Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 just released its fourth free major expansion. Called Trials of Gnomus, the expansion adds new character classes, quests and an underworld area to explore. In a world where it sometimes seems companies nickel-and-dime customers at every opportunity, it may be surprising to see so much content added to a game for free. For developer Popcap, it’s all part of the company philosophy.
iDigitalTimes spoke with Marcel Kuhn, an associate producer on Garden Warfare 2, about the new update, how providing free updates has helped the development process and what’s next for the future of Garden Warfare.
When asked how the strategy of providing free content updates has worked for Popcap, Kuhn said it helped the company better connect with fans. “They are investing time in us, so we are able to invest time in them by delivering new and fresh content free of charge,” Kuhn said. “It’s also very fulfilling from a creative point of view as we can experiment with ideas and see how players react to it. If something sticks and resonates well with them, we expand on it… if it doesn’t we re-focus on a different one.”
For Trials of Gnomus, there will be three new game modes offered for a limited time, in addition to the other new content. The decision to make these modes only available to play for a set amount of time is to keep the experience being fresh. “Offering the new modes at specific time-intervals will allow the Gnomes (and us) to continue to tune, tinker and provide lots of variety,” Kuhn said. “This specifically applies to the ‘Super Mix Mode’ which combines several crazy settings with specific characters, creating a new and unique gameplay experience every time that mode is available.”
With the popularity of online shooters like Destiny, Overwatch and the upcoming Battlefield 1, Kuhn feels not every studio can be in the same position as Popcap when it comes to free updates. “Every studio has a different philosophy of what their community and providing ‘Live Service’ means to them,” he said. “We believe in our approach and are very happy to work with our community on improving the game via content updates.”
Looking forward beyond Trials of Gnomus, Kuhn couldn’t talk much about what was coming. The studio is very busy addressing feedback from players, but no plans for future updates were revealed. “For now, we will enjoy this update alongside our community and play until the batteries of our controllers run out,” Kuhn said. He also confirmed the studio was fully committed to working on Garden Warfare 2, and had nothing to say about possibilities of a Garden Warfare 3.
As for Kuhn’s favorite addition to Garden Warfare 2 in Trials of Gnomus, he was careful to tell me he couldn’t tell iDigi what they were. “Joking aside, I love that we’ve been able to build on the back-story of GW2 by adding some Gnome mysteries to the game,” he said. “There’s a lot of depth in the features we’ve added, the Mystery Portal is just starting to unveil the different Trials it contains, there’s a lot to explore in the Gnome Underworld and last but not least there’s the mischievous Rux…we don’t even know what his deal is?!?”
Trials of Gnomus is now available to play in Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
So what do you think? Have you been trying the new game modes in Trials of Gnomus? Do you want to see even more updates come in the future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
