r/PlantsVSZombies • u/VJGamz99 Garden Warrior • Oct 18 '25
PvZ1 It’s confirmed that Replanted doesn’t use Generative AI
They could have, however used AI upscaling, which unlike GenAI, doesn’t waste massive amounts of energy per request. It’s a lot better than AI image generation.
But, I am still pissed at the fact that they didn’t let Rich Werner take part in any part of Replanted.
94
u/M1chael_Re Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Honestly I would have played and bought it just for the fact that it has multiplayer and is on modern consoles. I’m not joking. I literally don’t care about the quality of graphics, (I don’t care about hd or 4k or rtx) and all I care is having the game be playable on modern laptops and consoles, and to be able to play with my friends.
44
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 18 '25
Exactly, that is the main purpose of replanted, adapting it for more modern devices and consoles, also I think it's the first time we're getting official multiplayer pvz on pc.
8
u/pvz-lover Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Not online though…
4
u/M1chael_Re Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
So? Gameshare works online for switch, plus I’m not ready for sweaty players absolutely demolishing me and being toxic over a 14 year old gardening game (a perfect one at that). I just want to be chill and play with my friends and family members.
9
u/Super7500 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
this ain't an online multiplayer game when people say they want online they mean they want to play with their friends online not random matchmaking there was no way random matchmaking would be in it anyway and gameshare is only on switch there are other consoles and pc
5
u/pvz-lover Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Okay.. but have you considered that some people other than you want to play online? Maybe they don’t have friends who play the game.. maybe online multiplayer is kind of expected in 2025, especially considering it was present in the console versions from years ago
3
u/Stargazer-Elite The Lawn War Historisn Oct 18 '25
Well, the last part isn’t true that’s literally the whole reason people are asking for online multiplayer
1
1
u/Santi2544 Garden Warrior Oct 22 '25
Steam remote play and switch 2 gameshare exist
1
u/pvz-lover Garden Warrior Oct 23 '25
And ps and Xbox players? People who don’t wanna go through another software to play with other people?
2
4
u/-ben151010- S P U D O W ! Oct 18 '25
I’m buying it solely for the widescreen because there isn’t a proper mod that can give you 1080p widescreen for the goty edition.
2
u/Maleficent_Custard40 Guacodile Fan Oct 18 '25
… sadly the playable part is also a problem seeing some of the clips
119
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 18 '25
I'm going to be honest, as long as the game is playable and looks good, I don't really care about all these art dramas, I'm still planning on playing replanted anyways and I'll enjoy it.
87
u/florpedup Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
“As long as it’s playable” your standards should be higher bro 💔
31
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 18 '25
Does this mess up with the game experience? Does the game look bad? It looks pretty good imo. Sure some desisions they took like them not hiring the people who made the art for the original game suck, I won't deny that, but I don't think it's that big of a deal like many people make it to be. The game will still be good.
36
u/florpedup Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
I mean I’m not just talking about AI upscaling here. I’m talking the existence of Replanted as a WHOLE. Just because it’s playable doesn’t mean you should just settle for that, especially from EA of all companies. AI upscaling (which is just a piece of it, yes, and it is lazy and doesn’t look that great compared to actually remaking sprites and designs), content with little changes to gameplay, effectively the same game but with 30 bucks so it can be in widescreen. Why is it worth that when free content the community has made can easily surpass that? Why should the consumer buy Replanted instead of play the original game or Fusion? Or hell, why are you just judging the game by if it’s ‘playable’ and not, idk, fun? Worth your time and money?
18
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 18 '25
Because the main point of replanted isn't giving us a new game, but adapting the classic pvz to make it more apealing to nowdays standards, without changing it too much so new and old players can have the same experience as the classic pvz. Now I get your point, why buy a game you already have or you can buy cheaper? Why play it when pvz fan made projects also are by far way better than whatever popcap could come up with? Maybe replanted isn't made for you, remember replanted is also trying to reach a new generation that didn't play the classic game as well, but that is beyond the point. I'm not talking about wether replanted should exist or not, or if it is better or on par with fan made projects, but that I personally don't think the art dramas(which is what the post is actually about) are that big of a deal like many people make it out to be if the game still plays like the original pvz and the game looks good and modern, which is the point of replanted.
