29 Jan 2020
Plague Inc. is a game that’s eight years old now, but like any medical problem worth its DNA it refuses to be eradicated. There’s a very serious health crisis going on in China right now as they struggle with an outbreak of Coronavirus (a large family of related viruses, like the common cold, as opposed to a single disease).
Meanwhile, the residents of the US, Japan, UK, Australia, Germany, Canada, France, Italy, China, Russia, South Korea, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, and Sweden have all decided that the best way to cope with this is to go and buy Ndemic Creations’ plague simulator.
The Plague Inc. app has rocketed back to the top of the iOS paid charts in these fifteen countries. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t doing similarly well on Android although the business model is a little different. There it’s free-to-play, with the option of paying for a ‘premium’ version that enables some quality of life features and you can also purchase various DLC bits.
There are so many people playing Plague Inc. at the moment across PC and mobile, that the studio’s official website was taken offline for a short spell (although it’s back online now). The company also put out an official statement, reminding people that this was a game and not an accurate scientific modelling tool:
We specifically designed the game to be realistic and informative, while not sensationalising serious real-world issues. This has been recognised by the CDC and other leading medical organisations around the world.
However, please remember that Plague Inc. is a game, not a scientific model and that the current coronavirus outbreak is a very real situation which is impacting a huge number of people. We would always recommend that players get their information directly from local and global health authorities.
Are you playing Plague Inc. again (or for the first time) at the moment? Let us know in the comments!