Plague Inc. Review (Android, iOS & PC)

Plague Inc. asks a simple, albeit somewhat disturbing question: How would you exterminate the human race? Would you spread disease through air traffic, or would you pollute the oceans to maximize the spread? Or, would you sit and wait from afar, observe the core strands of a sleeper cell and take calculated measures to enhance its effectiveness before unleashing it to a specific location? When it comes to Plague Inc., you don’t just sit on an idea; you incubate it—finesse it, even—and utilize the power of intricate molecule mapping to ensure that whatever catastrophic disease you foster can eradicate all known human embryos. It isn’t about controlling a small portion of the globe; it’s about dismantling the hierarchy and abolishing all hopes of the planet ever finding a cure that can swiftly remediate the suffering and restore peace and stability before it shrouds the four corners of the earth.

It begins with a single location—a country, a city, and a small gateway that has the potential to unshackle an enclosed virus and spread it far and wide. A cough; a slither of fatigue; and a headache. A strand slowly shifts into formation, and you, being at the epicenter of it all, begin to enhance the side effects until it finds its way into the skies, the ocean, and the waterworks. But then, a laboratory begins to unearth a cure that can reverse the tide and eradicate the virus. A race begins, and it falls to you to annihilate mankind before the scientists stumble upon a eureka moment.

In what feels like the longest thirty minutes of your life, Plague Inc. forces you to adapt, overcome, and strategically conquer the world with as little as a suite—a cortex of nodes, side effects, and modes of spreading disease across the channels. From the onset of your journey, you have access to a select number of side effects—a simple chest infection, or an irritable stomach cramp, for example. However, as you begin to carve out your virus, you begin to earn points—a currency with which you can use to tweak your strand and elevate side effects into devastating problems. With the virus in hand and enough symptoms to abolish humanity, you slowly start to expand and tap into carrier opportunities—the ocean, the skies, and the pipelines. An irreversible pandemic is born, and it suddenly falls to you to witness its evolution as the world desperately struggles to secure a vaccine before the population declines to a pittance.

Plague Inc. is a pretty dark game I’ll admit. But, it’s also a surprisingly good strategy game that has a lot of depth to it. Although condensed and crammed into a simple suite with interwoven nodes and tiers, it has a lot of options for you to experiment with, with vast cities to anchor your virus infrastructure to, dozens of side effects to branch out to, and an entire network of traversal nodes to control and manipulate. Moreover, it features a treasure trove of game modes to explore, with each mode offering unique challenges, difficulty spikes, and countermeasures to combat.

While I wouldn’t say that Plague Inc. is an easy game to master, it is one that feels surprisingly simple to learn on the fly. With only a handful of controls to learn and an interface that’s easy to navigate, you don’t need to spend a lot of time learning the ropes in order to wreak havoc on a global scale. It does require a lot of planning and preparation, as does it require a firm foothold on the monopoly and a strong eye for simultaneous development I’ll admit. That said, once you begin to mold your virus and make headway on your journey, it can become awfully satisfying to work through, especially when cities begin to fall and the final fragments of humanity begin to lose faith in their ability to counter the threat. It isn’t always easy to reach such a climax, but when the cards do fall in your favor, Plague Inc. immediately becomes a great treat for your inner demons and an ideal tool for scratching that fledgling sadist buried deep within your heart. When the odds are against you, however, it often feels like a headache that you can’t quite shake. But that’s a pandemic for you — it isn’t a picnic.

Aside from the occasional in-game transaction and frequent paywall problem, Plague Inc. has a great deal to offer, with a long-lasting gameplay loop that can keep you ironing out the formula time and time again across various unique scenarios. With a good amount of replay value and a hundred or more possible synergies to fool around with, you essentially have an evergreen experience that can keep you invested for the long haul, more so given the fact that the game itself continues to evolve with each passing season with vast updates and expansions.

Verdict

Plague Inc. knuckles in on your insatiable desire for global catastrophe in a pocket-sized pandemic-based minesweeping venture where every side effect carries dire consequences and every decision culminates in unfavorable conditions for humankind. Although still without the gargantuan suite of a full-fledged game, this neatly constructed outbreak sim brings more than enough excitement and tense encounters to wax your inner tyrant for a handful of hours. The only thing that dampens the experience, really, is its in-game transactions and paywall infrastructure. But that’s a mobile game for you, I guess — you can’t win ‘em all.

To cut a long story short, if you enjoy pandemic games and the general concept of being able to wreak total havoc across the global economy as a sly curator of brash diseases, then consider this as your lucky break. It’s cruel, vicious, and above all, devilishly good. The paywall might be a bit of an issue, but if you can look past it, then there shouldn’t be anything stopping you from tilting the world on its axis and eradicating the human species for days, weeks, even months. Swings and roundabouts, you know how it is.