trial Portal can be regularly interacted with (since the gnomes already hooked it up to invade you) in the same way you would interact with the Multiplayer Portal. Instead of taking you into multiplayer lobbies, the Trial Portal takes you to the Timeless Temple, which is the home of the Timeless Trials.
===Timeless Temple===
Within the Timeless Temple lies the Timeless Trials. Upon entering the Timeless Temple through the Trial Portal, the player will be placed into the Temple Atrium. The Temple Atrium is a sort of starting and preparation room that comes with a Changing Booth and a few other utilities to let the player figure out what they want to do before entering the Temple. It also allows the player to team up with their friends if they choose to go in with a group of fighters, rather than just going in alone. The difficulty and reward of the Trials scales with the number of players in the same way that Ops and Gnomish Raids do, so more is not always necessarily better.
Going further into the Temple past the Atrium will begin the Timeless Trials for realsies. The Timeless Trials consists of an indefinite series of difficult rooms, filled with challenges and rewards, that are randomly generated before your very eyes. Each room contains a number of different notable pieces, which will work in combination with other procedurally generated aspects of the different parts all together in new and exciting ways. In addition, each room is more difficult than the last. These are the different notable pieces that can appear in Timeless Trial dungeon rooms:
*Music Box: Music Boxes start to spawn a set number of enemies when a player is nearby while playing a long-forgotten eerie tune. The enemies can be gnomes but they can also be AI enemies of the team opposite to the ones the players inside the Temple belong to. In very high rooms they can spawn Mini Boss and Boss enemies. When all enemies spawned by a Music Box are vanquished, it will eject a number of coins as well as a number of Timeless Crystals.
*Timeless Chest: Timeless Chests appear here and there within the rooms of the Timeless Temple. They can be opened by players that get close enough to interact with them, and they will shower their opener with some coins and some Timeless Crystals as well. Music Box and Timeless Chest rewards encourage players to move around the room rather than stand still in order to collect all of the rewards, and Timeless Chests in particular take some time to open so they're more likely something that gets opened after clearing out some of the room.
*Gnomish Pot: Gnomish Pots appear in great numbers throughout the rooms of the Timeless Temple in addition to the other notable pieces. Gnomish Pots can be destroyed by melee attacks as well as projectiles, and when they are destroyed they will drop a number of Timeless Crystals. Unlike Music Boxes and Timeless Chests, the Gnomish Pots will not drop any coins. This means the player doesn't feel like they are obligated to find every single Gnomish Pot in the room because they will only drop a handful of Timeless Crystals rather than a bigger bounty.
After completing a Timeless Temple room, the players must go to the gnomish teleporter that activates and leads them to the next room. Players cannot revisit previous rooms or go back in any other kind of way, so each room is an isolated and original experience in a way that feels very distinct when compared to other Evolution Origins features.
A maximum of 8 players can enter a single Timeless Temple run. The Music Boxes spawn additional and more powerful enemies for each additional player that is playing, and the rooms will generate to be larger and more expansive as well so that it doesn't get too cramped with everyone milling about at once. Of course, a larger room also means more space for extra Music Boxes, Timeless Chests, and Gnomish Pots, so the experience scales quite well.
Timeless Trials have an Evolved variant like most other things in the game, which brings more difficulty. The Evolved Timeless Trial experience comes with unique rewards at the end, and a much harder Trial experience while playing. The Evolved mode can be turned on when the player is in the Temple Atrium before beginning a trial run.
===Timeless Rewards===
You might have noticed that Timeless Crystals were mentioned a few times in the previous section. As you complete the Timeless Trials in the Timeless Temple, you will inevitably collect a bunch of Timeless Crystals, whether they are from the Music Boxes or the Timeless Chests or elsewhere. When players run out of lives completely, of which they are given 3 each, they will be removed from the Temple and placed into a special reward room called the Temple Treasury.
The Temple Treasury is sort of like the final area after a round of Infinity Time, where each player's Timeless Crystals are funneled into a sort of “ultimate” chest that offers great rewards at the end. In this case, it can be used by individual players one at a time. They can wait for their friends or just go, open the chest, and go back to the Retreat. Their fate is in their hands, like the ham sandwiches they will soon be eating after they finish their Trial experience. Just kidding. There are no ham sandwiches.
The number of Timeless Shards poured into the ultimate chest dictates how good the rewards will be, and the Evolved Timeless Trials ultimate chest comes with its own set of unique potential loot items. Keep in mind the chest can drop multiple different things and not just always one. Plus, the following list of rewards is listed from most to least common and some of them require a certain number of Timeless Crystals to be collected for them to be possible drops.
====Regular Loot Pool====
*Coins
**Coins are 100% guaranteed to drop, but the quantity varies.
*XP Boosters
**XP Boosters are 100% guaranteed to drop, but the quantity varies.
*Exclusive Punchers
*Exclusive Victory Slab
*Exclusive Cosmetic Item
*Random Common Variant
*Random Rare Variant
*Ability Mod
**The third item drop will be one of these possible objects, and they are in order of rarity.
**There is a small chance for a fourth item drop that increases the more Shards are collected.
====Evolved Loot Pool====
*Coins
**Coins are 100% guaranteed to drop, but the quantity varies.
*XP Boosters
**XP Boosters are 100% guaranteed to drop, but the quantity varies.
*Exclusive Cosmetic Item
*Random Common Variant
*Random Rare Variant
*Ability Mod
*Random Epic Variant
*Random Champion Fragment
**The third item drop will be one of these possible objects, and they are in order of rarity.
**There is a small chance for a fourth item drop that increases the more Shards are collected.
Timeless Trials are the only way to collect Ability Mods and Champion Fragments. Ability Mods are alternative forms of Active or Passive Abilities that work a little differently than you might expect them to. Mods play around with the numbers and may introduce new mechanics or gimmicks. However, the heart of the Ability will remain the same. Champions are standalone playable characters that exist until an umbrella “Champion” class for either side. Collecting four fragments for a specific Champion will unlock it as a playable character. It's a grind to get everything from Timeless Trials, but that's all part of the experience.
