Pandemic Legacy

Pandemic Legacy is a legacy board game by Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau, where the board itself is modified as players play it as a campaign. Only the second legacy game published (after Risk Legacy), it has since shot up to the very top of the rankings at BoardGameGeek, where it remains as of 2017.

Based on the original Pandemic (no, not that one), you play a team of scientists and disease cowboys trying to treat the illnesses before they spread throughout the world. But this time... something is different. One of the diseases proves to be extremely difficult to treat, and it turns out this is going to be a year the world will never forget. Or so the box says. The mechanics of the game are similar to the base game (with a couple new connections drawn on the board), but the rules change as players progress through the calendar.

Everything on here refers to Season 1; Pandemic Legacy Season 2 is set to come out in Fall of 2017, apparently with a post-apocalyptic setting instead of the modern setting of Season 1.

If you haven't played this version of game, there are a lot of spoilers below, so you may want to stop reading. But it is an excellent game, take our word for it.


 * Colonel Badass: One of the player cards.
 * Broke Episode: Keep winning games? No event cards for you!  You obviously don't need more funding if you barely keep the world from dying -- which is unfortunately realistic.  This is actually a way to ratchet up the difficulty for people who are either skilled or lucky.
 * Co-Op Multiplayer: As a Pandemic game, you're all working together to save the world. Because of this, it's best to play with people of a similar skill level, or else some players may monopolize all of the decisions.
 * Find the Cure: The game's premise. Played more realistically with the core mechanic, where you gather information to make a better treatment for a disease.  Played straight (i.e. less realistically) with the search goals in the later months, where specific people need to be found in dangerous places to help solve the pandemic.
 * My Name Is ???: Once you eradicate a virus (for the session), you get to write its name on the board. Whether you have excessively cutesy or meaningful names for your virus and its cure is up to you, players.
 * Our Zombies Are Different: They're clear!
 * World Map: With links between the major cities.