Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time

PlantsUnused/Early plants. ZombiesUnused/Early zombies. Worlds and LevelsUnused world assets and levels. Powerups and UpgradesUnused powerups and upgrades leftover in the game. Development Leftovers Developer Documentations Removed ContentStuff once in the game that's been removed since.

Unused UI Graphics#

Early Popup Box#

A sheet containing sprites for an early UI box.

This can be seen in concept art of a stage complete screen.

Early Buttons#

2 early blue and green buttons found in the UIImages sheet.

There is another set of early buttons found in the UnsortedImages sheet, this time being the same blue button but slightly bigger and cut into different sections for the left, middle, and right, and a red and white square button. Note that the middle unselected and selected sprites of the blue button are mistakenly swapped.

Early Seed Packet#

Early sprites for the seed packet border. This seed packet design was used for the Power Tile seed packets in version 1.4.2.

Early Shovel Button#

An early version of the shovel button.

This can be seen in concept art of the level UI, along with seed packets that somewhat resemble the previously mentioned early seed packet sprites.

Early Left and Right Arrows#

2 unused sprites for left and right arrows. Their purpose is unknown.

Early Loading Animation#

A very early version of the loading animation, with 4 black boxes coming in to cover the screen, and a white square growing during the loading.

Realistic Key#

An unused sprite of a realistic key. This was likely a placeholder for gate keys. According to the folder this is in, hud_minimap, it was supposed to be for a scrapped mini map.

Endless Zone Button#

An unused world map button that would've likely opened a menu for the Endless Zones.

Cheat Menu#

Sprites for a cheat menu. It's impossible to enable this in the retail game.

Zen Garden#

The Zen Garden originally worked slightly differently, with plants grown having unique boosts that weren't just getting Plant Food upon being planted.

Unused Boosts#

There exist several boosts which were meant to be obtained via the Zen Garden, but ultimately the idea was canned and only First Strike was used.

Bounty Hunter#

Would have increased the chance of a plant making a zombie drop coins when killed.

[BOOST_TITLE_BOUNTY_HUNTER]
Bounty Hunter

[BOOST_COMBAT_BOUNTY_HUNTER]
Defeated zombies drop coins

[BOOST_DETAIL_BOUNTY_HUNTER]
Zombies defeated by this plant drop coins. This boost lasts for 1 level.

Extra Toughness#

Would have increased the health of the boosted plant.

[BOOST_TITLE_EXTRA_TOUGH]
Extra Toughness

[BOOST_COMBAT_EXTRA_TOUGH]
Extra protection against attacks

[BOOST_DETAIL_EXTRA_TOUGH]
Extra protection from zombies. This boost lasts for 1 level.

Fast Recharge#

Would have decreased the recharge time of the boosted plant.

[BOOST_TITLE_FAST_RECHARGE]
Fast Recharge

[BOOST_COMBAT_FAST_RECHARGE]
Recharges faster

[BOOST_DETAIL_FAST_RECHARGE]
Recharges more quickly. This boost lasts for 1 level.

Rapid Fire#

Would have increased the attack speed of the boosted plant.

[BOOST_TITLE_RAPID_FIRE]
Rapid Fire

[BOOST_DETAIL_RAPID_FIRE]
Attacks at a faster rate. This boost lasts for 1 level.

[BOOST_COMBAT_RAPID_FIRE]
Faster attack rate

Sun Discount#

Would have decreased the sun cost of the boosted plant.

[BOOST_TITLE_SUN_DISCOUNT]
Sun Discount

[BOOST_COMBAT_SUN_DISCOUNT]
Reduced sun cost

[BOOST_DETAIL_SUN_DISCOUNT]
Costs less sun to plant. This boost lasts for 1 level.

Shovel Bomb#

Would have made the boosted plant explode when shoveled up, dealing 270 damage in a 3x3 area. A similar effect appears in some levels in the Chinese Version's Memory Lane.

[BOOST_TITLE_SHOVEL_BOMB]
Shovel Bomb

[BOOST_COMBAT_SHOVEL_BOMB]
Explodes when shoveled

[BOOST_DETAIL_SHOVEL_BOMB]
Explodes when shoveled. This boost lasts for 1 level.

Marigold Boost#

Likely would have boosted the Marigold's chance of producing gems, which she originally had a small chance to do based on her old Almanac entry. This is backed up by the fact that the image ID linked to this boost is named IMAGE_ZEN_GARDEN_BOOSTS_GEM.