==Multiplayer Gameplay==
Just like you'd expect, there's a wide variety of game modes available to play in Evolution Origins. Most of the game modes are returning ones from Garden Warfare 1, Garden Warfare 2, and Battle for Neighborville, but there's still a good few original modes that have been created just for this game. All maps support all game modes! Turf Takeover does exist and break the rules but it is mentioned later to avoid confusion, hopefully. Lol. Since there's 9 game modes and a total of 15 (45 with functional variants) maps, there's a total of different possibilities for each match. In addition, each match has a 50% chance to use one of 7 modifiers, so that total is now all the way up to . Matches are usually 12v12, but there are options for 8v8 and 16v16 instead for those who prefer a more mellow, slower-paced experience or those who prefer more exciting and action-packed gameplay.
Each game mode also has an Evolved variant that is a little trickier and has a harder objective (for example, Evolved Team Vanquish requires a lot more vanquishes to win) but they will also offer more rewards to compensate for how long those matches can get. Players at the end of a match can vote whether they want the next match to be Evolved or not and a 75% majority is needed to pass. A match that is 8v8 and Evolved can take a very long time to complete. With all of this in mind, we find our final total of possible matches to be (don't trust my math, this sounds horribly wrong), and that isn't even including Turf Takeover. It's truly wild.
===Game Modes===
*Team Vanquish: Collect points by scoring vanquishes! Each vanquish is worth 1 point! Reviving teammates deducts points from the enemy team equal to what was earned from that vanquish. First team to reach 75 points wins the match.
*Vanquish Confirmed: This mode plays similarly to Team Vanquish, but players drop an orb (worth 1 point when collected) instead of just adding points directly. This means you can steal points from the enemy team if you're quick! First to 75 points wins.
*Gnome Bomb: Players attempt to secure a Gnome Bomb and deploy it at various enemy bases while defending their own. The bomb explodes if it's been carried for longer than 45 seconds. Once a bomb has been planted, the enemy team has 30 seconds to defuse it - which itself takes roughly 8 seconds - before it destroys the base. The first team to destroy all 4 enemy bases wins.
*Suburbination: Two teams attempt to capture four zones (A, B, C, and D) around the map. When a player stands in one of the zones, they'll collect a single point from it every 2 seconds. Each zone can only provide a maximum of 25 points per team before being "captured" by that team (the other team can still get points from it), and to reach 100 points and win the match all four zones must be captured.
*Last Life: Two teams enter, one team leaves. This mode plays similarly to Team Vanquish, but knocked out players can't be revived or respawned! The first team to vanquish all members of the opposing team wins the round, and the first team to win two rounds wins the match (best of 3 format). In addition, the playing area gradually shrinks over time as Rude Fog rolls on in - players caught in the fog take 20% of their max health per in total tick damage per second.
*Townsball: Players attempt to gain control of a single Townsball and score goals against the enemy team by "kicking" it into their score zones. Each team has three different score zones that all count when the Townsball enters them. When a player is carrying the Townsball, they move slower and can't attack or use active abilities, so their teammates have to support and protect them. The first team to score 8 goals wins.
*Taco Bandits: Players attempt to steal as many tacos as they can from the enemy team. When carrying a taco, players can't use their abilities or Sparks - but are still able to use their main primary weapon unless it's a mobility-related attack such as the Unicorn Chomper's attack. First team to capture 8 tacos wins.
*Rolling Stones: This is like the bowling minigame at the end of Moon Base Z in Garden Warfare 2 turned into an actual game mode. Players roll giant boulders around by standing near them, and score goals when they successfully push one into one of the 6 goal stations that are dotted around the map. The first team to reach 12 goals wins.
*Duck-of-War: The map is divided into two clear sections, one is the plant side and the other is the zombie side. A massive, absolutely gigantic rubber ducky appears in the center of the map, and can be pushed around by players sort of like the boulders in Rolling Stones. Every 0.75 seconds that the rubber ducky is on a team's side, they get 1 point. The first team to 300 points wins.
*Mixed Modes: Don't know what you want to play? Mixed Modes will randomly select a mode after each match to keep things feeling fresh.
====Modifiers====
*Soda Poppers: Sweet Soda bottles will spawn across the map constantly, with some variation. There are small bottles that heal the player who picks them up for 25% of their maximum health, medium bottles that heal for 50%, and large bottles that heal for 100%.
*Grass Effect: During the course of the match, Weeds and Browncoats will spawn from the plant and zombie spawn areas respectively. Sometimes, Wildflowers and TV Heads will spawn instead and as the match progresses more threatening and powerful types of spawnables will appear, and more quickly as well.
*Ticking Time Bomb: If the player doesn't get a vanquish or an assist in under 30 seconds, they'll explode. Earning a vanquish of any kind will replenish the full 30 seconds, while earning an assist will only replenish a partial 15 seconds.
*Crystal Dog: A crystal dog appears in a random space every so often, and when someone picks it up they will become invulnerable and more powerful for a period of 15 seconds. After the effects of the crystal dog wear off, the crystal dog will reappear again in another random place after about 30 seconds.
*Shifting Spawns: Instead of respawning in fixed locations, vanquished players will respawn in a 10-meter area around where they were vanquished. They are given a moment of invulnerability when they spawn in to avoid potential spawncamping.
*Berserker: Players will deal much more damage the more health they lose. For every 10% of their health that is lost, they will gain a 20% damage bonus. This can very quickly ramp up and allows any character to dominate the fields.
*Battle Caps: Bottle caps that are magical in nature will spawn across the map constantly, and to an extent where they are most everywhere. They can charge Sparks, Evolve players, or charge Supercharges depending on the cap variant when picked up.
===Turf Takeover===
Turf Takeover is a returning game mode from the previous Garden Warfare and Battle for Neighborville games, but expanded and blown up to a frightening scale. Instead of playing with a 12v12 lobby like in the past, Turf Takeover is expanded to a 24v24 lobby, which is the largest lobby for any game mode in all of Evolution Origins. There is no variance in lobby size, so it's always 24v24. However, there still is an Evolved variant like in regular game modes which amps up the craziness even further. It gets pretty wild in Evolved Turf Takeover matches because more points to capture or defend are added.
