So, What the Hell is 'Plants vs. Zombies Replanted'? (A $20 Cash Grab, Apparently)

It just launched today, and the consensus is... oof. This isn't the glorious return we were hoping for.

So, Plants vs. Zombies Replanted dropped today, October 23rd. The marketing from EA sells it as the "glorious HD" return of the classic. It's a "remaster" with all the game modes from every edition, plus new bonus content and co-op, on every platform under the sun.

It sounds great, right? But I've been digging into it, and this thing feels less like a loving remaster and more like a lazy, overpriced cash grab.

The $20 Widescreen Patch

Let's get the most insulting part out of the way first: the price. They are charging twenty bucks for this. The original PvZ: Game of the Year Edition is still, to this day, five bucks on Steam.

So for four times the price, what do you get? Upscaled HD graphics and widescreen support. It does run in 4K, which is nice if you've been dreaming of that. But that's... basically it. It's a "slightly better looking version of the original game". As one player put it, it seems "all of the budget went into the trailer animations, not the actual game".

Missing in Action

Here's the real kicker. This "definitive" edition is actually a downgrade from the 15-year-old Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. Remember customizing your house? Remember leaderboards? Gone.

Even the audio is screwed up. The original had dynamic music that built up as the horde approached. This new version just plays the full, bombastic track on a loop, all the time. One player even said the music is "completely ruined with boneheaded drumming".

And in 2025, for a game that boasts co-op, there's no online VS mode. The co-op it does have is just the local co-op from the old console days. They didn't even bother to enable Steam Remote Play.

"New" Content? More Like Scrapped Content.

EA's marketing boasts about "new levels" and "fresh twists". From what I'm seeing, this is mostly just scraps.

There's a "secret" China level, but it's just a reskin of the rooftop. The "new" bonus levels are reportedly just old, scrapped levels from the original game's development, not newly created content.

They even padded out the "never-before-seen franchise history" by allegedly grabbing concept art from other PvZ games and just labeling it as concept art for this one. That's just lazy and insulting.

I will say, there is one genuinely cool new feature: a hardcore mode for the campaign. You get one mower, and if you die, you're back to the very beginning. It's a great challenge for veterans. But one mode does not justify this price tag.

The Usual EA Bullshit

On top of everything, it's just sloppy. The plant seed icons aren't even sized properly. It's a tiny detail, but it screams "we don't give a shit".

And, of course, it's wrapped in a nice EA-branded bow. I had to wait for the EA login to authenticate just to play the damn thing. It's a horrible, unnecessary layer of DRM on a 15-year-old single-player game.

This just isn't the return we wanted. This is PopCap as a "husk of its former self", churning out a quick buck. As one player put it, "Just give us a microtransaction free PC version of Plants vs Zombies 2 already". That's what people actually want, not this half-assed "remaster."

So, "what is PvZ Replanted?" It's a $20, slightly prettier version of the $5 game you already own, but with fewer features than the 360 port and a bunch of new, lazy problems. It's a hard pass.