Plague Inc: How to Beat Parasite on Brutal

In Plague Inc., you play Parasite on Brutal almost exactly how you play Parasite on Normal, but with some gene modifiers to give you a boost. It’s a slow game, but it’s still fairly easy.

This walkthrough for Parasite on Brutal will make it pretty much child’s play though, you just need to have a little bit of patience and planning.

The key to the Parasite plague is its special ability in the Abilities section called Symbiosis.

Symbiosis helps to keep your plague from being detected, which is key to winning. Symbiosis doesn’t keep your plague from being detected completely, because the ability does have a threshold.

Basically you just need to keep any Tier 3 symptoms from evolving, and you can literally have every Tier 1 symptom, and every Tier 2 symptom but one, you always have to leave one Tier 2 symptom off. That’s a big threshold, and that’s why Symbiosis is awesome and the Parasite Plague can be extremely easy to beat, even on Brutal.

I have listed my gene setup below. I have all genes unlocked, which just requires winning 25 games. You don’t need to unlock all of the genes to win this one, as most of these are just the third in each category to unlock.

Gene Setup for Parasite on Brutal

DNA Gene: Cytochrome Surge – Get more DNA from popping orange DNA bubbles – this one is vital for getting DNA points during long games like this one
Travel Gene: Teracyte – Increases the chance of your plague spreading by land
Evolution Gene: Sympto-Stasis – Symptom costs don’t increase, but easier to cure, this one is important for this strategy
Mutation Gene: Genetic Mimic – Your plague is harder to cure, which counterbalances Sympto-Stasis
Environment Gene: Extremophile – Minor bonus in all environments

Starting your Parasite Plague

Phase 1

• Start in China or India – These are my two favorite starting countries due to high population and both airport and seaport available
• Abilities: Symbiosis 1, 2, and 3 (purchase these before anything else)
• Symptoms: Cysts & Anaemia
• Transmissions: Air 1, Water 1

Phase 2

• Transmissions: Air 2
• Symptoms: Let some Tier 1 and Tier 2 symptoms mutate, devolve any Tier 3 symptoms
• Abilities: Drug Resistance 1, Cold Resistance 1

Phase 3

• Transmissions: None
• Symptoms: Hyper Sensitivity if it hasn’t evolved, let other Tier 1 and Tier 2 symptoms continue to mutate, only devolve any Tier 3 symptoms
• Abilities: Cold Resistance 2

Phase 4 

• Ride this out racking up points and devolving any Tier 3 symptoms that evolve, but they should rarely evolve up that high
• Countries like Canada and Greenland will likely be the last to infect and spread, so be patient and let your plague do its thing
• Once you have 59 points banked up (you’ll probably have a lot more than that) then it’s time to have some fun

Phase 5

• Time to unleash hell! Once everyone in the world is infected and you have 59 points, purchase Paralysis, Coma, and Total Organ Failure to start killing people off, and throw some extra points at fun stuff like Internal Hemorrhaging, Hemorrhagic Shock, and Necrosis
• The cure will start to rise quickly, but don’t panic.. you’ll be racking up points quickly as well as the world dies off
• Purchase Genetic Hardening and Genetic Reshuffle if you’d like to reduce the cure amount and increase your final score a bit

Congrats, you win!