Plague Inc DLC is free until the real-life pandemic is over

You can get a free expansion pack for Plague Inc Evolved, but the promotion will only last until the Covid-19 pandemic is “under control”.

The Cure DLC pack for Plague Inc Evolved is now available, and “free for all Plague Inc. players until COVID-19 is under control.” We don’t exactly know when this will be, but we’d advise you to head over to Steam now and download the hit game’s “biggest expansion ever” while it’s still freely accessible, as you don’t want to be the only person in the world who bemoans the end of a fatal pandemic.

Pro-level lockdowners might have escaped to the gentle pastures of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in their downtime, but Plague Inc Evolved has become a popular choice among masochistic gamers keen to relive the real-life experience through a virtual simulation.

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The original strategy game allows you to create your own pathogen with the goal of spreading it as widely as possible throughout the globe, wreaking havoc upon the helpless humans in its path (unless they’re lucky enough to live in Greenland). Ensuring that the virus, bacteria, or parasite spreads effectively enough to reach all four corners of the globe whilst being hard to detect (and avoiding triggering transport lockdowns in affected countries), is a delicate balancing act that’s very tricky to master.

The new DLC, ‘The Cure’, tackles this all-too familiar chain events from the other side; now you’ll have to save the world from a pandemic, rather than inflicting it, by mandating facemasks, rolling out widespread testing and issuing country-wide lockdowns. But don’t forget: you can’t allow your economy to collapse, and you will have to win over the support of your citizens so that they comply with your extreme public health measures.

This addition to the original game was “created with the help of world health experts from all over the world including the WHO, CEPI and GOARN”, and so the gameplay should be terrifyingly realistic. Keep an eager eye on the leaderboard, as we have a sneaky feeling that JacindaArden1 might end up somewhere near the top.