Pandemic: On the Brink

2009 · Expansion for Base-game

Pandemic: On the Brink

Expands the base cooperative epidemic game with new roles, event cards, and support for a fifth player. Players still work together to treat diseases and discover cures, but optional modules add fresh complications. Three separate challenge modes change the core experience: a single disease can become unusually lethal and unpredictable, a fifth disease with distinct behavior forces new containment strategies, and an asymmetric mode lets one player act as a covert saboteur against the others. Modules can be used alone or combined to raise difficulty.

Players
2–5 best 4
Playing time
45 min
Age
8+
Complexity
2.7 / 5
7.9 on Ludoyafrom $39.99Science FictionMedicalCooperative GameSecret Unit DeploymentPoint to Point Movement

On Ludoya's tables

Full stats in Ludoya
77
Plays logged
67
Players
51m 44s
Average play
140
In collections
10
On wishlists
1
Pre-ordered

7.9/10

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Rules questions

Answered from the rulebook by Ludoya's rules assistant.

How many Event cards from On the Brink do we add and how are Event cards dealt?

Add the 8 new Event cards to the 5 base game Event cards, then add 2 Event cards per player into the Player cards before shuffling and dealing; put any unused Event cards back in the box without looking (page 2).

When do we determine which disease is the Virulent Strain, and can the purple disease be the Virulent Strain?

You determine the Virulent Strain when the first Virulent Strain Epidemic card is drawn—after performing that card’s Infect step the disease with the most cubes becomes the Virulent Strain (ties are chosen randomly); if you’re also playing the Mutation or Bio‑Terrorist challenge, the purple disease cannot be chosen (page 3).

If a city already has purple cubes and we draw its Infection card, do we place both purple and the normal colored cube?

Yes—during Infections, if an Infection card is drawn for a city with at least one purple cube, you place both 1 purple cube (if purple is not eradicated) and 1 cube of the card’s color (if that disease is not eradicated), resolving any outbreaks normally (page 4).

What happens when we capture the Bio‑Terrorist—does he lose his cards and what does the captor do?

If the Bio‑Terrorist pawn is on the board, a player may spend an action to capture him: place the Bio‑Terrorist pawn on your role card and the Bio‑Terrorist discards all cards in hand to the Infection Discard Pile (without effect) (page 5).

How do purple 'flare‑out' outbreaks work—do they spread differently from normal outbreaks?

Purple outbreaks ‘flare out’: remove 2 purple cubes from the outbreak city (leaving 1) and place 1 purple cube on each connected city (and advance the outbreaks marker); do not add purple cubes to cities that have already had an outbreak while resolving the same action (page 6).

How does the Bio‑Terrorist win or lose?

The non‑Terrorist players win by curing all five diseases or curing the four standard diseases and leaving no purple cubes; the Bio‑Terrorist wins if the players lose and there is at least one purple cube on the board, and the Bio‑Terrorist loses (is out) if the purple disease is eradicated—everyone loses if the players lose and there are no purple cubes (page 7).

Opens Ludoya's rules assistant, which reads this game's rulebook.

Game facts (players, playing time, age, credits) from BoardGameGeek.