Pandemic Legacy: Season 0

To set up Pandemic Legacy Season 0, unfold the board in the center of the table and follow the instructions on the first legacy deck cards until you reach a stop card. Set up permanent safe houses, place the threat level marker at the start, and seed the board with soviet agent pieces based on drawn threat cards. Assemble the player deck by shuffling event cards according to your current funding level and mixing in escalation cards across evenly distributed piles. Finally, each player chooses a character, takes matching components, and places their pawn in Washington along with the other players.

Players act as CIA medical specialists during the 1962 Cold War, working fully cooperatively to manage global threats and uncover a Soviet bioweapon called Medusa. You must achieve specific mission objectives revealed by the legacy deck, which involves tracking down targets, organizing covert teams, and neutralising hostile actions while preventing the situation from spiraling out of control.

A player's turn consists of five sequential steps. First, check surveillance in your current city and lose cover unless protected by a safe house. Second, perform up to four actions in any combination, such as driving, flying, neutralizing agents, sharing intel, building safe houses, identifying targets, or acquiring objectives. Third, perform the mop-up step by removing agents from cities with active teams. Fourth, draw two player cards, resolving any escalations. Finally, draw threat cards equal to the current threat level, placing agents and triggering incidents if necessary.

At the end of a game session, your performance is evaluated based on completed versus failed objectives. Success decreases your CIA funding level, making future games slightly tighter, while failing increases your funding to provide more event cards. Failing too many objectives forces you to repeat the scenario month, permanently evolving the campaign board and components based on stickers, writing, and destruction.

The game ends immediately when all objectives receive success or fail tokens, the player deck cannot supply two cards to draw, the agent supply is entirely depleted, or an incident token must be placed when none remain in the supply. Following this immediate conclusion, players execute post-game evaluation steps, record progress on the campaign calendar, and prepare for upcoming legacy deck revelations.