Pick a city on the world map and infect its people one run at a time, while its politicians, doctors and citizens fight back. Take whole cities, then whole continents, then the world.
The story mode: infect the world city by city for rewards you can't get anywhere else.
Opens at Level 5 with any virus
Main menu button tagged “Collect: RNA”: the only Game Mode where RNA strands drop
RNA pays for every third Petri Lab level, unlocks the advanced upgrades and pays for skill tree respecs
8 continents, 38 cities, 189 people to infect in all
Runs here never grant XP or generations and carry no inherited strain, but your lineage's inherited bonuses count
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Continents open as your best virus levels up and grows its lineage in Infect Game Mode; every city opens with its continent.
North America: Level 2
Europe: Level 4 · Gen 3
Asia: Level 6 · Gen 6
Middle East: Level 7 · Gen 8
South America: Level 8 · Gen 10
Africa: Level 10 · Gen 14
Oceania: Level 12 · Gen 18
Antarctica: Level 15 · Gen 24
Locked places say what they need, e.g. “Opens at Level 6 · Gen 6 in Infect Game Mode”
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Each run drops you into one random organ and ends when its boss falls.
Always a single organ, picked at random from all 8
It plays like an Infect Game Mode run started at the deepest organ you've reached, whichever organ it lands in: as many rooms, cells and waves (hunter and siege squads too), the same room tiers and trait offers, and key guardians, bosses and their reinforcements just as strong
The organ itself only picks which cells, boss and hazards you meet; payouts, item levels and the best gear that can drop also follow your deepest organ, and global resistance and the responses in force come on top
Starts with a head start draft (6 of 20 traits) matched to your deepest organ
About 1 kill in 120 drops RNA; so do about 1 Killer T cell in 4, 2 bosses or tumor fights in 5 and 1 receptor puzzle in 6
Gear drops 84% less often than in Infect Game Mode and Chaperone Proteins 60% less often; every boss still drops a piece of its tier, but an ordinary one rather than its named set piece
A banner lists the city's responses in force at the start of every organ
From the Codex
Each organ is a map of connected rooms, different every run.
Fun fact: Bigger rooms hold more cells, spread around the whole room, and always fight in several waves.
Each organ is a difficulty level, from 1 (Nasal Passage) to 8 (Brain), and every city plays at your deepest organ in Infect Game Mode.
A DIFFICULTY badge sits on the world map, on every city's panel and in the pause menu
Tap it for the organ ladder, how much health and damage cells have compared with Difficulty 1, and the best gear that can drop
Global resistance adds +6% cell health per city taken and +12% per continent; cell damage rises 70% as fast
The same panel shows how Endless Game Mode climbs, so both modes can be compared
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Starting a city commits you to its continent: every other continent waits until every city there has fallen.
“You're in the middle of infecting … Take every city there first.”
On the map the current continent wears a biohazard, blocked ones a lock and fallen ones a seal
Any continent can still be zoomed in on and read
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Every city answers your spread with six responses that change every run you play there; continents and the world answer too.
Standing policy: always in place
Three political or medical responses at 25%, 50% and 75% of the city's infection gauge
A social response (how its people react) at 60%
An aftermath once the city falls, in force for every later run there
Continents: 3 responses as a quarter, half and three quarters of their cities fall
World: 3 responses once 1, 3 and 5 continents have fallen
They stack: a run in a fallen city carries its 6, its continent's 3 and the world's
255 responses in all: 228 from cities, 24 from continents, 3 from the world
Upcoming responses stay hidden: the panel shows only their kind and when they switch on
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Each place reacts at its own pace, bringing its 25/50/75% tiers and its social response forward or holding them back.
Very fast response: ×1.25 and up (Vancouver, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, Dubai, Sydney, Auckland, South Pole Station)
Fast response: ×1.05–×1.2 (London, Riyadh, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Perth, McMurdo Station)
Steady response: ×0.9–×1.0 (New York, Los Angeles, Madrid, Istanbul, Lima, Cairo, Nairobi, Esperanza Base)
Slow response: ×0.8–×0.85 (Mexico City, Nuuk, El Paso, Venice, Mumbai, Novosibirsk, Tehran, Vostok Station)
Very slow response: ×0.7–×0.75 (Moscow, Baghdad, São Paulo, Manaus, Lagos, Antananarivo, Port Moresby)
Example: Beijing (×1.4) switches its tiers on at 18%, 36% and 54%
The aftermath always needs the city taken, whatever its speed
Each city pin wears a speed badge: red for fast, orange for steady, green for slow
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Politicians can help or hurt the virus, doctors mostly hurt it, and the people react in their own way.