Early Boost System#

1.9.2#

Data for the plant boosting system was first added in version 1.9.2. At this point it was pretty incomplete, with only plants up to Cabbage-pult (and oddly Sun-shroom, who was unreleased at the time) having unique boosts and every other plant just having First Strike.

* = Unreleased at this time, but was added in a later version
^ = Plant is no longer in the codes as of the latest release

2.0.1#

The boost system was updated in version 2.0.1, this time with each plant having 3 different boosts that would be randomly picked.

* = Unreleased at this time, but was added in a later version.
^ = Plant is no longer in the codes as of the latest release.
N/A = This plant does not have any boost data.

Unused Costumes#

Many plants in PvZ2 have costumes that can be unlocked and equipped. However, there are a few costumes that go unused.

Sunflower#

Sunflower's costumes have never been obtainable (aside from her seasonal costumes). These never had any proper data until 8.6.1 when they were suddenly given data, however they are still unobtainable. Sunflower also has a Valenbrainz costume that was never used, likely by mistake.

Marigold#

Marigold has 8 different unused costumes, 7 of them being different petal colors (like colored Zen Garden Marigolds in the original Plants vs. Zombies), and the 8th being a top hat. Due to Marigold not being plantable and being a Zen Garden exclusive plant, these costumes are unobtainable and unused.

Unused Features#

Tokens#

It seems like premium plants and plant leveling weren't going to be the only form of monetization in PvZ2, as old versions contain data for an unused token system, where you would need 1 token in order to play a level similar to a lives system. These tokens were planned to be obtained in the Zen Garden, though how they would be obtained is unknown.

Watch on YouTube

Early and Internal Names#

Plants#

• Iceberg Lettuce is internally referenced as "iceburg".
• Infi-nut is internally referred to as "holonut".
• E.M.Peach is internally referred to as "empea".
• Tile Turnip is internally referenced as "powerplant".
• Banana Launcher is internally referred to as "banana".
• Rotobaga is internally referenced as "xshot".
• Red Stinger was internally called "columnpod" in earlier versions before it was changed into "redstinger".
• Gold Leaf is internally referenced as "goldtileturnip", probably because both the Tile Turnip and Gold Leaf make tiles.
• Perfume-shroom was referred to as "dinonip" in the prototype codes for Jurassic Marsh.
• Sling Pea's object class refers to it as "ArmamintPeashooter".
• Dazey Chain's sprite sheet refers to it as "reincarnation".
• Bun Chi is internally referred to as "waterrabbit".
• Marigold's object class refers to it as "PlantCoinDispenser"

Zombies#

• Several zombies have internal names that don't reflect their actual in-game names:
  • Conehead Zombie, Buckethead Zombie, and all of their variants from other worlds share the same ending suffixes: _armor1 and _armor2 respectively.
    • Knight Zombie, Blockhead Zombie, Jurassic Fossilhead, and Centurion Zombie share the _armor3 suffix.
    • Brickhead Zombie, Pyramid-Head Zombie, Barrelhead Zombie, Cart-Head Zombie, Holo Head Zombie, Amberhead Zombie, and Bust Head Zombie share the _armor4 suffix.
  • Barrel Roller Zombie as "barrelpusher" in earlier versions.
  • Chicken Wrangler Zombie as "chicken_farmer".
  • Shield Zombie as "future_protector".
  • Bug Bot Imp as "gargantuar_imp".
  • Jester Zombie as "dark_juggler"
  • Parasol Zombie as "lostcity_jane", likely a reference to Jane Porter from Tarzan.
  • Turquoise Skull Zombie as "lostcity_crystalskull"

Penny's Early Name#

Penny is internally referenced as "Winnie".

PC Release Text#

There is unused text suggesting that the game may have been planned to come to PC at some point.

[HARDWARE_ACCELERATION_NOT_SUPPORTED]
Hardware Acceleration cannot be enabled on this computer.
Your video card does not
meet the minimum requirements
for this game.

[INVALID_WINDOWS_MODE]
Windowed mode is only available if your desktop was running in either
16 bit or 32 bit color mode when you started the game.
If you'd like to run in Windowed mode then you need to quit the game and switch your desktop to 16 or 32 bit color mode.

[NO_WINDOWED_MODE]
No Windowed Mode

[OPTIONS_3D_ACCELERATION]
3D Acceleration

[OPTIONS_FULL_SCREEN]
Full Screen

[SLOW_PERFORMANCE]
Your video card may not fully support this feature.
If you experience slower performance, please disable Hardware Acceleration.

