The digital version of the acclaimed 2008 board game Pandemic is coming to Nintendo Switch and Xbox One on August 1. Nintendo originally announced the Pandemic Switch release date would be sometime in March 2019, but publisher Asmodee Digital confirmed today that the game’s actual launch will take place five months after that initial release window.
Asmodee announced the Xbox One and Switch release dates with a live-action trailer, advertising the game’s foreboding themes of global annihilation via a rapidly-spreading disease. Players take on the role of five disease-fighting specialists in either solo play or pass-and-play co-op, working together to contain infections and find cures.
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The game has been available on PC and mobile for some time, but only with up to four players, according to the game’s website. While the PC version has no Metacritic score, the iOS version has favorable critic reviews and mixed user reviews, and the game’s Steam reviews are once again mixed (partially due to players’ disappointment at the game’s lack of online multiplayer). It’s not clear if the Switch and Xbox One versions of the game will bring any additions besides the five-player co-op option, but nothing about Asmodee’s trailer post seems to indicate that these versions will have online multiplayer.
The Pandemic Switch version was originally announced in a Nintendo Direct last September, alongside three other Asmodee-published digital board games: Carcassone, The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game and Catan, as well as a dungeon crawler based on Munchkin.
While the digital version of Carcassone hit its planned December release window and Catan came to the Switch in June (to mixed reception), the Munchkin dungeon crawler is still without a set release date. The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game, meanwhile, was renamed The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game after the Switch announcement and given an August 8 release date during E3 2019. Asmodee is also publishing a video game adaptation of one of 2017’s best tabletop games, Gloomhaven.
