Fake News is a scenario added to Plague Inc: Evolved and Plague Inc. in the Mutation 1.17 update, announced on the official website's news.
Scenario Attributes
The Fake News manifests as Bacteria with costs no longer escalating per purchased trait nor with Mega-Brutal settings. Natural disasters and transport shutdowns are disabled.
To begin its spread, one has to specify a topic, a starting party, a motivation and a blamed party, all of which are free and have different effects on Virality and plausibility. Only 1 of each per category may be chosen, while the starting party and blamed party cannot be identical.
After completely specifying the exact nature of the Fake News the growth phase begins as people are made aware of the Fake News. Those who are not deceived become informed instead, and even those who are deceived will eventually become informed. Eventually, the Fake News will attract authorities and they will work on disproving it.
If over half of the world is deceived, the Fake News begins to indiscriminately spread into every country and secures a victory. If over half of the world has been informed, however, the truth will prevail and the game ends in a defeat.
Working similar to its original counterpart, Virality directly relates to the spread velocity of the Fake News.
A critical victory condition, Plausibility determines how likely would people be deceived instead of being informed.
A secondary stat that must be maintained at high levels to ensure victory. Community is inversely proportional to the possibility of deceived people becoming informed.
Trivia
This is one of the few cases where the player doesn't have to necessarily infect everyone in the world for a victory, as it only requires 50%+ of the entire population deceived.Due to this, Fake News is so far the only scenario where Cure Progress can actually regress as the disease ravages the world without the influence of individual traits.The first line in the scenario image is "Sadness is a result of chemicals in the water."The second line in the image is "Social Media now only way to vote in Election."The third line in the image is "Vaccines are probably a bit rubbish." This refers to the modern notion of anti-vaxxers.Gallery
Various art concepts regarding the icon of this scenario[1]
Tips
For strategies how to beat this scenario, check out the Strategy Guides/Fake News section.