How to Beat Fungus Brutal Mode in Plague Inc

The ultimate strategy guide and walkthrough for Plague Inc's toughest level

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Infection

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Destruction

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Q&A

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Tips

The fungus is a difficult level on Plague Inc., especially on Brutal difficulty. It can be difficult to spread your fungus to other countries, and research for the cure can progress quickly. This can make infecting everyone in the world an exercise in frustration unless you go in with the right strategy. They key to beating the fungus level is keeping the fungus hidden until every last person in the world is infected, and then unleashing fatal symptoms.

Things You Should Know

Begin your game in China, Madagascar, or India. Focus on infection rates, not lethality, by first investing in Water Transmission and Air Transmission.
Keep ratcheting up transmission rates all while devolving randomly developed symptoms. If the disease becomes too obvious, it hurts you in the long run.
Wait until there are no healthy people left before you begin evolving new, lethal symptoms, like total organ failure and pulmonary fibrosis.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Preparation

1
Choose your genes. Fungus can be an extremely difficult level, especially on Brutal, so you'll want to choose the proper genes to help you get through. If you don't have the following genes available, choose anything else that you prefer or which is close.
- DNA Gene - Metabolic Hijack or Cytochrome Surge. Metabolic Hijack will automatically pop red and orange bubbles. This is useful as all the red bubbles show up immediately when using the fungus’s spore abilities. Cytochrome Surge will give you more DNA from orange bubbles.
- Travel Gene - Suppression. This helps the gene cross country borders. Don’t boost planes or ships as the fungus gene is hard to transmit through these methods.
- Evolution Gene - Patho-Stasis. This gene stops the increase of DNA costs which you will rely heavily on.
- Mutation Gene - Genetic Mimic or Creationist. Both of these options will make it harder to cure the fungus.
- Environment Gene - Extremophile. This will allow the fungus to get a bonus in all environments, helping it spread on land. If you don't have this option, pick the boost that will most benefit your starting country.
2
Choose a starting country. There is a lot of debate as to the best country to start in for the fungus level. China seems to be a popular option as the dense population will allow the fungus to spread faster. ^{[1]
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- China seems to be the most reliable option due to its large population, ports, and large land mass.
- Other countries you may want to consider starting in are Madagascar or India. Other guides suggest starting in Norway to make infecting Greenland and Iceland easier.
- Saudi Arabia and South Africa can also generate a win.
- You want to pick a country with a high population and ports.
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3
Devolve any symptoms that mutate. If people start to notice symptoms with fungus, a cure will quickly be developed and you will most likely lose.
- The key to surviving is to devolve any symptoms that randomly mutate before the symptoms can raise awareness of your fungus. ^{[2]
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- You will need to devolve symptoms throughout the game. The fungus will automatically develop new symptoms, so keep an eye out to quickly devolve.
- You may want to consider the Translesion + gene if you are having difficulty with costs to devolve. This gene stops cost increases when devolving.
4
Increase your transmission abilities and resistances. At the beginning of the game, your focus should be on improving the resistances and transmission properties of your fungus. Evolve the following abilities and transmissions in order to help spread your disease: ^{[3]
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- Water and Air Transmission 1.
- Bird 1 can also help due to the fungus in bird droppings. But this transmission isn't always necessary.
- Drug, Heat, and Cold Resistance 1.
- After you’ve updated these to level 1, focus on your Spore Burst abilities before continuing to level 2.
5
Start improving your Spore Burst ability. Spore Burst is the fungus' special ability, and can make spreading the fungus to other countries much easier.
- Keep evolving Spore Bursts until you get the Spore Hardening ability.
- Each time you purchase a Spore Burst, a new country will be automatically infected.
- Save a few Spore Bursts for the end of the game to infect any hard-to-reach countries. Saving a few bursts can help you get Greenland if you haven’t infected it yet.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Infection

1
Improve your resistances. At this point, you will be essentially waiting for the fungus to spread. The Spore Burst ability should be doing a lot of the infection work for you, so you just need to focus on improving the fungus' resistance. Evolve the following:
- Drug, Heat, and Cold Resistance 2.
- Environmental Hardening.
2
Increase transmission. Now that your fungus has been hardened, you can improve the transmission abilities so you can infect other countries easier. Evolve the following transmissions:
- Water and Air Transmission 2.
- Extreme Bioaerosol. Once you’ve upgraded Air and Water you will have the ability to upgrade to Extreme Bioaerosol. This boost allows the pathogen to bypass air/water filters, increasing the likelihood it survives overseas travel. ^{[4]
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3
Devolve any symptoms immediately. You still need to keep your fungus hidden. Immediately devolve any symptoms that appear while you are improving the fungus.
- If you haven’t infected the entire world, any symptoms which are found will immediately destroy your chances of winning. Because your fungus has infected people but isn’t killing anyone yet, a cure is easy to reach.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Destruction

1
Use your remaining Spore Bursts, including Spore Eruption, to infect the final countries. This is especially useful for difficult countries like Greenland, Iceland, and Madagascar.
- You can now use your remaining Spore Bursts to infect these countries without having to wait for the fungus to spread naturally.
- Try to avoid using your Spore Bursts until the likelihood of these countries being the targets is high. You may have to be patient as you wait for natural infection to other regions first.
- Keep an eye on symptoms until you can use Spore Burst and Spore Eruption to infect each country.
2
Wait for every person on earth to be infected. Do not start evolving symptoms until you receive the message that “No one is healthy” and the world has been completely infected by the fungus. If you start evolving symptoms too early, the research for the cure will quickly overtake your fungus.
- Wait until you get the “No one is healthy” pop-up before evolving any symptoms. If your world looks red and the infected counter stops moving, but you don’t see the pop-up, it’s likely a natural disaster killed some people.
3
Evolve the most deadly symptoms as quickly as possible. As soon as you receive word that your fungus has spread to every person, unleash your worst symptoms upon them. Aim to evolve the following symptoms for maximum lethal impact:
- Coughing.
- Pneumonia.
- Necrosis (optional if you have enough points).
- Pulmonary Edema.
- Pulmonary Fibrosis.
- Total organ failure.
- Coma.
- Insanity.
- Since everyone is now infected, don’t waste points or time on symptoms which are aimed at spreading the disease. Focus on those symptoms which lead to casualties. Your plague should be as fatal as possible.
4
Impede the cure. As you wait for the population to die off, spend some of your points to keep the cure at bay. Evolve the following abilities:
- Genetic ReShuffle 1, 2, 3.
- Genetic Hardening 1 and 2.
- This can also help you to get a higher score as you will win with a lower cure percentage.

Community Q&A

Question

What if I can't think of a cool name for my fungus?

Community Answer

It isn't strictly vital, but you could try Latin names which is where most disease names are rooted. You could also go for something funny that relates to you. .
Question

I do not have access to modifying the genes. Is it still possible to do it on brutal mode for all plague types without modifying genes?

Community Answer

Its possible, but incredibly brutal (as the name suggests.) I would recommend buying it; it's a low price, and worth it.
Question

I've done everything carefully but I never have enough DNA points to evolve. What do I do?

Community Answer

A strategy that has worked for me on every mode there is is to basically just evolve infectivity (like blood, water air, etc.) and NEVER get any symptoms. The moment you do, they will find the cure really soon. When you have the whole world infected and a good amount of DNA saved up you'll want to get 'total organ failure' and gangrene. Or really whatever you have enough DNA to spend on. Another helpful tip would be to get immunity to antibiotics, and maybe if you're feeling rich get the climate upgrades. If your disease ever evolves any symptoms, always devolve them. When the whole world is infected, get rid of transmissions to save DNA.