Pandemic: The Board Game

About

Pandemic: The Board Game is a single player and multiplayer strategy game. It was developed by Asmodee Digital and was released on August 24, 2018. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and neutral reviews from players.

A digital translation of the popular board game. As skilled members of a disease-fighting team, you must keep four deadly diseases at bay while discovering their cures. Travel the world, treat infections, and find cures. You must work as a team to succeed. The clock is ticking as outbreaks and epidemics fuel the spreading plagues. Can you find all four cures in time? The fate of humanity is in you…

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59%

Audience ScoreBased on 505 reviews

gameplay6 positive mentions

stability20 negative mentions

Faithful and challenging digital adaptation of the popular cooperative board game Pandemic, maintaining the core mechanics and strategic depth.
Automates complex rules and game setup, making it easier and quicker to play solo or in pass-and-play mode, suitable for learning and practicing strategies.
Smooth and clear interface overall with helpful features like undo actions and clean visuals; the game retains high replayability with variable roles and difficulties.

No built-in online multiplayer support limits the cooperative experience, requiring use of local pass-and-play or third-party solutions which diminishes the intended social gameplay.
User interface issues including intrusive zooming, clunky controls, map visibility problems, and occasional bugs and crashes impacting playability.
Lack of expansions included, incomplete tutorial, and some achievements tied to unavailable DLC reduce long-term engagement and player guidance.