Turf Takeover is a combination of Gardens & Graveyards and Herbal Assault, where it flips between zombies playing on offense and plants playing on defense and zombies playing on defense and plants playing on offense. Unlike in Garden Warfare 2, you do not have to play the same map twice in a row on both sides. Turf Takeover matches consist of a total of 9 points and then an absolutely epic grand finale stage, and they are meant to take about an hour. Evolved matches are around an hour and a half to two hours. Each match has a different finale for each side and can be played both ways.
To accommodate the gigantic lobbies, the capture circles and payloads are a lot bigger and more important. Sometimes, there are even multiple capture points or payloads to manage, which brings an extra kind of dynamic to the battle. In addition, there are teleporters and music boxes like those found in singleplayer content that can be used by players to summon spawnables into the battle, and each player can only spawn up to two spawnables per point to avoid there being a billion different things. There are also limits on how many of a certain spawnable can exist at once to encourage variety.
Turf Takeover has a total of 6 maps, and with the functional variants that goes up to 18 total in terms of cool gameplay. Just like with regular matches, there is a 40% chance (slightly less than it is for other modes) for one of 4 modifiers to be used, which increases the total of possible matches up to . What a really cool piece of knowledge to carry with you on all of your future adventures!
====Modifiers====
*Soda Poppers: Sweet Soda bottles will spawn across the map constantly, with some variation. There are small bottles that heal the player who picks them up for 25% of their maximum health, medium bottles that heal for 50%, and large bottles that heal for 100%.
*Ticking Time Bomb: If the player doesn't get a vanquish or an assist in under 30 seconds, they'll explode. Earning a vanquish of any kind will replenish the full 30 seconds, while earning an assist will only replenish a partial 15 seconds.
*Berserker: Players will deal much more damage the more health they lose. For every 10% of their health that is lost, they will gain a 20% damage bonus. This can very quickly ramp up and allows any character to dominate the fields.
*Battle Caps: Bottle caps that are magical in nature will spawn across the map constantly, and to an extent where they are most everywhere. They can charge Sparks, Evolve players, or charge Supercharges depending on the cap variant when picked up.
===Garden/Graveyard Ops===
Garden/Graveyard Ops is a returning game mode from the previous Garden Warfare and Battle for Neighborville games, but expanded and blown up to a frightening scale. Instead of playing with up to 3 other players, the limit is increased to up to 7 other players with the difficulty scaling a lot more for each player than in the past. This means that a match of Ops with a gang of 8 players gets really, really crazy. It's bumping for real, for real. Real. For real. Real real. For real. There is, of course, still an Evolved variant for this game mode. Imagine an Evolved Ops mode with 8 players. Insanity. The regular Ops mode has 10 waves, while the Evolved version has 20 waves, with those extra 10 waves being in addition to the existing ones. Waves 5 and 10 are boss waves, and for Evolved the 15th and 20th waves are also boss waves.
When a player enters an Ops match, they will be presented with five different Garden/Tombstone locations which is a slight expansion of what happens in Garden Warfare 2. There's a 20% chance for one of the options to be "Evolved" which doubles the difficulty but also doubles the reward. If the matched is already Evolved Ops, that is replaced with a "Supercharged" variant that is even more potent, because why not? Why shouldn't Ops of all modes have both the most control over difficulty and also the biggest spike in difficulty? Self Revives and Team Retries do not exist as consumables and instead each player gets 2 Self Revives and the team gets 1 Team Retry as a collective. To use it, players can vote and a 50% majority is required to pass. Otherwise, you're just not going to really get another opportunity. Oopsie!
Each uninteresting, regular wave has a chance to have either a special wave instead of a regular wave, or a special objective in addition to the regular stuff going on that awards a bunch of extra resources at the end of the Ops match. Special objectives cannot be combined with special waves, because that would be too much specialness for the average individual. There are a total of three special waves in a regular game of Ops with a 50% chance for four, and this is doubled for Evolved Ops matches (six waves, 50% chance for seven and additional 50% chance for eight) due to the extra waves. Special objectives aren't guaranteed, as each wave has a 20% chance to have a special objective. If the wave is already a special wave, the chances are increased very slightly to 25%.
===Ops Enemies===
Ops enemies have scaling health, damage, and attack frequency based on the difficulty and if the match is Evolved or not. They also vary in power and rank from Horde to Mini Hero to Hero to Mini Boss to Boss. As you could probably assume, Horde enemies are the weakest links whereas Boss enemies are the most powerful, strong, and formidable enemies. They have a variety of attacks and need to be approached in ways that are perhaps more intelligent than just standing there and shooting. There won't be any Hero enemies listed because it includes the base classes and their variants and special abilities and everything. Bosses cannot easily take more than 300 damage at once. The damage over 300 is reduced by 90% and over 400 is reduced by 99%.
<tabber>
|-|Plants=
====Horde====
*Weed Family
**Weed: Weed slinks forward with a charismatic swagger, smacking anything it sees.
**Pumpkin Weed: Pumpkin Weed can take a bit of extra pain when compared to its standard counterpart.
**Terracotta Weed: Terracotta Weed wears a terracotta pot on its head that makes it even more durable.
**Vase Weed: Vase Weed moves a little more slowly because of the heavy vase that absorbs a ton of damage.
**Leafy Shield Weed: A Pumpkin Weed who carries a shield that can absorb damage from the front.
**Wooden Shield Weed: A Terracotta Weed who carries a stronger shield that is made of wood.
**Flag Weed: Casts an aura around itself which increases the movement speed of nearby plants.
**Heal Weed: Heal Weed casts an aura around itself which constantly restores lost health to nearby plants.
*Wildflower Family
**Wildflower: A faster Weed variant with less health that shoots bursty petals at long distances.
**Pumpkin Wildflower: Pumpkin Wildflower can take a bit of extra pain when compared to its standard counterpart.
**Terracotta Wildflower: Terracotta Wildflower wears a terracotta pot on its head that makes it even more durable.
*Thistle Family
**Thistle: A tougher, slower variant with a higher melee damage output. Touching it hurts a little because of the thorns.
