The vegetation A-Team of Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare

Plant power

You can think of PvZ: Garden Warfare as a botanical horde mode, with third-person run-'n'-gun action against a relentless army of the undead. In place of your stereotypical super-soldier, you'll be mowing down zombies as the adorable backyard plant life that we grew to love in the original Plants vs. Zombies. We got to watch a live gameplay demo of Garden Warfare at E3 2013, getting to know the four playable plant types in the process.

First up is the Peashooter, the reliable green gunner that first defended our backyards. He acts as the basic frontline role, roaming through a stage as it fills with incoming zombies, then blasting them with a barrage of vegetable firepower. But the differences between plants isn't just their ammo--they each possess a set of activated abilities, like deployable items and a rooted mode. When the Peashooter takes root, he temporarily transforms into the Gatling Pea, upping his firing rate significantly. When the zombie swarm gets too overwhelming, he can chuck a Chili Bean, which attracts zombies before detonating just like the Left 4 Dead pipe bomb.

Support players will flock to the Sunflower, the cheery healer that keeps the four-plant team looking their greenest. Utilizing the solar power she's been soaking up, the Sunflower zaps incoming enemies with beams of light; rooting lets her vaporize the undead with an impressive sunbeam laser. She can also deploy Marigolds, turrets that double as AOE healing hotspots.

The Cactus and Chomper offer two methods of high damage output. The Cactus acts as the long-range sniper, able to drop a Wall-nut barricade or a trail of devastating Potato Mines. Purple, piranha-toothed Chompers are the melee DPS of the bunch, swallowing zombies whole, slowing their advance with purple goop, or deploying the fist-fighting Bonk Choy that'll debut in Plants vs. Zombies 2.

Garden Warfare looks like a blast to play, and it's visually impressive to boot. Check out the following slides for additional images and more information.