Infect, Pandemic, Endless
Game Modes
Infect Game Mode is the heart of it. Pandemic Game Mode takes your virus around a living world map. Endless Game Mode asks how long you can last. Plus the Codex, controls, settings and sound.
Infect Game Mode
Infect a host, organ by organ
Start in the nose and fight through eight organs to the Brain, one boss at a time. It's the only Game Mode that earns XP and adds generations to your lineage. How deep you get here opens up the rest of the game.
- New organs: Your first visit shows a card listing what just opened, like gear tiers and a new starting point.
- Deeper starts: Begin in any organ you've reached, with a trait draft to catch up.
- Run summary: See what the run earned, then compare and equip new gear on the spot.
- Next generation: Pick a strain for your next generation after every finished run.
- Total Infection: Beat the Brain's boss and every organ lights up.
Between runs
A menu that grows with you
A new player sees a single button, and features appear one teaser at a time as you play. The main menu puts the Game Modes on one side and upgrades on the other, with your virus and its Family Tree a tap away. Daily, weekly and milestone challenges give you something to aim for between runs. Keep several games side by side in their own save files, each with its own name, progress and pet virus.
- Teasers: Upcoming features show as coming soon, then get a NEW tag when they open.
- Drops guide: Tap any resource, anywhere, to see where it comes from.
- Daily and weekly: Fresh challenges every day and every week, from easy up to elite.
- Milestones: Long challenge chains, and organ milestones pay bonus skill points.
- Rewards: Challenges pay nucleotides, materials, gear, XP and skill points.
Pandemic Game Mode
Infect the whole world
Pick a city on a living world map and infect one person per run until it falls. Continents open as your lineage grows in Infect Game Mode, and each run is a single organ matched to how deep you've been. Your lineage's inherited bonuses come with you. Take a whole continent for a gear set found nowhere else, then go for the world.
- One person per run: Every successful run infects one more person in the city.
- Failed runs: Nobody gets infected, but you keep the rewards you earned.
- One continent at a time: Starting a city commits you to its continent until every city there falls.
- Difficulty and resistance: A badge on the map, every city and the pause menu shows your difficulty level, and each city and continent you take makes the world tougher.
- RNA: This is the only Game Mode where it drops, for advanced lab upgrades and respecs.
Cities fight back
Every city fights back differently
Each city's responses switch on as its infection grows, and some stay for good after it falls. Politicians may help you, doctors mostly won't, and ordinary people react in their own ways. Continents and the whole world respond too, and everything stacks.
At a glance
- Six per city: A standing policy, responses as the infection rises, and an aftermath.
- Hidden until live: Before a response kicks in, you only see its kind and when it starts.
- Response speed: Some cities react fast and others slowly.
- Weather: Rain, snow, fog and night change how you see, move and shoot in ten cities.
- History: Each city's Codex entry tells of a real outbreak or event from its past.
Endless Game Mode
How long can you last?
Fight set after set of waves in one huge arena, set in the deepest organ your virus has reached. Each set rolls new boons and curses, raises fresh cover walls and gets harder, with a boss every few sets. It stands apart from your lineage and the Codex, and it's the only place Ribozyme Cores drop, letting you enhance gear further.
- Opening draft: Every run starts by drafting traits from a pool.
- Every set: A rules card, then the waves, then loot and a trait to pick.
- Boss sets: Any reached organ's boss, never twice running, at least as tough as your deepest organ's boss; earlier ones attack faster.
- Rising stakes: More curses pile on as the sets climb, and cells never give up the chase.
- Difficulty and record: The arena card and the pause menu show its difficulty level, and each organ's arena keeps its own best set.
The Codex
A field guide you fill in
The Codex is a real-science encyclopedia of viruses, immune cells, medicines, molecules and real outbreaks. It opens after your first finished run, and most entries start as a silhouette with a hint until you meet them in play. Each one then shows the real biology, a fun fact and its role in the game.
- Hints: Locked entries give a clue about where to find them.
- Discovered in play: Meeting a cell, room, hazard or system for the first time unlocks its entry.
- Game mechanics: Their own entries explain how each system works, from Detection to Pandemic responses.
- Completion: Each category counts what you've found and turns mint green when it's complete.
- Real history: Each Pandemic Game Mode city has an entry about a real event there.
Play your way
Touch, controller or keyboard
Steer with one thumb, pick up a controller at any time, even mid-run, or play with keyboard and mouse. Menus work without touching the screen, controller buttons can be remapped and the game respects Reduce Motion. Every sound and note is synthesized from code, and the music shifts with the fight.
At a glance
- Controllers: Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro and MFi pads, with matching button icons.
- Remapping: Give each run action any controller button you like, right from Settings.
- Sound effects: A synthesized sound for everything that happens, from each shot to a boss falling.
- Languages: Play in English, Spanish or German, or follow your device.
- Adaptive music: Each organ has its own theme, with layers that build as fights heat up.