First the Plague, Then Zombies, Now After Inc

In 2012 Ndemic Creations released Plague Inc a game in which you would pick one of many different illnesses, and the goal was the spread it throughout the entire world. The game was really fun, even with the less than happy goal behind it, and was a hit over time. In fact the CDC even had the head developer come and give a talk about the game. One of the illnesses you could spread in the game was the Necroa Virus, which was a zombie virus, and that gave birth to After Inc Revival. After Inc has you rebuilding the world via the few people who managed to survive the Necroa Virus.

After Inc launched in early access last year so I am more than a little late to the party, but I am so glad I showed up. The game will feel familiar for fans of Plague Inc while not being the exact same. It does have the map overview style like Plague Inc did, where you are controlling things from a pushed out view. So if you want to explore you select part of the map, etc. One of the biggest differences is Plague Inc isolated each of the scenarios. You picked which illness you wanted to spread, picked your difficulty, then went to work. You either succeeded or failed and then that would end it. After Inc actually allows you to follow a “story” of sorts.

You start with the tutorial areas, each one showing you the different aspects of the game, but there is a through line between them. You aren’t doing an isolated rebuild but a slow one over time. You start with the tutorial which leads to campaign mode, you then have critical mass, and then Shadows of the Past which is a harder difficulty and more involved story of rebuilding the world. Both of the first campaigns will help you level up so that your Shadows of the Past will be slightly easier, but it will still present a challenge.

You also get daily challenges which are more isolated but still help you to level up your overall stats to help with the campaign modes.

The gameplay is similar no matter what you are playing though. You pick your area, your leader, – each one comes with different pros and cons – your difficulty, then you start. You first build your base, then you have to explore and build up the area. You have to manage hunger, thirst, you need supplies to build everything, you’ll need fuel to survive the winters, and over time you’ll want to build up your population and technologies. Each area will give you 8 different objectives you have to complete in order to “win” that area. Some of them are relatively straight forward like maintain morale of the people, while others are more in line with the “story” of sorts, like discovering certain areas and using what you find.

It does get repetitive though. There aren’t a lot of different things to complete nor a huge amount of variety. It’s not so repetitive it’s boring, I am still having a blast with it, but it can get a little “lather, rinse, repeat.” It is however worth noting that Plague Inc started pretty small and over the years Ndemic Creations added a lot to it to give you more variety. After Inc is still in early access so at this point it feels like a safe bet that there will be more coming that may help break the repetition up.

So far I am having a great deal of fun with it and I like the daily challenges. It gives me something to pop in and do fairly quickly while not feeling like I need to devote hours and hours to the game, which more and more I do not have. As I said it feels a little limited now, but again there is every reason to believe it will develop over time. If you liked Plague Inc while not an exact one to one they are similar and this should be enjoyable for you. I am super excited to see what’s to come and am having a lot of fun with what is there for now. `