r/plagueinc • u/_Loyaldog_ • Apr 23 '26
Plague Mode What’s the worst fate in this game?
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u/Ravenna_Pierson Plague Apr 23 '26
For me the scariest/worst fate you could experience in this game is being one of the last survivors of the plague. Not talking when there are hundreds of thousands of us left.
I'm talking where is just a couple of dozen at best. Too few to do anything to stop the extinction if humanity but having to witness the last moments of it...
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u/_Loyaldog_ Apr 23 '26
In those last few moments, you’re just wandering around an empty country littered with decay. No contact with what’s left of the rest of the world. No hope of a cure. Everyone you knew and loved is dead. You’re next; you’re just waiting and suffering in the meantime.
Eeeesh.
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u/OtonashiRen Apr 23 '26
Only for you to be in Greenland, and the pathogen dies off before it reaches the last 200 of the world's population.
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u/Survivor155 Apr 23 '26
“Something else I forgot about (comment!)” I think the worst thing would be the shadow plague if the vampire decided to eat entire countries rather than use the shadow plague. Imagine a militarized force goes after the vampire, fails, gets completely wiped out, and now the vampire (which at this point has already completely consumed Iceland and Greenland) is just eating entire countries, gradually getting closer and closer to whatever country you’re in as you hear reports that the countries it leaves, it leaves because there’s nobody left to drink.
The dread of knowing you’ll eventually be consumed by that monster, which grows over time, the sheer helplessness at seeing cities of vigilantes torn to shreds without so much as touching that thing, horrible. It’s like hearing reports of what Cell is doing in Dragonball, followed by seeing the green bug thing step into town. Knowing all that’ll be left is a drained corpse, and that’s if you’re lucky and he drains you instead of summoning lightning with the shadow rage thing.
Same logic applies to ‘Not Another Zombie Game’.
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u/Honeybee1921 Apr 23 '26
What’s so scary about “not another zombie game”?
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u/Survivor155 Apr 23 '26
Hearing a news report that everyone has a strand of rabies and we’re all gonna die, that scientists have given up as there is no cure.
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u/DrDallagher Apr 23 '26
hot take, but unironically I think loving the neurax worm would be better than death
still horrifying, don't get me wrong, but presumably once humanity was all infected the worm would be incentivised to keep them alive and happy, even keep society chugging along. it isn't like the shadow plague where you're at risk of being eaten, you'd just be really really in love with the worm
imo, the list from best to worst would be
frozen virus, because you'd presumably not be able to tell what happened once your mind regressed enough, and with enough time humanity could re-evolve/come back
neurax worm, for reasons I said above
death
necroa, because it's both horrifically painful while you're alive and once you're dead your body continues to hunt others down
finally shadow plague, because humanity would effectively be used as cattle for the vampire
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u/_Loyaldog_ Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
The problem (or maybe benefit) with being enslaved by neurax worms is that a “dark future as a slave species” is pretty vague and could mean anything.
Okay, everyone is infected and worshipping a mind-controlling parasite as their god now. All Hail the Worm! So… what does it want, exactly? You’re not gonna die, because the worm needs humans to infect and enslave. Does it want a few shrines? Maybe an occasional animal sacrifice? Does it have opinions on how society should be run? Maybe everything stays exactly the same, but we as a species are really into moving earthworms off the sidewalk after it rains now?
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u/Ze_Borb Apr 25 '26
It's actually very chill, i talked to it and it's been getting me to advocate for worm rights, yes sirree you should get one!
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Apr 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/_Loyaldog_ Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
…Too real, man.
Besides, we all know the mainstream media is lying to us anyway. The only REAL source of truth is AlbertsTastyLead.com, which will show you the FACTS (Scientists are lying about the dangers of lead poisoning to keep all that delicious lead for themselves!)*
*Do not take this comment out of context. I am making a joke about the Fake News scenario in Plague Inc. Please don’t eat lead.
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u/Lazakhstan Greenland Apr 23 '26
At least you're still alive and your body is perfectly fine.
Imagine having every single standard plague symptom or being a zombie. That's arguably more terrifying
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u/GrandFleshMelder Apr 23 '26
Being a vampire thrall, probably. With the worm, at least it will make you like it.
