Unlock schedule
Features, Modes & Viruses
The main menu starts with just Infect a Host and grows one feature at a time, showing only the next locked one as a teaser and tagging new ones NEW. Level and lineage milestones also widen what runs can offer.
Both menus open once you finish your first run.
Your virus's experience and the skills it buys.
Fun fact: Switching to another capstone in the same tree is free: its point moves over.
Levels & Skill Tree in the Codex
The Shift (signature ability) button appears after your first finished run.
Your three special buttons on the right.
Fun fact: Save the ultimate for bosses and big waves.
Signature, Ultimate & Skill in the Codex
Opens after your first run if you found gear, otherwise after your second.
Equipment for 6 slots: capsid, envelope, matrix, tail fibers, spike and the Viral Genome.
Fun fact: Combining is the only way to get gear a tier above what drops in your furthest organ.
Gear in the CodexThe ultimate button appears after your second finished run.
Your three special buttons on the right.
Fun fact: Save the ultimate for bosses and big waves.
Signature, Ultimate & Skill in the Codex
Burning, poison, chill and shock traits can be offered in runs.
Lasting effects your shots and bursts put on cells.
Fun fact: A cell glows in the colour of what's affecting it.
Status Effects in the Codex
The permanent upgrade lab opens.
Permanent upgrades. The core ones are shared by every virus; ability and ultimate ones belong to one virus.
Fun fact: Pick an upgrade to see every level and milestone.
Petri Lab in the Codex
The Challenges and Store menus open.
Goals that pay rewards.
Fun fact: Collect finished challenges from the menu; during a run you can only view them.
Challenges in the Codex
Skip ahead to any organ you've already reached, drafting 6 head-start traits however deep you start.
Beginning a run in an organ you've already reached.
Fun fact: Starting deeper is faster, but you miss the earlier organs' loot and traits.
Starting Deeper in the Codex
Bursting, chaining, bouncing, returning and orbiting shots join the trait pool.
Bonus effects when two shot-changing traits work together.
Fun fact: A trait card shows the synergy it would unlock before you pick it.
Synergies in the Codex
Mutations that turn your lineage into Retrovirus can be offered.
A fictional retrovirus inspired by HIV: it infects the immune system's own CD4 T cells and macrophages and slowly wears it down.
Fun fact: HIV copies its RNA genome into DNA and stitches it into the host's chromosomes, so infected cells carry it for life.
Retrovirus in the Codex
Story mode: infect the world city by city; more of the map opens as you level up.
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.
Pandemic Game Mode Responses in the Codex
Lineage offers can include mixed boon/curse strains.
What your virus passes on to the next generation.
Fun fact: Inheriting the same strain again stacks it and makes it stronger.
Strains & Lineage in the Codex
Endless waves in the deepest organ you've reached.
One huge arena, set after set, until you fall.
Fun fact: Endless Game Mode runs don't count toward your lineage or the Codex.
Endless Game Mode in the Codex
Traits can roll purple (Epic) tier; before this they top out at Rare.
Mutations you gain during a run.
Fun fact: Picking the same trait again stacks it.
Traits in the Codex
Craft and load one-run modifiers with trade-offs, mechanics and combos.
Consumables crafted between runs that change the next run.
Fun fact: A loaded modifier stays loaded until you run out of it.
Run Modifiers in the Codex
Mutations that turn your lineage into Halovirus can be offered.
A fictional virus crowned with a halo of spike proteins that bind receptors on cells in the airways. It spreads before symptoms show, or with none at all.
Fun fact: Real viruses with a crown of spikes are called coronaviruses, from the Latin for crown; the 2003 SARS outbreak was caused by one.
Halovirus in the CodexLineage offers can include curses that pay out bigger rewards.
What your virus passes on to the next generation.
Fun fact: Inheriting the same strain again stacks it and makes it stronger.
Strains & Lineage in the Codex
Stolen Membrane shields, Glycan Armor and the Incubation Period extra life join the trait pool.
Extra health bars that soak damage before a cell's health.
Fun fact: Match your damage to the defence: electric for shields, explosive for armor.
Shields, Armor & Damage Types in the Codex
The strongest boons can be offered.
Gene duplication gives a virus a spare copy of a gene that can take on a new job.
Twin Genome in the CodexTraits can roll orange and red tier, up to Prismatic.
Mutations you gain during a run.
Fun fact: Picking the same trait again stacks it.
Traits in the Codex
Mutations that turn your lineage into Filovirus can be offered.
A fictional filovirus inspired by Ebola: a long thread-like virion, often curled into a 'shepherd's crook'. Real filoviruses cause fever, bleeding and organ failure; some Ebola outbreaks have killed up to 90% of those infected.
Fun fact: Ebola was discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the DR Congo. The 2014–16 West Africa epidemic infected over 28,000 people.
Filovirus in the CodexPandemic Game Mode continents open by best level and finished generations.
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.
Pandemic Game Mode Responses in the Codex