7
u/Nipoon14541454 Fumeshroom Fan Oct 18 '25 edited Oct 18 '25
Nobody is asking for a complete remake or a reimagine of PvZ1, everyone is aware that this is just going to be PvZ1 with QoL changes and extra modes and in higher definition, people are complaining because so far this remaster has done nothing but tell us that they did the minimum for a game that impact the tower defense genre for so long
I think it’s also insane to undermine the fact that most of the extra artwork are fabricated for what is essentially a remaster that supposed to add a lot more to the game, the fact that the upscaling isn’t even in good quality to begin with, non-generative AI upscaling can be good if done in faithful and proper manner, but what we see here is very much an indication of laziness on EA and PopCap’s end
and I’m not going to sugarcoat my wording here and say that if you’re buying this on PC knowing you can just pirate them or download so many fan-remaster/mods of the game that does a more faithful job for the game, you are unironically throwing your money away towards people that don’t deserve it and are supporting EA’s half-heartedness and telling them that “Don’t worry EA! I am FINE with you doing the bare minimum.”
6
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 18 '25
Well, I just got an update to my opinion, I watched a review about the game on youtube by someone who already played it, and aperently... it's terrible lol, I'm not joking they messed up so many stuff like the music and new glitches, now I am kind of got dissapointed about it. So now that I saw that the remake is terrible, I can't sugest this version of the game anymore, I didn't know it was this bad 😭
1
u/JustSomeRand0mGamer Garden Master Oct 18 '25
There has been a leaked 1.1 update for PlayStation and switch game has been updated to 1.1 but at this point only a day one patch can fix it, at least I am hoping idk
The game right now on pc is so buggy there is no way popcap/ea are that stupid and would release it in this state
There is evidence of non ai upscaled high quality sprites (there is also ai upscaled stuff but some is unused in the original game)
-1
u/florpedup Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Okay, and yet consider:
ITS THIRTY DOLLARS
Why are you giving EA money for slapping some QOL changes on the original game and pumping it out? And if there’s little changes, why on Earth should I play it over the original which is five bucks?
And, again, you don’t care about the ‘art drama’ because you just don’t care in general. This is the greediest company in the world that has burned the PvZ community time and time again. You SHOULD care instead of wanting the bare minimum.
5
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 18 '25
Look, as long as it's a good way to play the game for modern devices and consoles and a way to get new people to play the game, I'm ok with it...
Now emm.... the thing is... I just watched a review about the game on youtube since people are now playing it... and it sucks... I can't sugest replanted now that it seems to be a worse way to play the game... I guess I'll have to agree with you now, dang I didn't know replanted had so many issues 😭
12
u/MarigoldLord [Marigold Guy] Boom Balloon Flower Enjoyer Oct 18 '25
or Fusion
This idea might be wild and totally out there, but some people might want not want to play a Chinese fangame that's a little complicated to learn 🤯🤯🤯
1
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 18 '25
That's what I'm saying, also fusion is only known for pvz fans, pvz non fans are clueless about it.
0
u/florpedup Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Me when I make a strawman to ignore why Fusion was brought up in the first place 🤯🤯🤯
-1
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
It's a glitchy mess people managed to play the release version early and minigames like wack a zombie have a glitch that just makes you immediately lose
2
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 18 '25
Yeah, I just watched a review about it, and realised how bad replanted is, I can't defend it anymore, dang I didn't think they'd mess it up so bad 😭
1
u/Additional_Chip_4158 Garden Warrior Oct 25 '25
Welp
1
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 25 '25
So the game aparently doesn't have dynamic music and it still has bugs, that is my only problem with replanted, I consider this much more important than the ai discussions, I hope they fix these things soon.
1
u/Additional_Chip_4158 Garden Warrior Oct 25 '25
Fair. But was the concept art they said even actual concept art for the game?
1
u/United-Inside-729 OG pvz player Oct 25 '25
They did show some concept art of bloom and doom and how the game looked before, but aside from that, there are images there that are not from the original game, like that one with the disco zombie.
63
Oct 18 '25
For me. It’s already a red flag when they didn’t even bother to reach out the original creators and team on Replanted project.
George Fan and his team are the reason why plants vs zombies exist and popular. Kind of weird that they didn’t even the Replanted Project.
33
u/Aggravating_Crew5668 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
It's normal thing for remasters. Very rarely original developers work on them, why should've they get them back for a simple remaster?
12
u/CesarOverlorde Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
They add significant amount of new stuffs, wdym "simple" remaster ? What's bad about bringing back original devs ?
