When you enter your base in the hub world, you're encouraged to pick up character-specific quests (compared to Destiny's patrol missions), or grab additional objectives from the notice board (compared to Destiny's bounties). That seems to be a huge part of Garden Warfare 2, by the way. This was easily the most fun we had in Backyard Battleground, despite it not being the most efficient way of earning coins, completing objectives, or chasing one of the many other incentives the game appeared to be offering. That's pretty video games, if you ask me.Īfter a few rounds of this, as we became uncertain as to how much progress we were actually making, I switched allegiances, and was able to join the horde of undead attacking my (former) plant teammates. Rose is a spellcasting plant that can turn enemies into goats. You can claim it for yourself, triggering a wave defence mode that just seems to keep on going - it was never made clear if this is something that you can actually 'win'. There's an awful lot to keep players busy here, but the centrepiece appears to be a battle taking place in the middle of the map, where AI-controlled plants and zombies are locked in an eternal struggle for control of a flag post. This is designed to be the place where you hang out between matches, likely with friends that you've invited to your world. That's no bad thing and I can't talk about that too much until a later embargo lifts, but the big change and the comparisons to Destiny are found in the game's new hub world, Backyard Battleground. Jumping into the multiplayer modes themselves is going to seem very familiar - there's new maps, classes and game modes to play, but really, it feels like more of what we've already seen from the game's predecessor. And yet, as we sat down to play PopCap's latest, I must have heard the developer describe their new direction via comparisons with Bungie's gigantic shared-world shooter, perhaps three or four times.
Of all the games I expected to hear being referenced as an inspiration behind Garden Warfare 2, it wouldn't have been Destiny.