Naming Penny#

There is unused text implying you were once able to name Penny.

[RV_NAME_INVALID]
I didn't quite get that...

[RV_NAME_SAME_AS_PLAYER]
That's your name, silly!

Unused XML Files#

Framework Strings#

Leftover Windows application startup/crash text strings.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Properties version="1.0" language="en" country="US" lookandfeel="NORMAL" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="">
<String id="LOCALE">English_United States</String>

<!-- Framework Strings -->
    <String id="DIALOG_BUTTON_YES">YES</String>
    <String id="DIALOG_BUTTON_NO">NO</String>
    <String id="DIALOG_BUTTON_OK">OK</String>
    <String id="DIALOG_BUTTON_CANCEL">CANCEL</String>

    <String id="UNEXPECTED_ERROR">An unexpected error has occured!  Pressing 'Send Report will send us helpful debugging information that may help us resolve this issue in the future.&cr;&cr;You can also contact us directly at feedback@popcap.com.</String>

    <String id="PLEASE_HELP">Please help us out by providing as much information as you can about this crash. Is this the first time it happened? Have you used other PopCap Deluxe games successfully before? Have you upgraded your drivers or any software recently that may be interfering with this program?</String>

    <String id="FAILED_CONNECT_POPCAP">Failed to connect to PopCap servers.  Please check your Internet connection.&cr;If you are on a dial-up connection, you may have to manually connect to your ISP.</String>

    <String id="HARDWARE_ACCEL_SWITCHED_ON">3D acceleration was switched on during this session.&cr;If this resulted in slower performance or other display problems,&cr;it should be switched off.&cr;&cr;Would you like to keep 3D acceleration switched on?</String>

    <String id="HARDWARE_ACCEL_CONFIRMATION">3D Acceleration Confirmation</String>

    <String id="HARDWARE_ACCEL_NOT_WORKING">3D acceleration may not have been working correctly during this session.&cr;If you noticed graphics problems, you may want to turn off 3D acceleration.&cr;Would you like to keep 3D acceleration switched on?</String>

    <String id="FATAL_ERROR">FATAL ERROR</String>

    <String id="PLEASE_SET_COLOR_DEPTH">Please set your desktop color depth to 16 bit.</String>

    <String id="FAILED_INIT_DIRECTDRAW">Failed to initialize DirectDraw:&nbsp;</String>

    <String id="UNABLE_OPEN_PROPERTIES">Unable to open properties file&nbsp;</String>

    <String id="PROPERTIES_SIG_FAILED">Signature check failed on&nbsp;</String>

    <String id="INVALID_COMMANDLINE_PARAM">Invalid command line parameter:</String> 

    <String id="APP_REQUIRES_DIRECTX">This application requires DirectX to run.  You can get DirectX at http://www.microsoft.com/directx</String>
    <String id="YOU_NEED_DIRECTX">You need DirectX</String>

</Properties>

Shop XML File#

The shop XML file from the first game is here.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<Properties country="US" language="en" lookandfeel="NORMAL" version="1.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="">
    <Double id="OPTION_DLG_LABEL_FONT_SCALE">1.0</Double>
    <Integer id="OPTION_DLG_SLIDER_LABELS_OFFSET_X">40</Integer>
    <Integer id="OPTION_DLG_CHECKBOX_LABELS_OFFSET_X">40</Integer>

    <Boolean id="STORE_USE_COMING_SOON_IMAGE_LABEL">false</Boolean>
    <Boolean id="STORE_USE_SOLD_OUT_IMAGE_LABEL">false</Boolean>
    <Boolean id="STORE_USE_EXTRA_SLOT_IMAGE_LABEL">false</Boolean>
</Properties>

Debugging Material#

To do: Code and text for Zombie Spawning Debug and a portion of other debugging functions are present in older versions of the game to v3.1.1. Despite the cheat menu isn't loaded, maybe the functions exist to enable them?

Various game files mention a cheat menu, preferably in the main game data, this video showcases one from the Chinese release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alrD7qNX8mg (ingame) and this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0geM5gF2Mo showcases one from PVZ's YouTube channel livestream (map). The system for drawing the menu in the public release is set to false. Make it possible to draw the menu again, but with some game modifications, it is possible to bring back a major part of the original debug menu. Most of the debug features are gone, but some of the cheat features are still present in the game.

Oddities#

Early Barrel Roller Zombie Face#

The Almanac icon for the Barrel Roller Zombie mistakenly uses an early version of its design with an early version of the zombie face design.