It’s time to celebrate the Seven Years War. No, not that one.
Plants vs. Zombies, a tower defense game where players use viscous flora to stop waves of the walking dead, turns 7 years old on May 5. It spawned a franchise that has expanded to multiple platforms, including PlayStation 4 and Xbox One thanks to the Garden Warfare shooter games. To celebrate, Electronic Arts is introducing birthday-themed costumes in Plants vs. Zombies 2, a free-to-play game for iOS and Android that has achieved over 25 million downloads. The mobile industry is worth $34.8 billion a year. Special events like this can help keep players engaged and push them to buy more content.
The birthday celebration lasts for 10 days. Along with costumes, it will include birthday-themed levels and the return of Premium Plant Jack O’ Lantern, a powerful, flamethrower-wielding character.
It’s been a busy seven years for the franchise. The original Plants vs. Zombies was one of the major titles on browsers that pushed the growth of social gaming. It soon became a hit on mobile with ports of the original game. That success led to EA buying developer PopCap Games for $650 million in 2011. The sequel released in 2013, and the Plants vs. Zombies franchise also has a presence on consoles thanks to the team-based shooter spin-off series Garden Warfare.