A wildly popular pandemic video game gets a surprise sequel
Plus: Nintendo targets a Switch piracy subreddit
“I have had quite a lot of people worry that our games tend to predict the future,” game designer James Vaughan told me over email this morning.
His studio’s first game, Plague Inc., launched back in 2012 and put players in control of a disease, drawing some 190 million players and counting, per Vaughan’s studio, Ndemic Creations (Sensor Tower says it is 11th most-downloaded premium mobile game ever).
To win Plague Inc., you had to infect the world. In the spring of 2020, the game surged in popularity for macabre but obvious reasons.
Ndemic’s next game, 2018’s Rebel Inc., simulated insurgencies.
Today’s surprise third release, out now for iOS and Android (Steam in 2025), is called After Inc., and it’s about what happens after an apocalyptic pandemic.
“I've tried to make a more happy and optimistic game this time,” Vaughan told me today over email.
“The world is lush and beautiful. The survivors have endured hardships but they are alive and able to rebuild. Only downside is the zombies, but [that’s] nothing that can't be solved with some nails stuck in a cricket bat!”
Post-disaster strategy
After Inc. plays as a combination of of city builder and 4X strategy game. It’s got the survival themes of The Last of Us on a game board that looks more like Civilization.
In the fiction of the game, humanity is leaving the bunkers they hid in during the spread of the Necroa Virus, an optional pandemic in Plague Inc. that turned people into zombies (some modes in Plague Inc. were intentionally too absurd to be true; others, such as a “science denial” scenario that added anti-vaxxers to the game world, maybe not so much).
After Inc. is all touch-screen strategy. Players tap on plots of land and select menu options to pitch tents, dig wells, scavenge for wood, explore nearby forests and claim more territory. Stamina ticks up over time, allowing players to spend energy building and researching new structures and amenities, while the community’s morale goes up or down. Players need to satisfy a range of settlement goals without zeroing out on morale.
Eventually, zombies show up, requiring players to drag-and-dispatch fighters to fend them off. But the undead aren’t the only problems. In the three quick After Inc. scenarios that I played this morning, I had to deal with…
fires in my settlements — the choice: use scant water supplies to put them out or let them burn
the citizenry’s sudden worship of old cell phones — the choice: look for more, worship them or debunk the budding religion
the rotting of food — the choice: eat it, throw some of it away (38% chance of nausea) or throw lots away (10% chance of inventing pickling)
Vaughan said he’d long wanted to build a strategy game like this, “one that was more suited to mobile phones and shorter play styles.”
My three games, across three settlements, were quick. But they also contributed to a meta progression that had me unlocking new ideas for my society—pigeon coops, rain collectors, etc.—that would carry into the next settlement game.
“After Inc. crunches a whole load of different things together and we end up with a pretty unique game which lets you build up a settlement in 20 minutes and improve your overall civilization at the same time for future games,” Vaughan said.
Vaughan’s team spent three years working on After Inc., a “luxury” that gave them time to “take a very iterative approach to game development and finding the fun.”
They could afford it, he said, because of the success of Plague Inc. and Rebel Inc. which are both still big hits. Today, Plague Inc. is #4 on Apple’s ranking of top paid iOS games; Rebel Inc. is #46.
A $2 game in a land of freebies
As optimistic as After Inc.’s fiction might be about life after disaster, Ndemic’s sunniest take might be their assumption that a $2 mobile game can be a hit in a format that’s dominated these days by free-to-play, microtransaction-laden games.
Asked if he was confident about the $2 price, Vaughan told me:
Nope - absolutely not - its a huge gamble! The only reason we can even consider releasing a premium game is because we have our existing juggernauts of Plague Inc. and Rebel Inc. which will help players find our games - and also show that there is still an appetite for intelligent, sophisticated strategy games on mobile. If we didn't have Plague Inc. to help - I think any game, no matter how good it is, would really struggle to get noticed.
The success of those other game appears to be helping today. After Inc. is currently #17 on iOS’ paid app charts.
On the game’s store page, Ndemic is promising “no ‘consumable microtransactions” either, meaning anything extra they charge for will involve content that lasts in the game forever.
The studio plans to support After Inc. for years. “It’s all about the long tail,” he said. Plus, he predicts, no one will have to worry about this one crossing over with real world events.
