Plants vs. Zombies 3: Evolved

Plants vs Zombies 3: Evolved follows the same framework as its latest predecessor or its earliest predecessor. The player has to defend the left side of the screen from hordes of zombies approaching from the right. The game is set on an expanded 5x12 grid where the player can place down plants. Plants can be purchased using "sun", a currency gathered from it falling from the sky or from sun-producing plants like Sunflowers, which are the basic sun producers, or Sun-Shrooms, which are used mainly on dark tiles and are merged to make mushroom plants. Plants have a variety of different abilities to defend or as offense towards the zombies.

The game features a new "evolve" mechanic where two Tier I plants can be combined to form new plants and two Tier II plants can merge again. Already-placed plants can be dragged to another plant to evolve, or by planting a plant onto an eligible plant.

Each level has a set number of stages represented by flags. When a level reaches a flag, a horde of zombies will appear. Once all flags are passed and all zombies are defeated, the player wins. If a zombie breaches their defense, Mo the Smart Lawn Mower will activate on that respective zombie's lane and defeat all zombies within it. However, if another zombie breaches the defense, the level is lost.

Plants vs. Zombies 3 began development as early as 2016, with various concepts created by digital artist Jason Brown.^[10] The game was expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2017 according to the China Licensing Expo 2017.^{[citation needed]} On July 16, 2019, PopCap announced the existence of the game and that a pre-alpha was coming soon for players to give feedback.^[11] The pre-alpha was closed on February 10, 2020, and was soft launched to select countries on February 25, 2020.^[7]

With the soft-launch on 2020, the game's creative choices received major criticism. Examples included its art style switching from 2D to 3D, the game set to portrait orientation, the non-linear progression system, the overhaul of the game's sun system, and the game's unfair difficulty.^{[citation needed]} In response to criticism towards the game, PopCap decided to redo the game from scratch, which was later soft launched on September 7, 2021.^[4]

Plants vs. Zombies 3 then had subsequent soft-launches in April and October 2022.^[3] The game went silent for more than a year, with leaks suggesting that the game was cancelled.^[12]</references> However, the game received another soft launch on January 17, 2024, with the name Plants vs. Zombies 3: Welcome to Zomburbia.^[13]

On October 16, 2024, EA took Plants vs. Zombies 3 offline for a "major overhaul".^[3] On January 14, 2025, the official Twitter account for the franchise would post the "EA Player Pulse" poll, asking for feedback regarding the game.^{[citation needed]} On February 7, EA would seek fan input regarding a second art style change, with three different styles to select from (including the current art style). Fans could choose which image they prefer by using a hashtag on social media, along with a brief sentence explaining why they preferred said art style.^[14] The game received another soft launch on October 7, 2025, with the name Plants vs. Zombies 3: Evolved.^[15] Fans noticed that the new main mechanic of merging plants is reminiscent of a popular fangame for the original Plants vs. Zombies.^[16][17] After being taken offline later that year, Evolved would receive another soft-launch on April 8, 2026.^[5]