Disease-bearing viruses are spreading unchecked across the globe, and now it's up to you and the other pandemic experts to contain them again. Use your unique abilities to find the cures and treat the worst-infected hotspots before the situation spirals out of control. Only by working together can you solve this nearly impossible task. Can you save humanity before it's too late?

In this video, you can learn more about how to play Pandemic.

Game designer Matt Leacock was eventually tired of board game nights with his wife, which often ended up being more stressful than cozy. Therefore, he began to develop a game that was not competitive, but instead could get them to cooperate. This led to the award-winning game Pandemic, which was released in 2008. Pandemic is based on the SARS outbreak in 2002-2004, but has never been more relevant than now after the Corona pandemic. Pandemic is considered the most successful game in the co-op genre. Pandemic has, among other things, received a Guldbrikken award in 2015.

Together we stand strongest

Pandemic is a cooperative strategy game where players – unlike in many other games – do not fight against each other, but work together against the game itself. If the players do not cooperate, they will undoubtedly lose the battle against the many virus-borne diseases that have broken out. You win together... and you lose together.

In each round, players can use up to four different actions to move between the different cities, treat disease-stricken populations, discover cures, or build research stations.

Each Pandemic player takes on a specific role among the team of pandemic experts, who must save humanity from doom. This means that players have unique abilities linked to that role, and it provides a cool and different dynamic when fighting the diseases.

The roles you can take on are "Dispatcher", "Medic", "Scientist", "Researcher", "Operations Expert", "Contingency Planner", or "Quarantine Expert". For example, the "Operations Expert" can build research stations, which are needed to discover the cures for the diseases, while "The Scientist" can manage with only four cards instead of the normal five to remove the disease. All roles have their own advantages.

Expansions, spinoffs, and standalones

Pandemic's great reception and popularity have over time led to a plethora of expansions to the original base game as well as spinoffs and standalone games.

Expansions

The expansions Pandemic: On the Brink, Pandemic: In the Lab and Pandemic: State of Emergency add new roles and special events and allow for more (or fewer!) players. With these expansions, you can breathe new life into your Pandemic base game.

Pandemic Legacy

Pandemic Legacy is the popular spinoff series, which so far includes three games: Season 1 Blue or Season 1 Red, Season 2 Yellow or Season 2 Black and Season 0. These games are campaign-based, meaning you follow a fixed storyline, which is influenced by all the choices you make. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 has previously been ranked second on BoardGameGeek, where it stood out among approximately 22,000 other games. That's quite an achievement.

Standalones

Here is a list of some of the different standalones:

• Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu
• Pandemic: Rising Tide
• Pandemic: Fall of Rome
• Pandemic: Hot Zone - North America
• Pandemic: Hot Zone - Europe
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - A Pandemic System Game
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars - A Pandemic System Game