Plants vs. Zombies

Plants vs. Zombies began as a perfectly tuned tower-defense puzzle, the kind of design so clean it felt inevitable: arrange sunflowers and pea-shooters against waves of comic undead, and try to stop grinning. PopCap's 2009 original is a small masterpiece of pacing and personality. The sequels took the premise in surprising directions. It's About Time expanded the core formula across history, the Garden Warfare games reinvented the rivalry as a third-person team shooter, Heroes turned it into a card battler, and Battle for Neighborville pushed the shooter idea further. CrossBinge tracks the whole odd, cheerful line. What holds it together is tone. Even as the genre shifts under it, the series keeps its sense of humor and its bright, readable art, refusing to take its own apocalypse seriously. Few casual franchises have stretched a single joke this far this well.

The Plants vs. Zombies franchise spans 6 games in the CrossBinge catalog.