Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time has been a monumental success for PopCap Interactive, despite launching so many months ago and Garden Warfare having recently released for home consoles. PopCap is still updating the game with extra content, adding a whole new Far Future update to the mobile tower defense game.

This includes new futuristic worlds, new levels, plants, zombies and much more are on offer, providing hours of new gameplay for free. PopCap promises more content in the coming months and it’ll certainly be interesting to see how the game further evolves, micro-transactions and all.

The Far Future update is available now for Plants vs. Zombies 2 for iOS and Android. Have you had a chance to play it yet and how are you finding the experience thus far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Stay tuned for more updates to the game in the coming months as PopCap adds more content.

If you’ve played Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time, then you’re no doubt part of a small contingent that agrees to the game’s greatness despite the in-app purchases. In fact, despite initial criticisms, PvZ2 offered a refreshingly un-EA like way to handle micro-transactions.

At least, before the latest update. According to a user on Reddit, the newest update allows you buy lawnmowers after they’ve been used. You can buy them within the game using currency which can be obtained by either completing missions or dropping some real cash for the same. Given that the lawnmowers are the last line of defense for missions, they come across as essential. But no biggie because the game is fairly generous with its currency, right?

Apparently not. Now, not only can you retry Pinata events for coins, but if you do there won’t be any lawnmowers. You’ll need to buy them back. Which is again not a big deal since you can do this in the main story missions, right?

Apparently not (again). Now, no matter which mission you select, you won’t have any lawnmowers. You’ll only have the option of buying the same. EA has essentially removed what was a default mechanic for the game and is now charging you for the privilege of using it.

Is it a bug or a really crazy way to scam customers out of their cash? Did PopCap and EA really intend for lawnmowers to be removed by default and requiring their purchase at the start of every mission? It’s definitely worth investigating, especially since EA’s credibility has hit rock bottom following the release of Dungeon Keeper on mobiles. Other users have been experiencing the same but some report vastly different results.

Have you been seeing this issue in the game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

“In terms of the game content itself, and the things that you can buy, [the iOS and Android versions are] at parity. Which is nice for us.” Even the original Plants Vs. Zombies took a while to release for Android compared to iOS. “It took us a while to get caught up — to get [Plants vs. Zombies] caught up — from an Android standpoint to where the iOS build was. In fact, we only got there, like, earlier this year.

“Going forward, you’ll see much closer parity between [iOS and Android].” So Android users won’t have to wait so long to get their hands on the next iteration of PvZ when it eventually sees the light of day.

CEO Dave Roberts stated to Geekwire that, “It’s a big release. It is the biggest release for PopCap. So far so good. The numbers are looking awesome, and the Apple promo hasn’t event kicked in yet. The fact that we hit number one in the app store charts, based purely on – I mean there’s nothing, seriously. I don’t think anyone at EA has seen anything go up that fast to the top downloads.

“By 6AM this morning, it was already at number one. Literally, between 5AM and 6AM. My guess, by lunch today, we will have hit the same number of downloads that it took us five months to hit in the first version. It probably took us close to a year to hit that number on the PC.”

Plants vs. Zombies 2 released last week for iOS, and courted some controversy for its new free to play model. Check out our review here.