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Plague Inc. has what is quite possibly the most appalling premise in videogame history: Create a disease that will wipe out the human race. After selecting a region to begin, you guide the evolution of what is initially a perfectly harmless microorganisms by evolving it to develop new symptoms, new transmission vectors, and other unpleasant traits like antibiotic resistance. This is done using points earned as your disease spreads, leaving you to make all sorts of incredibly macabre strategic decisions as the game progresses. Do you want to become transmissible by livestock to spread faster through rural areas, or rodents in urban areas? Is pulmonary fibrosis worth the point cost right now, or would causing insanity or anemia or tissue necrosis be more effective in your current situation?
Once humans become aware of you, they’ll start researching a cure. (One of the disturbing things about Plague Inc. is the moment when you’ve been playing it for a while and realize you’ve started thinking about the human race as “them.”) Then it’s a race. The faster you kill people or cause debilitating symptoms, the more humans will do to stop you, but once the damage you’ve done to a country is severe enough their ability to contribute to the global search for a cure will deteriorate as their society breaks down. Meanwhile, humans have other countermeasures. As the game progresses, more and more countries will start closing their ports and airports, sealing their borders entirely, exterminating entire species of animal that carry the infection, and many other things.
You have access to a tremendous amount of information, with country by country stats on infections, fatalities, public health measures, wealth, and level of social breakdown.. The fairly limited graphics are a benefit rather than hindrance, giving things a coldly clinical feel. The atmosphere is tremendous, as the world map turns redder and the headlines in the news crawl gradually change from celebrity fluff to “Brazil has closed its airports” to “China using Mass graves” or “United States lifts safeguards on human experimentation.”
Most importantly, it’s a lot of fun. Even if it probably shouldn’t be.
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