**Pumpkin Thistle: Pumpkin Thistle can take a bit of extra pain when compared to its standard counterpart.
**Terracotta Thistle: Terracotta Thistle wears a terracotta pot on its head that makes it even more durable.
*Others
**Dandelion: Dandelion runs very fast and explodes when it reaches an enemy, dealing heavy damage.
**Hypno-shroom: Boggles the minds of enemies it gets too close to, jumbling up their controls and reducing their damage output.
====Mini Hero====
*Snapdragon: Breathes flames that set enemies on fire from a somewhat healthy distance. Can create walls of flame on the ground, spit out homing fireballs, and rise up in the to smash down again for major damage and knockback.
*Iceberg Lettuce: Shoots bursts of icicles that slow enemies down from medium range. Can create icy shields on the ground that melt after some time, dash backward and leave behind an exploding icy pepper, and throw a trio of bouncing, growing snowballs.
*Buttercup: Launches butter at close range which deals damage in an area around the target. Can create slippery butter puddles on the ground, charge up a powerful buttery airstrike, and dash in a direction with ultimate style points.
*Star Sprout: Launches bouncing bulbs that explode when they hit an enemy or run out of bounces. Can grows thorny vines around itself which acts as protection for a short time, launch three waves of thorns that pierce enemies and slow them down, and launch a pair of slow-moving, star projectiles that home in on enemies.
====Mini Boss====
*Chomp Jockey: Chomp Jockey runs around the map quickly and uses harmless dashes to cross distances in record time. Can charge up stronger dashes that end and stun the Chomp Jockey if it hits a wall, jump really high, and spit out goopy projectiles at a distance if outranged which deal too much damage and pull enemies towards it.
*Lemon Breeze: Lemon Breeze jumps very far and high with immense mobility, and can run around very quickly while knocking anything it touches back with its swirling winds. Can launch windy peels that push things away from the explosion's center, and power up the swirling winds to reflect all incoming projectiles for a portion of their normal regular damage back at attackers for a time.
*Zoybean Pod: Zoybean Pod moves impossibly slowly, lumbering along like a slimy turd. It launches slimeballs that deal weak damage but are great in number, and can spawn additional plant enemies to harass you. The spawned enemies replicate zombies in form and function, being more like Zomboids than anything truly organic.
*Blockoli: Blockoli shuffles around the battlefield very slowly, lacking any sort of option to move more quickly or with any extra agility. Can slam down to knock enemies away and stun them for a time, raise its florets to act as a pair of shields that can be regenerated over time if they are fully destroyed, and swing its florets around to deal damage and pull in enemies in the surrounding area.
====Boss====
*Giga Torchwood: Giga Torchwood is a powerful, flaming giant of wood that unleashes the flames of despair and destruction upon its enemies. Can unleash a rapid barrage of flaming shots from his gun that ignite hit enemies, breathe fire in front of him to damage and burn enemies, charge up a slow-moving but powerful shot that explodes to inflict splash damage and residual burn damage, fire an airstrike of fireballs out of his head, which rain down on enemies, and punch the area in front of him, dealing damage and knocking enemies back. Becomes enraged if it successfully vanquishes at least one player, giving it damage resistance and stronger attacks.
*Sunflower Queen: Sunflower Queen is a gigantic, very slow-moving royal Sunflower. Can use a triple melee attack with intense knockback, shoot bursts of mighty sunrays that deal heavy damage across any distance, unleash healing pulses that radiate outward, give some plants nearby sunny forcefields that take a beating, cast an enormous passive aura that massively increases the max health of nearby plants, and summon groups of Sunflowers of random variants. Can root into the ground and soak up sun to power up a devastating beam sometimes but is more vulnerable when rooted.
*Hypno Sunflower Queen: Hypno Sunflower Queen is a strangely hypnotic variant of the regular Sunflower Queen with far more charisma and swagger. Can use a triple melee attack with intense knockback, tether multiple hypnotic beams to nearby zombies and mess them up, throw ranged spores that create hypnotic lingering clouds, cast an enormous passive aura that considerably reduces the damage dealt by enemies outside of it, and summon clinical gangs of Hypno-shrooms. When it takes a certain threshold of damage, it releases a resonating pulse that turns zombies affected into Goats until it reaches the next threshold or enough time passes.
*Peatriarch: Peatriarch is a powerful monarch, ruling over the kingdom of Peashooters with a leafy iron fist. Can shoot gigantic peas at decent range which deal significant amounts of damage, smack zombies that get too close for major damage and a brief stun, summon regiments of Evolved Peashooters, and cause any Peashooters nearby to be automatically Evolved. Each successful hit on a target with the regular hit charges a rotating pea that spins around and shreds anything around, and if a total of five are collected the Peatriarch will charge up and fire an insanely powerful shot that vanquishes anything in one hit.
*Spooky Squash: Spooky Squash is the ultimate gourd of discord, a frightening fiend, a terrifying tyrant who unleashes the haunting powers of souls and spirits from beyond our moral plane to destroy and decimate anything that comes near. Can shoot gigantic fireballs that deal damage in a humongous area and leave behind burning ground, jump up and slam down to create shockwaves that move outward and can be jumped over to dodge them, unleash fire breath at a close distance doing fire damage, and cause explosions that stun zombies.
*Bitter Dill: Bitter Dill is hip and cool, hopping around with malicious intent to give anything in its path a hard time. Can spit out seeds that bounce around a ton and leave behind poisonous clouds, spin around when approached with insane knockback and leaving behind a huge poisonous cloud, spit out goopy projectiles that leave behind stacking poisonous clouds, and lick zombies that approach to poison and slow them down. When it loses a portion of its health, it will release a massive poisonous cloud that slowly expands and lasts for a very long time, and Bitter Dill shrinks a little which makes it more difficult to hit and it is thrown violently in a direction.
|-|Zombies=
====Horde====
*Browncoat Family
**Browncoat: Browncoat stumbles forward with nothing but pure stupidity, smacking things like an idiot.
**Conehead: Conehead can take a bit of extra pain when compared to its standard counterpart.
**Buckethead: Buckethead wears a bucket on its head that makes it even more durable.
**Outhouse Zombie: Outhouse Zombie moves a little more slowly because of the heavy outhouse that absorbs a ton of damage.