gameplay
29 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
69%
10%
The gameplay faithfully translates the original board game's mechanics into a digital format, offering a challenging and cooperative experience with straightforward rules and quick turns. However, its core loop can feel repetitive without additional content, and some randomness in epidemic events may frustrate players seeking deeper strategy. Despite occasional bugs and interface issues, the game remains accessible and rewarding, especially for newcomers and fans of the board game.
- “The gameplay is structured around a world map divided into interconnected cities, each vulnerable to the spread of multiple diseases.”
- “The game's mechanics are perfectly translated to the digital format, making it easy to play and understand for both fans of the board game and newcomers.”
- “It captures the essence of working together under pressure, delivering a gameplay experience that is both challenging and rewarding without relying on competition.”
- “The core gameplay loop remains consistent across sessions, and without additional content or expansions, it can begin to feel repetitive over time.”
- “There isn't much strategy behind the gameplay, just reactions to luck, sometimes highlighting the bad design when the epidemic targets a city that you have fully cleared, but the epidemic puts 3 on it and then the infect cities stage immediately after draws the card again and triggers a pandemic even though you may have been playing flawlessly.”
- “The gameplay in itself is not that well polished either.”
music
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
74%
13%
The music in the game serves as a fitting background with tense main themes and rewarding victory tunes, enhancing the atmosphere. However, it can become repetitive and annoying over time, with some technical issues affecting volume control and occasional overlapping tracks. Recent updates improved audio settings, but the soundtrack remains a point of mixed reception among players.
- “The main game is given tense music, very tense music.”
- “By contrast, the game's win is a nice trophy music.”
- “The change between the knife edge of the main music and the relaxing victory theme serves as an extra pat on the back.”
- “Finally and most glaringly, not only is the music awful, the option for reducing the volume of the music apparently does nothing: the music is considered a sound effect and its volume must be lowered with the game's other sound effects.”
- “Decent port of the board game.. game music had to be turned off right from the get go as it gets annoying real fast.”
- “A less advantageous bug is when you get two pieces of music at the same time when you resume a game and the soundtrack changes.”
stability
21 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
5%
95%
The game suffers from frequent bugs, crashes, and freezes, leading to an unstable and frustrating experience for many users. Issues include inconsistent UI elements, game-breaking glitches, and unreliable multiplayer functionality, though some players find it playable on occasion after restarts. Overall, stability remains a significant concern despite updates.
- “Tl;dr game is buggy and becomes unplayable.”
- “It freezes and crashes all the time.”
- “To be clear both solo and multiplayer in this game are buggy in game-breaking ways.”
graphics
15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
40%
20%
The game's graphics are generally praised for being clear, attractive, and effectively communicating gameplay, with many users describing them as great or gorgeous. However, some users report issues such as clunky visuals, poor graphical quality, and occasional glitches like unwanted camera zoom or crashes. Overall, while the graphics enhance the experience for most, a few find them dated or problematic.
- “The game's graphics are well-done and provide a clean and clear representation of the board game's components.”
- “The graphical presentation is top notch.”
- “With Steam Remote Play, you are now able to have online multiplayer, and the visuals of the game are gorgeous.”
- “Takes about 6 tries before I can actually play the game because it crashes when I press play; graphics are terrible, mechanics are nothing like the actual board game, and after about 30 games I've only beaten it once.”
- “Graphics are poor and the game feels clunky.”
- “The visuals are quite large for a 24" monitor and the game has hardly taken any advantage of keyboard controls.”
replayability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
Replayability is a standout feature of the game, enhanced by recent improvements that boost its playability and challenge. Players appreciate the multiple control methods and character options, making the game enjoyable and offering high replay value.
- “Replayability is one of the game’s strongest qualities.”
- “Highly challenging, maximum replayability value, totally recommended.”
- “Both methods are fun and the game has good replay value.”
story
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The story offers a collaborative quest premise with a variety of characters and abilities, but players seeking a strong narrative progression may find it somewhat limited. The focus is more on gameplay and mission objectives than deep storytelling.
- “You have a wide variety of characters with abilities that are useful in your mission.”
- “This board game is a collaborative quest against the computer to eradicate virus over the map.”
- “For players who prefer a stronger sense of progression or storytelling, this may feel somewhat limiting.”
- “Beating it, is another story.”
optimization
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
75%
25%
Optimization is generally praised for smooth performance and improved stability after recent bug fixes, especially on higher difficulty levels. However, some users still report low performance issues.
- “If you are into optimization-type strategy games, you might enjoy it on higher difficulties.”
- “Graphics are lovely and it runs smoothly.”
- “Very good game performance after removing most of the bugs recently.”
- “Performance is very low.”
monetization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users criticize the monetization for tying key achievements and event cards to paid DLCs, which are repeatedly advertised within the base game. This approach feels restrictive and frustrating, especially since basic game content is locked behind additional purchases despite ongoing in-game ads.
- “Some achievements are tied to the DLCs, complete with repeated ads for said DLCs in the game.”
- “At least let those who own the base game still be able to purchase the expansions, especially since the game itself is still advertising the expansions which is extra annoying.”
- “I understand having in-app purchases for expansions, but not having basic game components like event cards doesn't seem in line with what I've come to expect from Steam games.”
grinding
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is primarily related to achieving 100 wins for full completion, making the grind for 100% achievements notably time-consuming. However, the game effectively handles repetitive tasks like placing cubes, staying true to the board game experience.
- “The achievement for 100 wins is why I think this is a grindy game to get to 100%.”
- “Grinding achievements: yes”
- “Otherwise it is good enough, true to the board game and takes care of the tedious minutiae of placing the cubes and such.”
atmosphere
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The atmosphere is subtly supported by understated audio design and appropriately matched sound effects and animations, creating a cohesive but low-key immersive experience.
- “The sound effects and animations fit the atmosphere.”
humor
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is appreciated for its playful sarcasm, particularly in addressing common player complaints about multiplayer functionality through clever commentary.

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60%Critics’ scoreBased on 5 critic reviews

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Frequently Asked Questions

Pandemic: The Board Game is a strategy game.

Pandemic: The Board Game is available on Nintendo Switch, iPhone, Windows, Xbox Series X|S and others.

Pandemic: The Board Game was released on August 24, 2018.

Pandemic: The Board Game was developed by Asmodee Digital.

Pandemic: The Board Game has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked Pandemic: The Board Game for its gameplay but disliked it for its music.

Pandemic: The Board Game is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include Small World, Splendor, Terraforming Mars, Scythe, Spirit Island and others.

Pandemic: The Board Game

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Pandemic