May 13, 2021 – The next Pandemic Game Hot Zone Europe details just became much clearer. In a lengthy post about the game, Matt Leacock, designer of Pandemic, joins Steve Kimball, Z-Man Games’ Head of Studio, to share news about the second title in the Hot Zone series and where the series is headed.
The new news here is much of the intimate details about the game itself. The announcement for this installment in the series was originally made back in January of this year but lots have evolved and changed. It has been a hectic year for the publisher, along with everyone, but they are trucking along.
“In our initial announcement for the game, we confirmed that the continent’s name included in the title alluded to our plans for future stops around the globe, and we’re here today to show you what’s new and exciting in the second installment in the series: Pandemic: Hot Zone – Europe!” Said Kimball.
Check out the lengthy post on Z-Man or check out some key highlights below:
- Hot Zone – North America has enjoyed widespread success—even beyond the continent it depicts. Fans have really enjoyed the game’s distilled mechanisms, shortened play time, and portability.
- A goal is that each game needed to establish its own identity, while at the same time being approachable for a casual audience and make a great first impression. The way to achieve this is to capture the important cities and geography of each region on the gameboard.
- They have an exciting roadmap planned that will eventually span the entire globe.
- The entire series is cross-compatible so each box equally serves two purposes: an excellent standalone entry point for new gamers to experience Pandemic as well as a bundle of goodies that exponentially increase the game’s variety.
- Europe features Mutation cards that gradually make each disease behave in a new way until it is cured. Diseases can become harder to treat when they reach a critical mass, can appear more intensely, or cause more Infection cards to be drawn.
- There is a whole range of new modes for playing with multiple game boards with a plan to release a new way to play across several boards with each new game in the series. This one has “hemispheres” which turns you into more of a globetrotter.
- They are giving out a free print-and-play sample that you can download here.