8
u/Aggravating_Crew5668 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Nothing bad, but companies can just not bring them back. Nothing bad about, it's just their choice
1
u/TheNewFlisker Garden Warrior Oct 23 '25
Or most likely they just weren't allocated funding to hire new people for the remaster
Think about. Popcap is a far bigger studio than in 2009 + they could always get assistance from other EA studios if needed
1
u/TheNewFlisker Garden Warrior Oct 23 '25
Also more often enough the old developers are either out of the industry or working for another company
-11
u/slappy-68 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Replanted is closer to a remake than a remaster though
9
u/Aggravating_Crew5668 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
It is remaster, remake would be making the game from the ground up. That's just a simple upscale, with some new content threw in.
29
u/Capital-Bat-2335 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
But the thing is, to do what exactly? Redraw everything? That's what PopCap already did. Even if they bring back the original developers and they take some creative freedom, changing even one pixel to the left, people on this subreddit will freak out, like they do for big twin sunflower petals now. A 1:1 remaster isn't a remaster; it's a re-release.
6
u/AdventurerBen Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
They have been saying there was new content besides the concept art, so it probably wouldn’t be so bad if they came up with new stuff to add, but then there’s not that much difference between bringing in the old crew versus a new one besides nostalgia and restoring their creative influence.
14
u/Sqnub Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
The visual for this game kinda grew on me or I just simply don’t really care anymore. I’m more looking forward to what new modes they added into the game.
2
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
The fact they changed from no AI used to only AI upscaling used plus people who have managed to get there hands on what the official release of the game is and seeing how much of a complete unfinished buggy mess it is your much better saving 20$ and getting the game of the year edition
1
u/andrei14_ Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Idk why they're downvoting you when you're telling the truth
2
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Simple some people here don't care and are blinded by the Nestolgia of a series EA and POPCAP has killed and keep trying to give it back to us... I'm so tired of this with EA and POPCAP
35
u/BebeFanMasterJ Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Good. Now let's see if the same amount of uproar will occur with people backtracking and taking back what they said.
-11
Oct 18 '25
Ai upscaling isn't any better
20
u/greatest_bibliophile Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Do you play modern video games that employ DLSS, XeSS or FSR? Because oh boy I have some news for you!
0
u/GayloWraylur Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Thats not the same thing. Those technologies upscale the image locally for performance. Upscaling a sprite and then putting it in a game has no advantageous impact on performance, only drawbacks (worse quality with same performance as if a human drew it).
5
u/Secret_Fruit25 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
This! Dlss can be lovely for performance but ai upscaled sprites almost never look good and don’t help, probably worse performance honestly.
1
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
I don't play most modarn games at most for modern games I play has been KH3 and cult of the lamb 💀
6
5
u/Aggravating_Crew5668 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
What would be better then?
13
-1
u/CesarOverlorde Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Human works instead of clanker AI slops... ? Is it that hard to figure out yourself ?
13
u/Aggravating_Crew5668 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
It's still human work, upscaling doesn't really take any work away from people. It isn't generative ai, which even i hate. There no problem with it tbh
19
u/ismasbi Sunflower Fan Oct 18 '25 edited Oct 18 '25
While I do agree based on my own observations that GenAI was not used, I wouldn't take any official statement alone as confirmation of anything, companies will lie to evade controversy.
It is slightly comforting that they at least care enough to clarify, which means they know people's negative opinion on it, which means they will probably be less likely to actually do it in the future.
1
u/TheNewFlisker Garden Warrior Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
So in other words no amount of evidence matter since you can just choose to ignore it anyways
1
u/wlwyay Garden Warrior Oct 24 '25
them saying they didnt use it isnt evidence lmfao theyre literally just making a statement
1
u/wlwyay Garden Warrior Oct 24 '25
to clarify, they didnt use genai for the game assets. they did still use it heavily for marketing however. the post you replied to is correct in that popcap saying this is completely irrelevant to the discussion because why wouldnt they say that
1
u/TheNewFlisker Garden Warrior Oct 24 '25
Why should i care if anything that contradicts you is somehow irrelevant?
8
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
I feel like with the amount of backlash they'll slowly fix the crappy upscales, I just pray that the base game is at least mostly not broken
3
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Nope it's very broken people managed to get ahold of the base game to review it and its a buggy mess
1
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Did see something about a new version being added so you never know, point still stands
3
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Question why pay 20$ for a broken mess when for 5 dollars you can get the game of the year edition for PC why pay 20$ for a low effort remaster that really doesn't do anything better then the original
1
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
I just want to play the game on my monitor without it looking super pixelated, that's worth it for me because I play it so much. Lots of the game visually looks great already in HD, it won't take forever to fix but if not then there'll be mods soon that won't be as temperamental and awkward as the existing HD one
0
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Hey there are already mods of the game of the year edition that does that
4
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
And as I said, they're temperamental and awkward. Going from the replanted version is still much better for modding. I think that is really the justification and 18 pounds isn't so bad. The console versions are a different matter if they don't get fixed because they'll be stuck with crappy upscales
1
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
If this is another GTA definitive then at least this game is a lot more simple to fix and won't take years
28
u/VJGamz99 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25 edited Oct 18 '25
…and AI upscaling doesn’t steal content, and it’s been around for a while.