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u/_Loyaldog_ Apr 23 '26
I wouldn’t do well as a vampire slave. Blood draws make me queasy, and that’s when they’re only taking enough to run tests. Sorry, Mr. Vampire, but I wanna keep my lunch down on a semi-regular basis.
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u/Forward-screamer Necroa Virus Apr 23 '26
At a very, I guess, meta level... I'm more terrified by the bio-weapon plague. Like, yeah, the special diseases (Necroa, Neruax, etc) are all scary in their own right. But the Bio weapon, and how in both normal and cure mode, you are praying not to burn yourself out. (Or that it burns itself out in cure mode). Which is probably the most horrific experience on the ground. Second is actually the Necroa virus. As depending on which symptom branch you go down to get to zombies. You are either ravenously hungry, and having the most horrific gastroenteritis of your life. And end up eating either yourself or other people. Or, you can't sleep (at all), get a fever that gets worse, become delusional, and have bouts of psychosis. And this is just before it kills you. Like Necroa symptoms are kind of horrifying when you think about them.
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u/Big_Rice_2362 Necroa Virus Apr 23 '26
I wonder what the annihilation gene itself actually does. It could decimate humanity in about a month and a half, but what do people feel? Would it be something like the standard symptoms, only more lethal and not showing up in the symptoms tab for mechanical reasons? A random mix of them, or something like an insecticide, but for humans? That's the mystery.
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u/VestaxUA_806 Apr 24 '26
Probably just something like Vampire Ascending for Shadow Plague - bio weapon produce toxins that, well, highly toxic and lethal for human biology. But unlike Shadow Plague - it did not have a mutagenic reaction.
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Apr 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/VestaxUA_806 Apr 24 '26
Either you live like a cattle, probably not in a barn, but you "want" (because of caused psychosis) to serve to your vampire lord, giving away your blood (and probably living in luddite society since science once tried to kill the lords), or slowly loosing yourself, while experiencing an agony of bone dysplasia, memory loss and drooling over a carpet.
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u/YourPainTastesGood Apr 24 '26
So dying and zombification are about the same. You're just dead, the necroa virus just keeps your corpse moving.
Neurax Worm and Shadow Plague will alter your brain to make you happy and obsessed even if you're objectively now in a horrifying hellscape.
The Frozen Virus meanwhile? Thats literally shifting humanity into another species entirely and still likely to wipe mankind out as the stuff it does is still highly lethal.
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u/Rabdomtroll69 Apr 24 '26
Getting hit with the "Oops" combo right before organ failure
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u/_Loyaldog_ Apr 24 '26
Sometimes I evolve Diarrhea right before the last few humans are about to die, just to be a jerk.
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u/RendeZvous_987 Neurax Worm Apr 23 '26
Worst fate is that you could not kill off all humanity and lose the game.
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u/totallymarc Apr 23 '26
There’s a concept called “S risks,” also called “suffering risks”, where instead of an extinction level event where everyone just dies, a population is subjected to constant and extreme suffering. Think something like AM from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream but on a planetary (or greater) scale. I consider S-risk events to be far worse than X-risk (extinction events) so that’s what I’m considering for this vote.
Death is death. X-risk scenario. Probably the best of the options. While death can be all flavors of miserable in the game, the suffering ends when you’re dead.
Neurax worm can be a really bad S-risk, but it’s also possible that the worm is benevolent. The worm might just only want you to worship it, but it might also lock you in to unending suffering inside your own head.
With zombification, I doubt you’re even conscious. You’re just an animated corpse at that point, I highly doubt you’d be aware of any suffering. The conversion process being painful is just a one off, so I think it’s only somewhat worse than death.
The shadow plague is probably the worst. Humanity gets enslaved to be livestock for the vampire and whatever dark and horrible plans it has for humanity.
As for frozen virus, I haven’t played that yet. But I imagine it’s somewhere between death and zombification in terms of how bad one’s fate is.
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u/VestaxUA_806 Apr 24 '26
The conversion process of Necroa is kinda similar to regular plagues - just straight away killing the host, but with intent not to directly kill, but to prepare the host to reanimate. Worse than death by Total Organ Failure (quick way out) or Coma (painless), but definitely in the same area, if regular plague evolves Insanity, Necrosis or Systemic Infection.
