Plague Inc: Evolved Review (Scifiwriterguy)
Save your money. Not worth buying if you already own the mobile version. Pointless, gimmicky "improvements" and far less user freedom.
Back in the day, when Plague Inc was new (and before COVID was a thing), we got a chance to see what a global pandemic would look like. Then we actually had one, which sort of made the game redundant, but let's face it, the appeal of Plague Inc wasn't so much seeing a crystal ball prediction of how one would go, but to be able to tinker with the parameters of one and unleash a Roland Emmerich/Francis Lawrence style disaster on the planet. (Okay, better than Lawrence.) That's what the mobile version promised, that's what it delivered.
Then the enhanced version (sorry, "Evolved") dropped on Steam, with All New Features! Street cam views of cities! Hyper-realistic world! Full 3D disease models! Blinding graphics! (Developer's words, not mine.) Deadly data! Oooh, all shiny!
Except... no. Lots of promises, very little delivery. In fact, it's arguably worse than the original mobile version.
Lots of features to boost outcome...
So... let's be generous and call out the features.
Pandemic simulator
At its core, Plague Inc is a pandemic simulator. Granted, if 2020 taught us anything, its predictions for how people would behave during a global pandemic were a little... optimistic, but it's still interesting to watch the spread patterns and how humanity might fight back. It's a gamified simulator, so there's more interactivity than a simple "disease appears, watch results," so it's engaging, interesting, and - more or less - educational.
Look at the graphics!
For as much noise as the developers and their ad materials make over the enhanced graphics of the Evolved version, sure, we can take a look. There are 3D models of the diseases, yes. And you can do a 3D isometric zoom of the map (it's a flat map, but we can pretend to angle it now). And... that's it.
Solid soundtrack
To be fair, the soundtrack is atmospheric and fitting.
...but the patient crashed anyway.
It's not a good sign when the mobile version of a game is better.
A simulator on rails
The idea of a simulator is freedom, and this one manages to get that... completely wrong. Want to play with the fun stuff like the zombie virus? Too bad. Content is locked behind progression gates. You need to unlock every previous disease type before you get to play what you want. Even if you decide to try and speedrun your way there and put it on Casual mode and try to push fast to unlock disease types, you're still going to be wasting hours playing through the dull low-level content before you get to the showcase stuff. Or you can download a mod that hopefully unlocks everything but might not. Was paying for the IAP to unlock all the content worse? No, it was just equally bad in a different way.
The graphic improvements are poorly executed and pointless
Apart from the UI being redesigned because it's no longer on a phone screen and had to be changed to fill out a monitor, the graphical changes are largely pointless. Even the ones touted on the store screen.
The "city view" is a poorly-executed gimmick. Per the store, "city-cams show humanity's struggle at street level." No. What you get is one stock photo of a location in the country in question - one - and as things get worse in that country a tint is applied and some stock-photo elements are stuck on top of the street scene. Much of what's added isn't even corrected for scale or perspective. It honestly looks cheap.
The disease organisms are rendered in 3D... which does nothing except take up some dead space on screen. It contributes nothing to gameplay at all. There's also a "patient view" in the disease window, but it doesn't really do anything, either. It highlights some organ groups if you evolve the disease in a particular way, but it's inconsistent and meaningless. The only time they're in any way impressive is with the special disease types - which, again, are locked behind all of the dull, boilerplate content - and even then they don't add anything of real value.
Those "blinding graphics" (again, store's words, not mine) are unimpressive and frankly add nothing.
Inconsistent gameplay elements
Put simply, the design of the game elements is opaque, so it can cheat. Progress depends on gathering DNA points both passively and by clicking opportunity pop-ups. What triggers either one? The game's whims. If it decides that you're not going to get any more while the cure cruises toward completion, guess what? You lose. Time wasted, game over, try again. Gritting your teeth in anger as you sit making no progress as the cure goes from 70% to 100% with no opportunity to fight back happens a lot.
The Bottom Line
If you haven't played Plague Inc and/or want to revisit the game you played on mobile, then this is worth buying - on a STEEP sale. This version is in no way worth US$15. Maybe $5 on a good day. For $15 you shouldn't have to slog through a bunch of dross to get to the showcase content - and yet, you do. And if you already have the mobile version and think this one brings something new and worthwhile to the table, sorry, it doesn't.