Item 2: Nintendo seeks new targets
Nintendo is not close to being done with its legal crackdown on Switch modders and others whom it accuses of fomenting piracy.
In a recent filing in federal court in Washington State, Nintendo of America (NOA) said its investigation of Switch modder James “Archbox” Williams has given it new targets. They include a SwitchPirates subreddit with some 200,000 members, Game File has learned.
Nintendo sued Williams in June over piracy claims and his alleged operation of so-called Pirate Shops. The company subsequently won a default judgment after Williams failed to represent himself in court. (Before cutting off communication, Williams had denied to Nintendo that he’d infringed on their intellectual property.)
During its investigation, Nintendo told the court last Friday, it “became aware of multiple other online actors who appeared to have a role in the Pirate Shops.”
Nintendo is now seeking an okay from the court to subpoena business records from internet domain companies Name Cheap, Go Daddy and Tucows, as well as Cloudflare, Github, Discord, Google, and Reddit to identify alleged associates of Williams.
Specific to Reddit, the company states:
Reddit, Inc. operates a social media platform where users, often using pseudonyms, may post to different forums known as communities or “subreddits.” Defendant was a primary moderator of the SwitchPirates community, under the name “Archbox,” which boasted more than 190,000 members. Nintendo has reason to believe that other accounts active in the SwitchPirates community may also have been controlled by Defendant, or else reflect other individuals who have worked alongside Defendant.
The company made clear that IDing such people will give them an open lane to sue: “The purpose of all of the requested subpoenas is to seek relevant information that is necessary for NOA to pursue infringement claims.”
Item 3: PlayStation icon exits
🎮 Shuhei Yoshida, the longtime PlayStation executive who served as the console’s head of worldwide studios from 2008-2019 (a run that saw the release of Journey, The Last of Us, The Last Guardian, the 2018 God of War reboot and Marvel’s Spider-Man) is retiring from PlayStation after a 31-year tenure that began before the first Sony console was even released.
As he told the official PlayStation podcast:
“When I hit 30 years, I was thinking, hmm, it may be about time for me to move on. You know, the company’s been doing great. I love PS5, I love the games that are coming out on this platform. And we have new generations of management who I respect and admire. And I’m so excited for the future of PlayStation. So you know, PlayStation is in really good hands. I thought, okay, this is my time.”
Yoshida had most recently worked as an evangelist for indie games on PlayStation and has been a widely celebrated figure among PlayStation fandom and gaming media. (It helps to have starred in an official 21-second video casting shade at the competition.)
Yoshida has been showered with praise by fans and peers over the past 24 hours, since news of his PlayStation exit broke. Among those penning tributes, longtime Xbox chief Phil Spencer, who wrote:
Congrats on an amazing career at PlayStation. You've always been a great advocate for the industry, for creators and for players. I've appreciated the time we've been able to spend talking gaming. Thank You.
Yoshida’s departure continues a changing of the guard at PlayStation, which has seen the exit of other similarly-tenured veterans over the past year.
In October 2023, Sony super-producer Connie Booth (Syphon Filter, Ratchet & Clank, Last of Us, Spider-Man) exited the company after a 26-run. She subsequently joined EA.
This past March, then-PlayStation boss Jim Ryan left the company, capping a 30-year run, amid a leadership shuffle.
Item 4: In brief…
💰 More tariffs… Kotaku has a helpful deep dive about the potential consequences of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on goods from China and the rest of the world. Assuming the tariffs kick in and game companies don’t get an exemption, Kotaku breaks down some possible direct consequences related to gaming:
Elevated prices on consoles and graphics cards
Console manufacturing shifts from China to Japan, India and other countries (already underway, to an extent)
Consumer spending shifts further away from physical games and consoles
And/or hardware consumers having less money left over to spend on games
🚫 Worlds Untold, a studio lead by Mass Effect veteran Mac Walters is “pausing operations” as it seeks new funding, despite early support by NetEase, VGC reports.
After Inc. seems to be free in Australia, rather than the $2 mentioned. I'm on the Android store FYI. Just thought I'd mention. Love your work mate! Read every word.
After Inc. is fantastic. Been playing all weekend and it was an easy decision to buy the expansion pack. Thanks for letting us know about it!