New free Plague Inc. expansion lets you fight a global pandemic

You can now live out your fantasy of putting the boot in to the coronavirus.

Developer Ndemic Creations has released a new free expansion for its wildly popular viral genocide game Plague Inc. that lets you fight a global pandemic instead of spreading one.

In a post on the studio's website, the firm said that the expansion was made with assistance from health experts from around the world, including Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI), World Health Organisation (WHO) and Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN).

The Cure is out now for iOS and Android and will be available free of charge until the coronavirus pandemic is under control.

“It was extremely challenging to fit such a complex topic into a game but the input that experts from CEPI and elsewhere provided has been invaluable in ensuring that Plague Inc.: The Cure is both educational and engaging," said studio founder James Vaughan.

“Eight years ago, I never imagined the real world would come to resemble a game of Plague Inc. or that my game would be in a position to help educate and inform people."

The Cure was announced back in March. At the start of the year, Plague Inc. saw a bump in players due to the coronavirus outbreak, so much so that that Ndemic had to issue a warning reminding players the game is not a scientific model and shouldn't be used for educational purposes. Around that time, the game was also removed from both Steam and the iOS App Store in China for containing "illegal content."

It's pretty common for there to be increased interest in Plague Inc. when a viral outbreak occurs in the real world; Back in 2014, the Ebola outbreak resulted in a rise in downloads for the game, for example.