Plague Inc.: The Board Game

About this board game

Plague Inc.: The Board Game is a strategic game of infection, evolution, and extinction for 1–4 players, with games lasting around 60 minutes. A fifth player can join with the 5th player expansion.

Each player controls a deadly disease competing to spread across the world, develop new symptoms, and ultimately wipe out humanity. Begin with Patient Zero, then place infection tokens in cities to earn DNA points and prevent rival plagues from becoming dominant.

To infect a country, your disease must be climate resistant and connected to a country already within reach. As countries become fully infected, use the Death Dice to try to kill them. The changing map creates constant opportunities and forces you to react to the actions of other players.

• Spread your infection: Place tokens in cities and expand through connected countries.
• Evolve your pathogen: Spend DNA points to add trait cards to your evolution slide.
• Exploit symptoms: Use abilities such as nosebleed, diarrhea, sneezing, and Total Organ Failure to adapt and spread.
• Change the balance of power: Play event cards to disrupt opponents and reshape the world.

Your disease starts weak and unspecialised, so choosing the right upgrades is essential. Diarrhea can help a plague thrive in hot countries, while sneezing can carry infection to new continents. More powerful traits, such as Total Organ Failure, can allow multiple countries to be wiped out in a single turn.

As humanity collapses, event cards offer dramatic ways to interfere with competing diseases. Bomb diseased cities to target a dominant player, or hold the Olympics to send huge numbers of infected people travelling to a healthy continent. In Plague Inc.: The Board Game, only one plague can become the ultimate threat.