In the original Pandemic you and up to 3 friends worked together to save the world from four deadly diseases. Now, in Pandemic: Legacy, you and up to three friends will embark on a campaign-style series of replays where your decisions and the results of individual games will have ongoing consequences. You will rip cards up, add stickers to the board, rulebook, and character cards, open boxes which add new cards and components--an experience not unlike a role-playing campaign where the game acts as dungeon-master.

Four diseases, represented by different-coloured cubes, spread out across a stylized map of the world. Curing a disease involves collecting enough cards of the appropriate coloured suit. These cards can be passed between players--but only under specific conditions. Meanwhile, the diseases keep on spreading randomly every turn, possibly causing outbreaks which spread them even more...

Each player takes the role of a specialist (Medic, Dispatcher, Scientist) who gets to break the rules of the game in a specific way. The Medic can wipe out all disease in a city in just one action; the Scientist only needs four (instead of five) cards to cure a disease, and so on. Players must work together to find cures for the diseases while simultaneously keeping the spread to a minimum.

Pandemic: Legacy is subtitled “Season 1” and with good reason; it plays out like a riveting episodic version of Contagion (the movie), with unexpected twists and turns, moments of despair and elation, and a gradual but inexorable ratcheting of tension as you play through twelve game-months of disease-fighting. Because the game state changes every time, no two games in the series will play out the same way. And although you will only ever play Pandemic: Legacy a maximum of 24 times (unless you decide to buy another set and play it through again), the enjoyment-value you get for your money is more than worth it.