10 Video Game Fates Worse Than Death (Commenter's Edition)
8. The Cordyceps Brain Infection - The Last Of Us
If hundreds of video games have proven how much it would suck to become a zombie, The Last of Us one-upped that with its even more horrific humanity-annihilating disease - the Cordyceps Brain Infection.
The fungus grows within the host while they're still very much alive, so for a time they're 100% aware of what's happening to them.
Transformation is a four-stage process, as the host loses their higher brain function and becomes aggressive (stage one), the fungus alters the victim's vision (stage two), turns them blind and forces them to rely on sound (stage three), and if they live long enough, they'll develop extremely resistant fungal armour (stage four).
Without the intervention of a well-armed human, the Infected can live for decades, even eventually combining with other Infected to become the horrifying Rat King as witnessed in The Last of Us Part II.
And even if you do get put out of your misery by someone like Joel or Ellie, you're still able to release spores into the air and potentially infect other people.
Basically, nothing about this is preferable to a bullet in the head upon the first sign of infection.