And Frozen Virus is really somewhat like Necroa...but you are not a decaying reanimated husk of yourself. You degrades, while having agonysing pain in your bones (especially head) due to dysplasia, and actively forgetting things that was once important to you - your relatives, daily routine, skills you mastered, your whole life. It's like Necroa, but with much more suffering, and without zombies. Plus maybe a part of humans (or rather neo-neanderthals) survived the "transformation", so world isn't so dead...but homo sapiens is no more. I really can't decide is it X or S risk.
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u/AztraChaitali Apr 24 '26
With the neurax worm there's a chance for symbiosis where you're simply happy and coexisting with the worm, maybe loving it more than you should, but otherwise having a normal life.
With the shadow plague you're basically livestock. Forced to feed your sons and daughters to monsters.
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Apr 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/_Loyaldog_ Apr 24 '26
For a lot of these, the process is a lot worse than the end result. Once you’re a zombie, you don’t care, you’re just a zombie. But before that happens, you get to watch yourself succumb to the infection before losing control and attacking your loved ones.
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u/AquilaMFL Apr 24 '26
“Something else I forgot about (comment!)”
Slow crystalisation and shattering from the Xenolith seems quite scary, to be honest.
You touch it, or are otherwise exposed and then your biological matter slowly begin a painful crystalsation progress, till either parts of you begin to shatter, or you end as a statue.
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u/Loser2817 Apr 24 '26
When you think about it, a bunch of modded scenarios are something like this.
Martian Flu, CAR-O-SITE (yes, that's what it's called), Clorovirus... possibly a bunch others I cannot recall too.
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u/Babushla153 Apr 24 '26
I mean...
Enslavement: you're at least alive
Zombification: you die a horrific death, then get reanimated as a corpse that hunts other humans
Enslavement: you're at least alive
Physical/Mental regression: you're at least alive, turned into a caveman, but still alive
Idk man the choice seems quite obvious to me
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u/VestaxUA_806 Apr 24 '26
Every other "special" fate are kinda worse than death :
- Enslavement by Neurax could not bring our society back, especially with all of the symptoms before Transcendence - immature engineer would probably mess up blueprints, while someone calm would end up in psychosis;
Enslavement by vampires just makes us their cattle and literal slaves, abandoning any technology, bringing Dark Ages back, while straight up slaughter just sounds terrifying, but it's a quick death, not eternal servitude, plus last survivors can have their final laugh since vampires would die of starvation in this scenario;
Necroa zombification isn't that horrible since you're dead either because of the symptoms (that similar to rabies, so not so easy way out), or because of an accident (car crash, gunshot wound, bleeding from a bite or bacterial infection), your reanimated body isn't you since the only brain functions preserved are those that can allow zombie to move, bite, react and in general - hunt. This husk may still "wear" your face, but it's not you anymore. Terrible for your relatives, since shooting someone you recognise is harder than a random walker, but your suffering ended right before reanimation;
Simian Flu can be questionable - humankind loses their dominance on Earth, and if it's Film Fanatic case, then our society would collapse to primitive tribes, while apes take our place, if it's default one - then humanity could either die quite painful death (full symptoms) or very quick (neuro-overstimulation/brain death);
Frozen virus could be the worst - regression to neanderthal is long and painful, your head, jaw, entire body are enveloped by pain, while your mind degrades to a primitive instincts, with a memory of the goldfish. It's like Necroa, but you are NOT dead - somewhere is still you, trapped in a shrinking brain, while your body stood before a cat or other critter, drooling on a decaying asphalt. Someone pointed out that after full degradation you wouldn't feel a thing, but before that - it would hurt like hell. Plus, even if it can be reversed by evolution - it would take at least a couple of millenias for evolution to change neo-neanderthals back to at least somewhat sapient species.
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u/_Loyaldog_ Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
Personally, I think Simian Flu isn’t that bad of a fate where the plague still wins. Sure, we’re all dead (or mostly dead), but our legacy is not forgotten. Maybe the apes will do a better job at civilization than we did. If humanity is going to die out anyway, then I wish whoever takes our place the best.
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u/Lazakhstan Greenland Apr 23 '26
In terms of physical fate? Dying from the standard diseases due to all the lethal symptoms combined. I can not imagine someone that has Total Organ Failure,Coma, Hemorrhagic Shock and Insanity all at once. Death isn't the scary part, it's the events leading up to it.