**Screen Door Zombie: A Conehead who carries a shield that can absorb damage from the front.
**Vault Door Zombie: A Buckethead who carries a stronger shield that is a vault door.
**Flag Zombie: Casts an aura around itself which increases the movement speed of nearby zombies.
**Heal Zombie: Heal Weed casts an aura around itself which constantly restores lost health to nearby zombies.
*TV Head Family
**TV Head: A faster Browncoat variant with less health that shoots bursty cassettes at long distances.
**TV Conehead: TV Conehead can take a bit of extra pain when compared to its standard counterpart.
**TV Buckethead: TV Buckethead wears a bucket on its head that makes it even more durable.
*Slugger Family
**Slugger: A tougher, slower variant that throws bursts of mighty baseballs with an arc like a Shooty Gnome.
**Slugger Conehead: Slugger Conehead can take a bit of extra pain when compared to its standard counterpart.
**Slugger Buckethead: Slugger Buckethead wears a bucket on its head that makes it even more durable.
*Others
**Yeti Imp: Yeti Imp runs very fast and explodes when it reaches an enemy, dealing icy damage.
**Kicker Zombie: Carries a big soccer ball and when it gets into long range of a plant it kicks the soccer ball for massive damage once, then melees again weakly.
====Mini Hero====
*Electric Slide: Zaps enemies with lightning bolts that chain between a number of enemies near the initial target. Can create and detonate electric tornados, become immune to damage in a lightning ball form for a short time, and throw bouncing bouncers that pick up and throw enemies.
*80s Action Hero: Uses crossbow to shoot spreads of energy bolts at close range. Can dodge in a direction and leave behind dynamite, fly into the sky with a rocket that launches missiles, and launch more missiles that are homing and mean.
*Robo-Zombie: Unleashes bursts of rockets that deal high damage or fire more precise stronger lasers depending on the threat. Can rocket jump and float long distances, throw handfuls of timed charges that bounce once and explode after a short time, and push forward with a temporary metal shield.
*Hover-Goat 3000: Fires laser beams at medium range. Can hook teammates up to an extremely potent damage boosting beam, fire a devastating laser beam that slows the Goat down, and do a sick hoverboard trick to speed up nearby zombies.
====Mini Boss====
*Zom-Blob: Zom-Blob is a gigantic goopy mess that lumbers along, leaving behind with each step a trail of sticky slime on the ground that slows down and prevents jumping for enemies walking over it. Can throw blobs of slowing goop at range, slam the ground to stun and slow nearby enemies, and splits a number of times into smaller and smaller forms as it is vanquished.
*Crystal Mage: Crystal Mage is a slow-moving zombie, but with a supremely magical touch. Can summon chunks of crystal above enemies which are dropped for major damage, create artificial crystal shields on the ground around it, and roll crystal balls towards enemies that shatter into pieces on contact with the environment or enemies.
*Batty Witch: Batty Witch is the older sister of the Crystal Mage who took a darker path with magic. Can shoot magic bolts at medium range which apply weak push back to enemies, and can summon flocks of fearsome bats that fly up and swoop down to attack enemies. Batty Witch will spawn more bats when vanquished.
*Zombones: An ancient and malevolent zombie, wreathed in spectral flames that flicker ominously around its skeletal form. Can exhale a torrent of searing fire in a wide arc in front of it, summon a storm of fireballs from the sky, summon skeletal hands from the ground, and comes back once when vanquished if the Gravebones isn't destroyed.
====Boss====
*Gargantuar: A gigantic zombie with huge pants and even larger muscles. Can shoot a ray of lightning that follows the plant as the Gargantuar moves, smash a nearby plant with an electrified telephone pole, launch Imps from a distance which deal heavy damage, power up and run a long distance to catch up with enemies, and charge up to leap up and forward a high distance. When it takes damage the first time, a timer starts, and it the timer ends before Gargantuar is vanquished it will become enraged and become stronger.
*Captain Smasher: An even larger zombie who commands the most powerful fleet of zombie pirates in all of Townopolis. Can slam down his cannon, dealing damage to plants along with knockback, ram at plants with the attack, drop a cannon that harasses plants, lob cannonballs from afar, summon groups of Supercharged Evolved zombie heroes, and roll really big bombs that explode after a long time toward enemies. Casts an aura that encapsulates zombies around it, and increases their damage, and if too many of them are vanquished Captain Smasher becomes much stronger and faster for a time.
*Yeti: A formidable zombie boss who has got sub-zero chill. Can throw a chunk of slowing ice at the target, do a dance that causes ice shards to emerge from the ground and icicles to fall from the sky, jump and unleash a powerful icy blast that freezes and sends out icy shards, throw giant snowballs that bounce and grow as they fly through the air, and claw at close players directly in front of him with its hand. When it takes a lot of damage, it freezes itself in a block of ice and becomes immune to damage for a time, forcing enemies to redirect attention to other zombies. Cannot do that if it is the only zombie remaining.
*Baron von Bats: A mysterious figure who warps in and out of the battle. Can bite a nearby enemy restoring a lot of his health, channel a laser beam that steals a lot of health from enemies it damages, warp a short distance, teleport a longer distance, summon a bunch of bats like those from Batty Witch, and summon Evolved Cryptologists specifically. Can heal above the regular maximum health, which makes the fight more challenging as Baron von Bats can become unstoppable if left to its own devices for a long enough period of time.
*Zen Sensei: Zen Sensei spent many, many years isolated in a sanctuary deep within the mountains practicing its unique fighting style. Can unleash a combo of punches that knock back enemies at the end, use a roundhouse kick that stuns everything around it when used, launch bolts of wise energy from a distance, can run quickly towards the player and do a big uppercut, can jump straight up a good distance, can kick while in the air to travel horizontally, and can fire a projectile through walls that pulls enemies towards it. When it reaches half health, it will summon false clones of itself that do not go away until it is vanquished.
