Project Parasites
Contain an alien parasite outbreak that arrives by meteor, corrupts the terrain, and infects mobs. Craft protective gear and tools to fight it.
Project Parasites is a survival horror mod for Fabric 1.21.1. A meteor lands near you and leaves a core that corrupts the terrain. The air becomes toxic, parasites start appearing, and the outbreak grows harder to contain.
The mod is inspired by Scape and Run: Parasites. I made the code, models, textures, animations, and sounds for this project myself.
Choosing a difficulty
Choose Normal or Extreme when you first enter a world. The choice is locked afterward. On a server, the first player to join chooses for everyone.
Normal gives you more time to respond, with weaker enemies and faster infection recovery. Extreme adds enemies that learn your tactics, break blocks, and spawn more enemies after deaths.
| Setting | Normal | Extreme |
|---|---|---|
| Corruption speed | Half speed | Full speed |
| Maximum parasites | 20 | 30 |
| Adaptive AI | Off | On |
| Enemy block breaking | Off | On |
| Death spawns | Off | On |
| Iron golem infection | Immune | Can be infected |
| Enemy health / damage | 70% / 75% | 100% / 100% |
| Infection recovery | 3x faster | Standard |
| Outbreak waves | 3-5 | 5-10 |
| Meteors and bosses | Less frequent, slower | More frequent |
Corruption and infection
The outbreak progresses in phases. First the terrain changes and the air becomes toxic without hazmat protection. Stronger parasites and outbreaks follow, then hive structures and bosses. Corruption continues while you are away from the area.
Attacks and toxic air build your infection level. Symptoms progress from nausea to slowness, then hunger and weakness, and finally wither damage and blindness. Antidotes and hazmat armor help you manage it.
Creatures
- Crawlers climb walls and attack in groups. Spitters leave acid pools, Lurkers hide and ambush, and Swoopers attack from the air.
- Stalkers flank you and freeze when watched. Broodmothers spawn smaller parasites, while Infectors turn vanilla mobs against you.
- The Hivemind strengthens nearby parasites and uses coordinated slam attacks. The larger Leviathan is immune to fire.
Zombies, cows, villagers, and other vanilla mobs can become infected. Iron golems are protected in Normal mode.
On Extreme, parasites respond to your fighting habits. Frequent bow use makes them zigzag and close in faster; fighting underground increases cave spawns; fire use builds their resistance. They also organize into swarms with assigned roles. Normal disables these behaviors.
Equipment
Early tools include Warding Torches for safe zones, Antidote Potions, and the Noise Dampener. Later, you can use the Parasite Scanner HUD, Flamethrower, Decoy Blocks, Immunity Serum, and Hazmat Armor with 80% infection resistance.
Late-game equipment includes the boss-dropped Parasite Bane Sword, Hive Destroyer, Purification Beacon, and Corruption Purifier, which shuts down meteor cores.
Events
The first meteor is scheduled at five minutes, or ten in Normal, with more arriving afterward. Blood moons bring a red sky, faster corruption, and more spawns. Outbreaks send waves of parasites through heavily corrupted areas.
Configuration
Edit config/projectparasites.json to adjust corruption speed, spawns, and difficulty settings, or disable individual creatures. Server admins can use /parasites commands for testing and management.
If you try it, leave a comment about how your world holds up.
Project Parasites Team