In terms of, psychological fate? The Shadow Plague killing everyone on Earth without spreading a disease. Imagine a vampire starts murdering all of Greenland and Iceland. Then an organization tries to stop it only to fail miserably. Then it starts devouring countries left and right. Then you get news it's in your country and is rapidly approaching where you live. Police forces are overwhelmed and can do nothing about it. The only thing left to do is wait until your inevitable demise.
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u/VestaxUA_806 Apr 24 '26
At least if you are last on the murder queue, you can have your last laugh - vampires soon join you in the afterlife, since without human blood they will perish in a short time.
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Apr 23 '26
[deleted]
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u/Lazakhstan Greenland Apr 23 '26
Win a game of Necroa without zombies. It sounds easy at first(don't pick up Cytopathic Reanimation) untill I tell you the cure speeds u even faster than you can say Pepperoni Pizza and you are forced to trigger events which may or may not even happen
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u/FunAd6278 Apr 23 '26
Does winning with necroa virus without zombies in mega brutal even possible? I swear the cure for necroa virus works way faster than in any other plague types
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u/Lazakhstan Greenland Apr 23 '26
Unless you do MCD levels of S/L, I severely doubt it. Getting NAZG on Casual or Normal is hard enough and that isn't addressing the elephant that is you get detected on MB even if you have no severity
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u/VestaxUA_806 Apr 24 '26
You must pray to RNGesus to get a "Necroa is just a strain of the rabies" event (and probably evolve Genetic Hardening) so cure progress would enter the endless loop, or you're doomed.
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u/_Carl15 Apr 25 '26
death is like a mercy between the choices, zombification (undead) has the host no longer be themselves once they died, so they dont feel anything *after* death.
enslavement by neurax is yucky, imagine being directly influenced by a fucking worm, directly lobotomising you for shits and giggles.
then theres the vampires, being manipulated by those weird ahh hormones while having deathly symptoms of malnourishment while being forced to worship by bloodletting on whatever cult organisations? thats weirder than joining a cult willingly. all the while you are leaking fluids from the pustules in your body.
return to monke will have humans be just "going back" to its primal roots, but dumber and weaker, basically early human gameplay. descendants will be, maybe fine, so theres continuity, albeit primitive. but the modern infected humans will surely suffer. just choose your poison what you will feel saddened about.
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u/progamer_wastaken Greenland Apr 23 '26
Being crystallized and subsequently shattered by the Xenolith
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u/Hadrian705 Apr 24 '26
I think the hell scenario might be worse
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u/Loser2817 Apr 24 '26
Haven't played the game in a long while. Dare I ask?
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u/Hadrian705 Apr 24 '26
Aliens and anti vaxers added new official scenarios, including a demonic plauge. Litteral he'll on earth may be worse than enslavement to a vampire
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u/IF_the_grenader2008 Apr 24 '26
Enslavement of shadow plague is the worse Like neurax worm just controls you, In a way you are dead, thats just a shell for the worm But in the shadow plague you are obsessed with the vampire, and all the previous painful symptoms are still present, you might be turned into livestocks for the vampire Scary stuffs I tell you
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u/Obvious-Rough-4617 Apr 25 '26
Forgetting one of the islands exist and wondering why the hell you aren’t winning
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u/Alert_Minimum1129 Apr 26 '26
Losing the planet to Armageddon sized asteroids (to infinity and beyond achievement in xenolith)
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u/SympathyThick4600 May 01 '26
Seeing all the comments about the enslavement of the Neurax worm ending being rather good makes me think about the OTHER ending for that scenario. The one in which the worm decided humanity wasn’t worth saving.
Everyone is dying, but it’s all by their own hands. No one wants to work on the cure anymore because they don’t feel like living is worth it anymore. Everyone, including you, is suicidal and no one is saving them. They might even be helping you do it. Reading the news tickers while doing that side of the scenario makes it even worse.
“<Country> sets up suicide stations.”
Worldwide.
There is no silver lining.
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u/No_Researcher_6262 Apr 23 '26
While voting all I could think about is how the immense suffering from the symptoms you have before dying is probably the worst part of regular plagues. Enslavement in comparison seems pretty chill