*Ballpark Frank: Colossal zombie with a love for all things baseball. Can swing with an enormous baseball bat that not only does decent damage but sends enemies flying backward, wind up and throw a blazing fastball that travels quickly in a straight line, throw a curved baseball that arcs through the air, throw a bunch of baseballs into the air that explode after a short delay, and charge forward on his stomach like he's sliding into home plate, knocking down and damaging any enemies in his path. He eats a hot dog when he successfully vanquishes a player, healing a huge amount of health that is roughly equal to half and making the fight a lot more dynamic.
</tabber>
====Special Waves====
<tabber>
|-|Garden Ops=
*Ambush!: A surprise wave, skipping the break time. Consists of zombies that would regularly appear in the next wave.
*Brainless Brigade: Consists of Flag Zombies and most variants of the Foot Soldier.
*Cone Company: Consists of only Conehead Zombies.
*For Science: Consists of variants of the Scientist.
*Goon Squad: Consists of Sluggers, Kicker Zombies, and variants of the All-Star.
*Improvised Armor: Consists of multiple armored zombies such as Buckethead Zombie, Screen Door Zombie, and Outhouse Zombie.
*Sky Guys: Consists of only Sky Troopers.
*Sneak Attack: Consists of TV Heads and Camo Rangers, but they are spawned in proximity of the garden.
*Z-Tech Lunch Break: Consists of only Robo-Zombies and variants of the Engineer.
|-|Graveyard Ops=
*Allergy Season: Consists of only Dandelions.
*Ambush!: A surprise wave, skipping the break time. Consists of plants that would regularly appear in the next wave.
*Chomp Virus: Consists of variants of the Chomper.
*Cold Snap: Consists of only Wildflowers and Iceberg Lettuces.
*Doctor's Orders: Consists of only Dr. Sunshines.
*Hypno-shrooms: Consists of only Hypno-shrooms.
*Improvised Armor: Consists of multiple armored plants such as Terracotta Weed, Leafy Shield Weed, and Vase Weed.
*Regiment of Peashooters: Consists of variants of the Peashooter.
*S is for Superb: Consists of only character variants that start with an S.
</tabber>
====Special Objectives====
<tabber>
|-|Garden Ops=
*No Garden Damage: Get a perfect wave (the garden must not take any damage).
*No Player Damage: No players are allowed to receive any damage. During this wave there will be no zombies that can shoot far.
*Break the Vases: Players need to destroy all the vases in groups of three with around 30 health for each vase, in a limited amount of time.
*Destroy All Tombstones: Destroy all Tombstones in a limited amount of time.
*Hack the Triangulabobers: Players must hack the Triangulabobers, zombie transmission machines, in a limited amount of time or else an airstrike will be launched at the garden.
*Snatch the Chickens: Players must bring Crazy Dave's purple chickens back to the garden.
*Protect the Wee Gardens: Players need to protect one to five small gardens without letting the zombies destroy any of them.
*Stop the Zombomb: Stop the Zombomb before he reaches the garden and does heavy damage.
*Vanquish that Yeti: Players need to defeat a Treasure Yeti in a limited amount of time.
|-|Graveyard Ops=
*No Graveyard Damage: Get a perfect wave (the graveyard must not take any damage).
*No Player Damage: No players are allowed to receive any damage. During this wave there will be no plants that can shoot far.
*Open the Gifts: Players need to open all of Crazy Dave's gifts in groups of three in a limited amount of time.
*Destroy All Scarecrows: Destroy all Scarecrows in a limited amount of time.
*Check the Perimeter: The zombies must pass through all the checkpoints which will appear around the perimeter of the map. All checkpoints need to be passed through to complete the objective.
*Protect the Zombomb: A Zombomb appears who must be protected. Plants will prioritize the Zombomb over real players unless the player has attacked the plant.
*Snatch the PopSmartz: Players must bring Dr. Zomboss's PopSmartz back to the graveyard.
*Stop the Squash: Stop the Squash before he reaches the graveyard and does heavy damage.
*Vanquish that Marigold: Players need to defeat a Marigold in a limited amount of time.
</tabber>
===Maps===
====Turf Takeover Maps====
Each map has day, night, and sunset variants to add a little bit of extra visual variety. Each map also has three functional variants that are all visually the same but are laid out a little differently to trip people up, so there is basically triple the number of maps. The map titles for each variant come first; for example, Sunset Sands A Night. Each map has a lot of gimmicks, but not every variant uses all of them because not every match needs to be very complex. Here's what each of the maps are and what their general gimmicks are:
*Flameflicker Jungle: An ominous, fiery jungle map with a lot of lava and trees and roots and all sorts of cool red vegetation. The map has a lot of twists and turns and it has some very cool vibes. It's a jungle that is combined with a lot of fire themes and lava and its is dangerous to walk around. There are a lot of cool, dark metal ruins that are scattered throughout the map and it feels like something bad has happened in the not-so-distant past.
*Seeds of Time: A classic from the Garden Warfare 2 days, the Seeds of Time map is expanded to accommodate the madness and mayhem that is Evolution Origins Turf Takeover. It takes place in a time-traveling-based theme park and compared to the previous iteration it's a bit more magical and is located in a sort of spacey-timey void like Penny's Pursuit from Plants vs. Zombies 2 for some more visual diversity when compared to the other maps.
*Z-Tech Scrapyard: A dusty, rusty scrapyard filled with failed projects and old mechanisms. The map goes on and on, and it is more or less the world's biggest dumpster. There are a ton of machines that have function purposes, but there are also ones that are purely decorative, which is most of them. Some parts of the map can be opened or closed with buttons as well. It's a wonderful combination of weird ideas, but since it is Z-Tech certified it is very safe.
*Sunset Sands: A beautiful desert setting with lots of lakes and ponds around that bring a fun contrast to the battlefield. Palm trees are littered here and there, and it's got a weird vibe combination of an arid desert and a tropical beach. More of a tropical beach theme with the sort of architecture and buildings that are used. I'm kind of running out of things to say, it's like Tourist Trap Island from Battle for Neighborville if it was an endless desert. Yeet!
*Breezy Weezy Peaks: A cold, arctic mountain map that is a journey up the mountain. It's possible to fall down the mountain to your doom, and there are traps littered throughout that can lead to you being pushed off. Some of them are rigged to trigger automatically when players get close, but some of them can be manually triggered by other players which leads to some unique defensive gameplay. It snows sometimes, which reduces visibility for a little while.