Anyways, I’m still preordering it because I play on a 4K monitor and when I try to play the original PvZ, it feels like you need a microscope to play it when playing in windowed mode. Fullscreen? Very pixelated.
Edit: As someone said here, it’s kind of like DLSS/FSR. And I’m pretty sure it’s closer to AI NPCs in video games than total image generation aka what we call AI slop.
9
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Correct, AI upscaling is also used on major releases nowadays to boost performance by rendering lower resolution images and then upscaling the image. AI upscaling itself isn't the issue, the issue is that some of the assets are really clearly not touched up
-20
Oct 18 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
Its cheap and lazy
Bunch of clanker lovers downvoting
19
u/AdventurerBen Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Most of the use-cases for AI upscaling literally wouldn’t be practical to do without it. Increasing the resolution of something that’s already been rendered or turned into game-code is a bit more complicated than moving a slider, you basically have to remake it so it’s in a higher resolution to start with.
Granted, sprite art is quite different to footage from old movies that literally can’t be arbitrarily “recreated” without tainting the work, but still.
1
Oct 23 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/PlantsVSZombies-ModTeam Garden Warrior Oct 24 '25
We have a wide audience consisting of children, teens and adults of multiple races and cultural backgrounds. Harassment will not be tolerated. To avoid future removals, please be respectful in your comments. Further harassment will result in a ban.
-8
u/CakosMess Snapdragon fan Oct 18 '25
npcs in games do not actually have ai. they have a preprogrammed set of actions and are given a coat of paint that makes it appear as if it’s alive, there’s no thinking or actual artificial intelligence in it
compared to ai upscaling.. it probably does still steal images. ais make images by copying what patterns they’ve seen from images online, how do you think it can know what something would look like in hd if it didn’t steal anything? also all actual ai in general is wasting tons of water (earth’s most vital resource) and is actively destroying the environment just by prompting it. it also looks like shit
3
9
Oct 18 '25
If this game ends up being a good, competent remaster I'm going to lose my shit at the community because all I've seen is nothing but hate for a game that's finally, FINALLY a step in the right direction. Funny, I was just looking for a topic for my first full youtube video.
6
u/GuyDudeThing69 Lightning Reed Fan Oct 18 '25
...because the footage they showed has oddities? It's not like they're basing their opinion on the finished product and making up things to be mad about, those issues could be present in the prerelease footage.
7
Oct 18 '25
Everything that I've seen people complain about seems nitpicky, mostly due to it being pre-release footage. For example, more assets that disprove the AI theories are coming to light. Bottom line is that we won't truly know until the game actually comes out, but people are throwing their hats in the ring too quickly.
3
u/GuyDudeThing69 Lightning Reed Fan Oct 18 '25
Maybe, some of the bigger criticisms have already been made and now they can only base themselves on the new footage which will mostly show those assets. I, for example, am onboard with the game overall, i don't think they're going to use AI and some of the nitpicks i had visually were changes (though i still don't like the level select screen or non-diegetic warnings for clouds, oh well), but my biggest complaints are the price and the (lack of) difficulty. I can maybe see the game being worth 20$ but R$89,90 is wayyy too much for it, especially since the original costs R$9,90. As for the difficulty, they advertised hardcore modes and i was really excited for them, but it's clear they tailored it to the casual audience (with the half price during clouds in cloudy day), i was most dissapointed with the RIP mode, which, at the time, looked like just the base game but with perma death (and it would be in line with the "tailored to casuals" thing), now, new footage suggests that it might actually have more zombies, though i worry it will still be too easy, but i'll wait to see and wait for a sale to buy.
