Is Playrix Testing Gardenscapes Without Gardens?

Gardenscapes loading screen showing Austin and Rachel beside a crashed plane on a tropical island during the new Expedition-first onboarding.

A brand-new Gardenscapes account can now start with no mansion, no garden, no Stars, and none of the familiar restoration gameplay. Instead of meeting Austin as the butler of a run-down estate, the game opens with a crashed plane in a tropical setting, Austin standing outside it with Rachel, and an Expedition that immediately becomes the main story.

The strange part is not just that an Expedition shows up unusually early. The entire reason for playing match-3 levels has changed. On this account, beating levels does not earn Stars for garden tasks. Instead, levels give you Energy so you can keep exploring. We already know that different players can get different versions of the Gardenscapes experience, but this time the test appears to reach all the way back to the first minutes of the game.

This Does Not Feel Like the Gardenscapes New Players Used to Get

The usual mansion opening never happens. There is no neglected garden waiting to be cleaned up. Austin does not introduce himself as the butler and walk the player through the first restoration jobs. There is no task list full of garden work, and there are no decorating choices.

Instead, the player is dropped straight onto an exploration map. There is an Energy bar, fog covering unexplored areas, obstacles that cost Energy to clear, and a chain of story objectives. The opening revolves around a damaged plane, with Austin and Rachel outside the wreck in a tropical location.

And this is happening while the account is still at the very beginning of the game.

There Are No Stars

For long-time Gardenscapes players, this is probably the biggest change of all.

The traditional system is simple: beat a match-3 level, earn a Star, spend that Star on a garden task, and move the story forward.

That system is missing here.

When Level 2 is completed in the video, the player gets Energy instead of a Star. The game then sends the player back to the Expedition, where that Energy is used to keep moving through the map.

The classic Gardenscapes loop looked like this:

Level → Star → Garden task → restoration → story.

On this account, it looks like this:

Level → Energy → exploration → Expedition objective → next level.

That is much more than a different reward screen. It changes the basic answer to one of the most important questions in any game: why should I play the next level?

What Happened to Garden Days and Their Rewards?

This also creates a problem with another part of classic Gardenscapes: Garden Days.

Players normally work through a series of tasks during each day, and finishing those days can bring extra rewards such as coins, boosters, and unlimited lives. Restoring areas of the garden also creates additional progression and rewards.

But this new account does not have Garden Days at all.

There are no Stars to spend, no list of restoration tasks to complete, and no garden area to finish. That means those familiar early-game rewards are simply not part of this version of the opening.

There is no evidence that Playrix has removed Garden Day rewards from regular Gardenscapes accounts. They still exist in the normal game and are still referenced in Playrix's support material. The difference is that this new account has not been given access to the system that produces them.

And Where Did the Decorating Go?

Decorating is missing too.

There are no choices between different benches, fountains, paths, plants, or other designs. There is no restoration sequence at all because there is no garden to restore.

That matters because decorating was never just a small side activity. It was one of the main things that made Gardenscapes feel different from a standard match-3 game. You could beat a difficult level and immediately use the reward to change something in the world around Austin.

That sense of progress is completely different here. Winning a level does not change the garden. It gives you enough Energy to move a little farther across an Expedition map.

Even Playrix's Own Description of Expeditions Does Not Match What We Are Seeing

Playrix normally describes Expeditions as events that take place away from the garden. In the standard game, the garden already exists, the player enters the Expedition from the main interface, and the Expedition is clearly separate from normal garden progression.

Playrix Support has also listed Level 43 and completion of the “Bring the Puppy” task as requirements for normal Expedition access.

This account is nowhere near that point.

So this is not simply a normal Expedition that uses Energy for exploration. The Expedition system itself appears to have been moved into the onboarding, before the player has even been introduced to the mansion.

Which Expedition Is This With the Crashed Plane?

Another odd detail is that the new player is not given the kind of clear event introduction that experienced Gardenscapes players are used to seeing.

There are strong signs that the story may be connected to Smuggler Island, an Expedition that appeared in 2026. The release notes from that period described Smuggler Island as an adventure on a dangerous island involving the rescue of Balthazar.

Other new players have reported a very similar opening: a fresh account, a plane going down on an island, and no way to get to the regular garden. In those discussions, experienced players have identified the storyline as Smuggler Island.

Still, until the title appears directly on this account or Playrix confirms it, it is better to call this a possible adaptation of Smuggler Island rather than treat the identification as confirmed.

