What shooter genre is Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare?

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is a third-person shooter.

Released in 2014, Garden Warfare transformed PopCap’s lane-based defense series into a multiplayer action game. Players directly control plant or zombie characters, view the battlefield from behind their avatar, and fight through cooperative and competitive modes.

The game includes four classes for each faction, with roles such as assault, support, close-range combat, and sniping. Character abilities preserve the series’ playful identity: Peashooters can use explosive attacks, Chompers can burrow, and Zombies bring their own specialized weapons and powers.

Garden Warfare is also sometimes described as incorporating tower-defense elements because players can place defensive plants or summon zombie units on the battlefield. However, when the question asks specifically for its shooter genre, “third-person shooter” is the canonical answer. It is not a first-person shooter or a rail shooter, and “hero shooter” is not the game’s standard primary classification.