Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time is a free-to-play game, unlike its predecessor, supporting in-app purchasing of coins in order to utilise certain power up abilities: Plant Food, a new power-up, allows plants to power up for varying amounts of time. Each plant has its own ability when given Plant Food. Players are able to complete the whole game without purchasing these abilities, some of which can be earned throughout the game instead of purchased. Players can optionally start with a tutorial on the basics of the game which takes place in the player's house. After the tutorial, or immediately if the player chose to skip it, the player time-travels first to Ancient Egypt and can use either purchase access to worlds or win in-game World Keys to unlock the Pirate Seas, Wild West, Far Future, the Dark Ages, and Big Wave Beach; this required stars in earlier updates. In addition, the Chinese version has an additional world called Kung-Fu World.[6] As players go through levels, they unlock new plants each with advantages and unique boosts.
The player receives a bottle of hot sauce which Crazy Dave, the players neighbor, adds to his taco. Crazy Dave is determined to eat exactly the same taco again, so he uses a sentient time machine in the form of an RV, called Penny, to travel back in time to have the taco again. Due to a malfunction, he arrives in Ancient Egypt. Worsening matters is the fact that the zombies, led by Dr. Zomboss, have returned, this time with the hope of creating an alternate timeline where zombies are the dominant species. The player must then defeat zombies there. Each chapter is 25 "days (nights for Dark Ages)" or levels long, with the exception of Dark Ages, which has only 20 levels and Big Wave Beach, with 32 levels, followed by Pirate Seas, Wild West, Far Future, and Dark Ages levels, Big Wave Beach which can be unlocked and completed in any order.