*Driftwood Shores: Another classic chosen but this time from the original Garden Warfare. The Driftwood Shores map has also been expanded into a larger form that works better for this game, and it's more or less the same kind of map idea. It takes place in an area that resembles a shoreline city, and it leads through a seaport town before reaching the ultimate Mega Flower lighthouse deal. The Mega Flower will fight back now, and there's cooler weaponry to attack it with now.
====Garden/Graveyard Ops Maps====
Each map has day, night, and sunset variants to add a little bit of extra visual variety. Each map also has three functional variants that are all visually the same but are laid out a little differently to trip people up, so there is basically triple the number of maps. The map titles for each variant come first; for example, Dark Castle A Night. Each map has a lot of gimmicks, but not every variant uses all of them because not every match needs to be very complex. Here's what each of the maps are and what their general gimmicks are:
*Daffodil Drive: A picturesque suburban map set in a quaint neighborhood filled with cozy houses, well-kept gardens, and winding streets, the focus is on simplicity and balance, making it an ideal setting for players of all styles. The map features a mix of small, quaint buildings and open spaces, giving it a warm, welcoming vibe. It doesn't have any particularly special gimmicks or weird mechanics like some of the other maps do, but it has a cozy vibe that makes up for it.
*Dark Castle: A haunting and eerie map set in a large, ominous medieval castle. The atmosphere is thick with fog and shadows, and the architecture is a mix of towering spires and crumbling walls. The map is filled with dark secrets and hidden passages, making it a perfect backdrop for intense battles, and it is littered with traps like spike pits and swinging blades that can be triggered either by players or by stepping on pressure plates.
*Boney Island: Yet another classic that has returned from a previous game, in this case Garden Warfare 2. The map has been expanded and changed a little bit more to be a better Ops map than it was in the game in question. It takes place in a chill, relaxed sort of beachy island location like the previous iteration, without any real differences in form or function, besides the fact that it starts raining from time to time which slightly reduces visibility but mostly just adds some atmosphere.
*Colossal Cliffs: A towering, mountainous map with sheer drops and narrow ledges. The environment is rugged and wild, with steep pathways and vast verticality. It's a visually striking map with dramatic vistas and dangerous heights. Swinging rope bridges that can be cut or repaired, creating or removing pathways across the cliffs. Narrow ledges that can serve as hidden routes or ambush spots but require careful navigation to avoid falling.
====Regular Maps====
Each map has day, night, and sunset variants to add a little bit of extra visual variety. Each map also has three functional variants that are all visually the same but are laid out a little differently to trip people up, so there is basically triple the number of maps. The map titles for each variant come first; for example, Pirate Boatyard A Night. Each map has a lot of gimmicks, but not every variant uses all of them because not every match needs to be very complex. Here's what each of the maps are and what their general gimmicks are:
*Lemon Street: A simple, pretty basic map with not a whole lot going on. It's got a lot of little buildings here and there, and it has a very cozy suburban vibe that the other maps aren't really trying to get at. The center of the map is very open, but there's some enclosed spaces littered around that allow for characters that might not be the greatest at range to still be useful and viable. There's also a lot of trees and bushes, and it's generally pretty simple and straightforward.
*Darkwood Grove: A dark map that takes place in a spooky and only-somewhat-magical forest with a noticeable lack of buildings and structures. For the most part, you'll be fighting in the actual forest - meaning that there's a lot of trees, ground cover, and some light fog at ground level that shouldn't affect your gameplay too much but is worth mentioning. There's a couple of gothic-style structures around the outskirts of the map, but the main parts are generally pretty forest-y and fun.
*Preserve Pastures: An adaptation of the Turf Takeover map from Battle for Neighborville, now in regular size and form. Preserve Pastures in this game still takes place in a farm type of area with cornfields, big barns and other buildings, and the occasional animal wandering through. No, you can't vanquish the animals. This map is quite open and does not have a lot of verticality, so it is easy for longer-range variants to succeed but it's not so easy to completely hide away from the regulars either.
*Banded Badlands: A wide-open range that plays generally similarly to some of the maps based on Mount Steep in Battle for Neigborville. Banded Badlands is littered with little buildings here and there that add some charm, there's bridges that take you across some of the more jagged terrain, and overall it's just a fun badlands experience. There's quite a bit of verticality to this map, meaning there's places you can get to that make it easier to snipe players from long range, but there's also lots of paths for ambushing.
*Mossy Marsh: A sprawling swamp with lots of tall mangrove trees that block sight, as well as lots of mud that very slightly slows down players that walk on it. Of course, it's not a very big slowing effect so as to prevent it from making gameplay unfun and terrible. The swamp has no buildings, but does have some bridges that connect higher-up places to each other or allow passage over lower-down terrain. In addition, there are patches of water that slow things down a little bit more than the mud, but still not a ton.
*Brimstone Valley: A dangerous, lava-filled map that has lots of lava - did we mention there's lava? Falling in the lava instantly vanquishes you, giving an unusual advantage to characters with knockback or the ability to move enemies around. There's lots of tall basalt pillars surrounding wide pools of lava, making it difficult at times to travel safely. It's a good idea to keep your wits about you to stay safe, but there's no huge need for it - there are plenty of open spaces without much lava as well.
*Z-Tech Centrapolis: A symmetrical map that makes it easy to get lost with the billboards, holographic thingamabobs, and general futuristic nonsense all over the place. This map features lots of different paths that allow you to get to where you want to go, or ambush the other team in a variety of ways. It's built more horizontally than vertically, so the huge number of buildings and other structures are generally pretty short and/or too tall to get on top of. There's also a couple of teleporters dotted around for fast travel.
*Mudstone Mines: A very moist, tight, claustrophobic underground area with lots of tunnels and chokepoints all around. There are some wide open spaces, such as a larger clearing in the center, but for the most part the map is quite restrictive. A unique aspect of the map is the big railroad that snakes in and out of the different tunnels and area, housing a mine cart train similar to the one on Colossal Fossil that just rides around and around. It takes a while to travel the full track.