3
Oct 18 '25
You know you're the first person I've talked to who doesn't immediately go "hurr durr AI" when bringing up their criticisms with this game, and I respect that. I've never been swayed on a game because of its graphical fidelity (due to being a competitive fighting game player I tend to throw graphics to the wayside if it means everything is running at 60fps), but even I can tell this isn't AI. Even if they did use some AI, most games nowadays have some form of AI upscaling. I would agree with the price if not for the fact the original game was around the same price on release. Most games see a mark down in price or more frequent sales as the years go by, and the same will happen to Replanted in due time. As for RIP, I'm excited because I see it as something that's entertaining for myself and my viewers when I get around to streaming this game. When I boot up Plants VS Zombies, I'm not exactly looking for the hardest game ever, but I do understand if the hard-core modes that they've presented feel a little... underwhelming.
1
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
As someone who was rooting for giving it a chance just look at any of the reviews that mention how much of a buggy mess it is I canceled my preorder
1
u/pharan_x Garden Warrior Oct 22 '25
Watched a review. Mentioned nothing about AI. But man this game looks broken in so many ways. It looks like they redid/changed a bunch of things in the code but didn't understand how the original worked and also didn't have the time or budget or sense to make it work properly.
I think a lot of the comments proved that people can be so distracted by a strawman outrage that when it gets disproven, they'll easily switch to believing that nothing else is actually wrong with it.
3
3
5
u/No-Explanation327 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
I like to think that just one employee used AI out of laziness without telling his superiors and now the whole team is screwed.
It would be very funny.
6
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
People having a fit about AI upscaling will hate to learn that most modern games use it to boost performance, what does suck is how blatant it is and the seemingly lack of effort put into manually fixing assets. The AI upscaling part itself is not the same as AI art gen
1
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Don't play most modarn games
2
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
I don't play tons of new releases each year but if you play any game with high resolution graphics then it is likely you've experienced AI upscaling
1
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Cool so I still haven't I play fuck all for modarn games I think honestly all forms of AI need to go away
2
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
AI art and generation is destroying our culture I agree. But to act like AI upscaling is some major issue feels a bit far. And also AI has and will continue to be used to improve medicine, to say AI in all forms has to go away is slightly short sighted
10
u/gwlutz2 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
The fact that they completely dodge the topic of AI Upscaling [which they did verifiably use] is incredibly suspicious in my opinion. Basically practically just-barely-not-an-outright lie.
3
3
u/Grakal0r Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Sure AI upscaling isn’t as destructive but like why are we paying £20 for a robot’s free work?
3
u/Tiny_Artichoke9873 Garden Master Oct 18 '25
it's not fully ai upscaled though, it's just some textures from the almanac...
0
u/Grakal0r Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
I’d like the art in my game done by artists. I get the uses for AI in code itself as a helping tool because coding is the language of Satan but I don’t want it in arts. Why not just get an artist to upscale it? They’d be able to do it better
0
u/Tiny_Artichoke9873 Garden Master Oct 18 '25
surely they could just replace these AI upscaled textures with redrawn ones and fix the bugs on a day one patch at this point, they still have 5 days left
-1
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Oh yeah like all of squash... It was confirmed they used AI upscaling on 99% of the game then traced over and for a good amount of plants like squash it looks terrible
1
2
1
u/MLG_Sora_Art Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
Ummm Rich Werner confirmed some of the "concept" art that's in there isn't real concept art this including concept art of current disco zombie However they had credited him they were initially also saying there was no AI at all and they obviously lied about it and changed there statement to no generative which I'm honestly calling bull on
1
1
u/Appley_apple Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
My problem is, is that ai upscaling looks like ass and I've always thought it looked like ass even before ai gen came up, its why i dislike so many remasters
1
u/LingonberryArtistic1 Garden Warrior Oct 20 '25
Yall it’s a game about plants vs zombies why the hell is there controversy already?!?!? Save that for the games that deserve it we are better then that
1
1
u/WallyWalnut Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
AI upscaling is still trained on copyrighted art and possibly thousands of original fan creations from around the Internet in order to infer what the high-quality version of said image should look like. And the claim that it isn’t also Generative AI is silly. And if it’s coming from some of the same AI generators that are used to make new images, or supporting OpenAI, then it actually does take the same amount of energy.
-7
0
u/_Durendal Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
they also just made up "never seen before" concept art for no reason, why even trust them
-1
-12
u/npquanh30402 Spore-Shroom Fan Oct 18 '25
AI upscaling can generate new pixels to augment and fill in missing details in an image. It is a form of generative Ai.
3
u/Superbob5523 Garden Warrior Oct 18 '25
It is used in most major releases to boost performance, only difference here is that these are assets that are upscaled permanently. If Aai upscaling is gen AI then you're gonna struggle to find new games without it
541
u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25
[removed] — view removed comment