Political: 115 responses (88 good for the virus, 27 bad), e.g. Celebrity Denial in Los Angeles
Medical: 85 responses (4 good, 81 bad), e.g. Nightingale Hospitals in London
Social: 55 responses (41 good, 14 bad), e.g. Carnival Goes Ahead in São Paulo
Each kind has its own colour stripe and icon on its card
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Every response card carries a tag saying which part of the run it changes.
MAP (47): the organ itself, e.g. a Refuge in every organ, +3 rooms per organ, mucus flooding every organ
CELLS (75): the immune cells, e.g. hunter squads at 20/45/65 Detection, armored cells, Killer T packs sent at 70 Detection
BOSS (41): the boss fight, e.g. three shield phases, elite bodyguards, two bosses sharing the arena
TWIST (71): a rule of its own, e.g. weather, a host that never takes medicine, a dash that teleports through walls
STATS (21): a plain bonus or penalty, e.g. +30% damage or 1 HP/s regeneration
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Each response is either good for the virus (green, with a heart) or bad (orange, with a warning sign).
133 responses help the virus and 122 hurt it
A response that leans on a mechanic you haven't unlocked yet is greyed out with “Unlocks with …”
New responses wear a NEW tag until you've read them
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
A living map: tap a continent to zoom in, tap a city to see how it's responding, then infect it.
263 real cities glow as tiny dots; infection veins grow from each infected city to its nearest neighbours (2 at a quarter, 6 when full, 8 once fallen)
Route arcs join the cities in the order they fell; outbreak rings pulse
The night side starts where it really is right now, with city lights, then sweeps round the world every five minutes beside a UTC clock
Antarctica is shown from above the South Pole, under aurora ribbons
Drifting ocean swells, a twinkling star field and a latitude grid that zooms with the map
Header: a spinning globe, WORLD INFECTED % (tap to switch to the continent), global resistance and a fever thermometer
Nothing red ever appears on a continent nobody has infected
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Everything about a city on one card: who lives there, how fast it reacts, and what it's doing to you.
Name, country and a skyline strip with population, response speed and any weather in force
A 0–100% timeline with a diamond at every response's threshold and a skull for the aftermath; tap one to jump to it
“next: X% (N more people)”
Sections: IN PLACE NOW, ACROSS the continent, WORLDWIDE and AS THE INFECTION SPREADS
Start infection, or Infect again once it has fallen
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
A marquee along the bottom of the map lists every response in force, newest first.
World responses first, then cities still being infected, then fallen ones
Up to 40 headlines; unread ones in yellow
Tap to pause it, tap the paused headline to open its city
A briefing sting plays when there's unread news
“No outbreaks reported yet” before your first infection
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
A ring split into one segment per person, turning red as they're infected
A speed badge, a crown once the city has fallen, and a yellow dot for unread responses
A state chip: FALLEN, LOCKED, SPREADING, or the next response's threshold
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
The run ends on the city's continent: its people flip red one by one, new responses flip in, and fallen cities get stamped.
Headlines: PERSON INFECTED, INFECTION FAILED, <CITY> HAS FALLEN, <CONTINENT> INFECTED or THE WORLD IS INFECTED
“N of M people infected”
NOW IN FORCE and CITY FALLEN cards for every response that just switched on
A FALLEN stamp when the city falls; the continent's set pieces appear one by one when it does
Reward chips, and a strip of icons for what changes next run
Back to the world map to pick the next city
From the Codex
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Hosts in each city are locals with names from that city, and the animals on its streets are the ones that really live there.
8 local first names per city (6 at Vostok, Esperanza and the South Pole)
7 animals live only around Pandemic cities: Dromedary Camel (Cairo, Riyadh, Dubai), Kangaroo (Perth), Macaque (Mumbai, Singapore), Capuchin Monkey (Manaus), Llama (Lima), Ring-Tailed Lemur (Antananarivo), Reindeer (Nuuk)
Penguins and seals at McMurdo and Esperanza; no animals at Vostok or the South Pole
Some responses add animals (Nairobi's cows, chickens and pigs) or clear them away (Beijing)
From the Codex
Dromedary camels are the reservoir of MERS coronavirus. Since 2012 it has passed from camels to people, mostly in the Arabian Peninsula, through close contact and raw camel milk, and killed about a third of known cases.
Fun fact: Most camels in the region carry MERS antibodies, so the virus has circulated in them for decades.