*Pirate Boatyard: A coastal area with plenty of palm trees and large rocks to play around with in terms of combat, favoring long-range characters. However, there's a lot of structures in terms of huge pirate docks and ships, where you can battle either on top of a boat or inside of it. Close range characters will excel at fighting inside the boats or the buildings, while long range characters will have an easy time picking off anyone wandering around exposed.
*Pale Graveyard: A spooky, overgrown graveyard, with structures and buildings that are abandoned and/or way broken down, and there's not much else to it. There's somewhat dense fog which makes it a little difficult to see, and the number of buildings placed can be surprising given it is supposed to be more of a graveyard environment. The ground is mostly flat, and it can feel claustrophobic at times but there is still a fair bit of outside space to really get down to business and flatten some enemies with.
*Blue Diamond Beach: A labyrinth of crystal formations, beachy terrain, magical towers, and overall just a funky combination of beachside relaxation and magical structures. Secret doors and passageways are placed across the map, giving an edge to experienced players who know how to exploit these features. In addition, the map is a little bit smaller than some of the others, but it's not too overwhelmingly claustrophobic. The map is very much vertically-structured, so keep your eyes peeled for threats at all heights.
*Z-Tech Factory: Another take on the classic Z-Tech Factory map, this time it is clockwork and steampunk themed. The factory is gigantic and has huge gaps that lead into lava below, and that lava is what powers the variety of whimsical and only-very-slightly-practical machines that are all over the place. Some of the machinery, such as slow elevators, actually work while others are purely decorative. Or maybe you just don't know how to use them...
*Battle Axe Bastion: Takes place at a huge viking hideout in the middle of the ocean. Instead of regular land, everything takes place on floating ice - there's holes, parts that can be destroyed, sharp edges - but fear not, for the ice is not slippery! However, if that's not your thing, several large viking ships are docked around the base, and there's a huge arena near the center of the map where some intense fighting can happen. Massive icebergs surround the far edges of the map, and it's a very chaotic place.
*Steampot Sewers: An underground sewer, with lots of green slimy water that will instantly eviscerate anything that happens to unfortunately fall in. There are a lot of pipes as well as manholes, yes, in the sewers, that will release huge gushes of steam when stepped on that allow players to reach new and exciting heights. This map has a lot of verticality, and a lot of it overlaps on itself which makes it effective to bring things that can pierce environment.
*Sugar Rush Forest: A wonderful, sugary environment with candy trees, candy rocks, candy grass, and just y'know candy everything! The air is sweet and tastes like butter, and the chocolate rivers smell like West Virginia. Basically, the main idea here is that since most things are candy, most things can be destroyed. At the end of a match, especially a chaotic or long one, most of the map will have been flattened. This means it goes from favoring short-range characters to favoring long-range characters over a single match.
===Content Creator===
Evolution Origins expands Private Play into a full-blown Content Creator that allows players to create, share, and enjoy all sorts of unique play experiences. From customized game modes to customized maps, the Content Creator contains all sorts of creatively creative content that can be created so creatively creatively. Content. Content Creator. Creator.
====Game Editor====
Game Editor is sort of a big expansion of Private Play from the previous games, but with just a ton more to it especially if used in tandem with the Map Maker. In terms of team composition, you can modify the team sizes from 0 players all the way to 50 players (at least for regular game modes such as Team Vanquish) as well as the exact characters the teams consist of too, as well as their custom names. You can add a randomized pool of up to 6 variants per slot (or just a single one you want), or just set the slot to pick a completely random variant from the entire game (or from a specific class). There's also a new Spectate option when starting a Content Creator match, which allows you to fly around and watch full AI teams take each other on to see who will win.
There's limitless potential with Game Editor. The team composition is not even limited to real characters, it can include bosses and other AI-specific characters as well. Of course, you can't actually play as those bosses or other AI-specific characters, because that's just not really how any of this works, but it's the thought that counts. There are a TON of different sliders and buttons to play around with to modify things like character health, character damage, how fast Evolutions charge up, if you even want them to be allowed at all, how potent Ability Character Bonuses are, how stupid Creepes is, and just a ton of other things on top of being able to apply as many Modifiers from the normal modes as you want. It's a big oyster, this Game Editor thing.
====Map Maker====
Evolution Origins has a great big focus on bananas. Haha, nope! It has a great big focus on expanding Private Play as we've touched on with the Game Editor, but it also has a lot of focus on expanding the ability to create custom experiences into something big, exciting, and exceedingly purple. It's a fun bit of expansion into an area that the shooter games really haven't explored all that much in the past. While you can use Game Editor and the massive collection of sliders to create very unique game experiences, since they can all be combined together in new and exciting ways to make some interesting game modes, you might be looking for something physical to match.
Map Maker allows you to create custom maps using existing elements from the existing maps to create something new. You could think of it as making weird Frankenmaps, but I'd like to think of it as resourceful recycling. The map can be customized in all sorts of fun and original ways, like modifying the size of the map or moving the spawn points around, or placing some of the objective points in the ways you want to have them. Map Maker extends to both regular game modes and maps, and also Turf Takeover as well for funsies. Up to twenty custom maps can be saved at once, because fun arbitrary limitations bring everyone joy.
====Content Browser====
The Content Browser is a cool place where you can see and explore custom experiences. The Browser contains both custom maps that can be played, but also custom game modes. Custom game modes are basically Private Play setups that can be saved and shared. There is so much variety in Private Play that this actually works. You can play existing normal game modes on custom maps or custom game modes on custom maps. You can play existing normal game modes on existing normal maps, or existing normal game modes on custom maps. There's a lot of custom experiences to be had. You could make fun solo challenges even. Can you tell we're sort of running out of stuff to talk about?
Custom experiences (whether they are just a map, a game mode, or a combination) can be published to the Content Browser, of course, and players can like or dislike the experience. The Browser is split up into three tabs for each of the custom content possibilities, so it's easy to find what you are looking for. That's right, . That's right, Creepes. What you, the reader, are looking for. Experiences can be voted on after being played for a full match, and at the end of each day the top three experiences in each category can be played for realsies against real people in multiplayer. This wouldn't work for so very many reasons in a real game, but this isn't a real game so we can take the small creative liberties here and there.
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Thanks for reading!
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