In 2016, Electronic Arts was developing a spin-off for Plants vs Zombie, which they abolished to develop a Star Wars project, which they also later abolished

As it turns out, Electronic Arts was developing another PvZ in 2016, which was later canceled for

development of a game based on the Star Wars universe, but this game was also cancelled.

What is known

In the second half of 2016, a small teamdevelopers at PopCap Vancouver were preparing for a presentation that should determine the future of the team, the project, and their beloved Plants vs Zombie franchise.

Over the last year they have been working on a newa game based on "Plant vs. Zombies", which was supposed to return the development of the series in a different direction. The team had approval from EA, but this did not guarantee that the project would be released. The project was codenamed Hot Tub (a reference to the 2010 film Hot Tub Machine). It was intended to be an "open corridor" game like Uncharted did, with a combat system similar to Batman: Arkham Knight, but with an overall Ratched or Clank vibe.

In the middle of the story, there was a couple of teenagers who got caughtback in time as a result of a failed experiment that was messed up by zombies. They teamed up with plants familiar to us from previous games in the series to fight the "walking corpses" in different eras of history. The project should be a serious step for the development of the series, which was previously positioned as Tower Defense.

The release was planned for 2017, but, as we alreadywe know it never happened. Moreover, apparently, there was no sharp reason for its cancellation: the project did not have many errors, had no problems with the budget, missed deadlines, or any problems at all. But sometimes it happens that games are canceled just like that, and it seems that this is our case.

According to IGN resource research, the game was canceled to build up forces and resources to develop a new project in the George Lucas universe.

When developing Project Hot Tub, severaldevelopers were sent to the company's Redwood headquarters to present their work to CEO Andrew Wilson. The presentation was prepared in advance, as the developers had to show that they have every chance to make a successful project.

The presentation passed, and even liked itcompany representatives. However, suddenly, a few days later, the developers of Hot Tub were informed that their project was being closed, and the development team would be transferred to a much larger EA project, and this was a Visceral game based on Star Wars. But it was also abolished a year after that, and the former members of Hot Tub dispersed to numerous internal publisher studios.

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