With the arrival of the coronavirus, the game Plague Inc. has become one of the most downloaded applications for mobile phones.
Plague Inc. is a strategy video game developed by Ndemic Creations, which consists of creating and evolving a pathogen to extinguish humanity.
The player’s goal is to infect the inhabitants of the Earth, moving the virus across the screen and adjusting it to different environments before time runs out, keeping control of the “pandemic” at all times.
Because of the great demand that the game has had nowaday, the employees of Ndemic Creations have enabled an ‘on line’ portal to try to answer the users’ most common questions.
A new game mode
Recently Ndemic Creations announced that they are working on a new mode in which players will have to stop a global pandemic instead of creating one.
Our website is currently offline due to very high player numbers. I’m copying our statement on the coronavirus outbreak here so people can still see it.https://t.co/pA6CUS7nJI pic.twitter.com/StXP6aemDe
— Plague Inc. / Rebel Inc. (@NdemicCreations) January 24, 2020
With the announcement, they also reported the donation of $250,000 to the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 solidarity response fund.
James Vaughan, the creator of the game, said: “We are proud to be able to contribute to supporting the vital work of WHO and ECCE as they search for a vaccine for COVID-19.”
“Eight years ago, I never imagined the real world would look so much like a game of Plague Inc. or that so many players would use Plague Inc. to help them get through a real pandemic,” Vaughan said.
“When we were preparing our donations, we were asked several times if we could create a game in which users would work to stop an outbreak. Therefore, in addition to offering financial support, we are accelerating work on a Plague Inc. game mode that will allow players to save the world from a deadly outbreak.”
The new game mode does not have a release date yet, but will be available to everyone for free.