Watch the New Account From the Beginning

The video below was recorded on a brand-new account and shows the alternative opening directly, including the Expedition map, the Energy system, and the absence of the normal garden progression.

For This New Player, the Expedition Is Not an Event

This may be the most important part of the test.

An experienced player knows what an Expedition is. The garden is still there. The Expedition has its own icon. You go into it, play for a while, and return to the main game.

A brand-new player getting this version has no such reference point.

They have never seen the garden.

They have never earned a Star.

They have never completed a garden task.

They have never finished a Garden Day.

They have never picked a decoration.

From their point of view, the Expedition is Gardenscapes.

Other Player Reports Suggest This Is Not Just a Bug

From July through September 2026, several new players reported essentially the same thing: they installed Gardenscapes, were sent straight into an Expedition, and could not find the regular garden.

One especially interesting report came from a player who created several new accounts and found that only some of them received the Expedition-only opening. That does not prove an official A/B test, but it makes a random glitch much less convincing. It looks much more like different new accounts are being placed into different test groups.

Some players have also said that Playrix Support told them this alternative start was being rolled out to new players. Playrix has not published a public announcement naming the experiment, so those comments should still be treated as player reports rather than official confirmation.

What Is Playrix Actually Testing?

The most likely explanation is some kind of Expedition-first onboarding test. That is a descriptive label, not an official Playrix name.

Playrix may be comparing two very different ways to introduce Gardenscapes:

the traditional version with the mansion, Stars, Garden Days, restoration tasks, and decorating,
a new version built around Expeditions, Energy, exploration, and an adventure story from the first minute.

The company would not necessarily be testing which one players say they prefer. More likely, it would be looking at behavior: how many new players keep playing, how many levels they complete, how quickly they return, and which opening gets better early retention.

The Austin's Odyssey Connection Is Hard to Miss

There is another reason this version stands out.

Playrix already has a separate game called Austin's Odyssey.

Its official description puts Austin and Rachel in Expeditions and adventure locations. Players spend Energy to explore, and when that Energy runs out, they play match-3 levels to earn more.

That loop is:

Explore → run out of Energy → play match-3 → earn Energy → keep exploring.

That is almost exactly what is happening on this new Gardenscapes account.

There is no evidence that Playrix is merging the two games, and there is no evidence that every Gardenscapes account is about to become Austin's Odyssey. But the similarities are impossible to ignore.

Playrix already has a game where Austin and Rachel are primarily adventure characters and match-3 levels exist to fuel exploration. Now that same basic structure appears to be showing up at the very beginning of Gardenscapes.

Is Playrix Testing Gardenscapes Without Gardens?

That is the real question.

There is no sign that gardens are disappearing from every Gardenscapes account. Existing players still have Stars, garden progression, decorating, and Garden Days, and Playrix still officially presents restoration as a core part of the game.

But this test raises a much bigger question:

Can Playrix introduce a brand-new player to Gardenscapes without showing them a garden at all?

If this Expedition-first version keeps new players playing longer, the opening of Gardenscapes could eventually look very different from the one long-time players remember.

Will the Mansion Eventually Show Up?

This is now the most important thing to watch on this account.

Some players have reported that the regular garden appeared after they finished the first Expedition. Other reports suggest that the Expedition-only phase lasted longer, which may mean Playrix is testing more than one version of the system.

That makes this account especially useful to follow. The key questions are:

What level will the account be on when the first Expedition ends?
Will the mansion appear immediately afterward?
When will the first Star appear?
Will normal Garden Days begin at that point?
Will Garden Day rewards come back?
When will decorating become available?
And what happens to all the levels already completed without earning Stars?

If the mansion appears as soon as this story ends, then Playrix has effectively changed the progression loop that originally connected match-3 levels with the garden, adding an adventure phase before traditional Gardenscapes even begins.

If the account keeps going through dozens or hundreds of levels without ever seeing a garden, then this is a much bigger experiment.

Conclusion

The video documents a version of Gardenscapes where almost everything that used to define the beginning of the game is missing: the mansion, the garden, Stars, Garden Days, Garden Day rewards, restoration, and decorating.

What replaces all of that is a much simpler loop:

Beat levels to earn Energy, then spend that Energy to keep moving through an Expedition.

We still do not know whether this is a short onboarding test, one long introductory Expedition, or the first sign of a much bigger change in direction.

But we can already say that Playrix is testing something on at least some new accounts that would have sounded almost ridiculous a few years ago:

Gardenscapes without gardens.