History KnightTemplar / Videogames

* At the end of of ''VideoGame/DmCDevilMayCry'', [[spoiler:Vergil]] has revealed himself to be one. At the last mission of the game, when Dante, Kat and he are looking at the city as Limbo has fallen upon Earth, [[spoiler:Vergil responds ''"The path is clear for us to rule".'' A thoroughly confused Dante and Kat question this and Vergil's reply is that humanity has failed in its endeavors to self-govern and they must be guided by someone, that being Nephilim. Dante, believing that accepting Vergil's outcome would only be replacing one evil ruling class with another, fights his brother]]. He gets worse in the [[spoiler:''Vergil's Downfall'']] DLC, to the point he straight-up drops any pretenses and succumbs to his lust for power.

** In the ExpansionPack for the same game, ''Frozen Throne'', Maiev Shadowsong devotes her entire existence to hunting down Illidan Stormrage, whom she had been tasked to guard during his imprisonment. She eventually lies to the man who gave her this task in the first place that his wife is dead so that he would help Maiev capture Illidan instead of going to save her from certain peril. In ''World of Warcraft'', she manages to fulfill her purpose, only to [[BadassDecay realise that her life has no meaning anymore]].

* Superman -- or rather, Regime Superman -- in ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'' embodies this trope perfectly, as the fallen Man of Steel shows us how dark an innocent, idealistic hero we know and love can turn should he lose the ones he cherishes and subsequently push his "justice" too far. He starts by [[spoiler:murdering Joker, who tried to push him into that and succeeded. With the exception of Batman, most of the Justice League joined his side, by adopting a WellIntentionedExtremist approach to stopping all crime by all means, including killing them on the spot, and establishing a totalitarian dictatorship called the One Earth Government aka the Regime.]]

** A custom group in two Mission Architect stories, the Shields of Fiminster, believes certain creatures such as vampires to be fundamentally evil, even if they obviously have free will and fight alongside other heroes -– the Shields will just suspect the latter of corruption. This makes them the main antagonists in ''Crusaders vs. Heroes'', in which they [[spoiler:were going to join forces with the Legacy Chain to fight the Rogue Isles Villains, but one of the Villains [[ExploitedTrope exploits their beliefs]] to trick them into fighting the Paragon Heroes instead]].

** In ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}} 2'', Nowe's friend and fellow Knight of the Seal Eris is a definite Knight Templar at first, rationalizing her superiors' questionable actions, threatening to harm Nowe when he expresses doubt about the Knights' righteousness, and [[MoralDissonance sporting a disturbing smirk when about to]] [[spoiler:burn Manah at the stake]]. Luckily, she wises up eventually...even if it took [[spoiler: General Gismor using her as a human shield and leaving her to die]] for her to do so. Gismor himself does not fit the bill: he doesn't care about justice or order, only personal power.

* In ''VideoGame/NinetyNineNights'', the AxCrazy Inphyy is this. She's a [[LightIsNotGood light-empowered]] swordswoman (she's even an officer in an order that calls itself the "Temple Knights") who is so utterly convinced that the [[DarkIsNotEvil goblins and other races that follow the Dark]] are AlwaysChaoticEvil monsters, that she'll go so far as to cut down [[MoralDissonance little goblin children]] without missing a beat. Even her similarly-powered but [[TheHero far more sane]] brother Aspharr calls her out on this in a WhatTheHellHero moment.

* ''VideoGame/SomaSpirits'': Form and Dissonance despise the people of Soma for starting wars and believe that by splitting the world and its people into two and eradicating the half with undesirable emotions, they can create a utopia. However, Form and Dissonance do not agree on which emotions are desirable and undesirable, with Form claiming only joyful emotions should exist and Dissonance claiming only sorrowful emotions should exist.
* ''VideoGame/SomaUnion'': Zeta believes that the current world is unfair to spirits, since it's possible for them to be stuck with purposes that make them unhappy and unfulfilled. He wants to destroy and remake the world into one where spirits are free of these roles.

* The mastermind of the plot of ''VideoGame/LostJudgment'', [[spoiler: Jin Kuwana/Yu Kitakawa; a former teacher who resigned in disgrace after a student attempted suicide due to extreme bullying he had downplayed, Kuwana became a murderous BullyHunter who used blackmail and threats to coerce his former students into assisting him with his crusade to hunt down, kidnap, and brutally murder any bully that had gotten away with similar crimes. He does this not out of revenge for his life being ruined, but as a misguided attempt to atone for his own negligence and failings and bring light to what he believes is a broken system. It's notable that many of the protagonists, even [[TheHero Yagami]], think that Kuwana has a point, but believe his methods are far too extreme and risk dragging innocent civilians down with him]].

** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRogue'' portrays the Assassins as NotSoDifferent from the Templars. They're so rigid and fanatical that they order the protagonist's death rather than consider the possibility that their playing around with [[{{Precursors}} First Civilization]] artifacts may have led to the deaths of civilians, they consider the murders of defenseless old men to be great victories for their cause simply because they happened to be Templars, and their membership is so conditioned to blindly follow orders that they instantly turn on one of their own at a word from the leadership, without even asking what he did to merit death.

* ''VideoGame/FlipDimensions'': The real Nephilims believed the environment was in danger of being destroyed by humanity and that they had to either wipe out or subjugate humans. In the present, only Duran and Maitus still believe in this goal, with the others realizing that they were NotSoDifferent from humans in resorting to violence.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'': In the third and fourth games, Crown Prince Cedric Reise Arnor believes that his family is duty-bound to serve Osborne[[spoiler:, reasoning that the latter is the reincarnation of Erebonia's greatest emperor and therefore knows best.]] He holds the rest of his family in contempt for either opposing or remaining neutral towards Osborne. [[spoiler:Averted once he regains his sanity and realizes that supporting Osborne isn't worth turning on his own family.]]

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesZeroNoKiseki'': The D∴G cult is another disgusting example of this. They believe the Septian Church is lying about Aidios's existence because of how unequally the goddess's gifts were received, and that the church is really after political power. In order to create a true goddess, they kidnap children to perform deadly Gnosis experiments and prostitute them to blackmail politicians into serving their interests. Their high priest, [[spoiler:Joachim Guenter]], brainwashes mafiosos and soldiers into helping him kidnap the girl that he plans on turning into a deity, and when he's rejected by his supposed deity, he insists that she's just being tricked by the protagonists.

* The ending for [[spoiler:Siegfried]] in ''[[VideoGame/SoulSeries SoulCalibur IV]]'' [[spoiler:causes him to say, after defeating Nightmare, "With this... it ends." "Our kind must not exist in this world; not ever again." This causes [=SoulCalibur=] to crystallize him, Siegfried, and Soul Edge...as the screen fades to black, the epilogue says that the world will soon be "covered in crystals, making it a utopia without wars or suffering." Whether this is Siegfried's choice or [=SoulCalibur=]'s is unknown.]]

* ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'': [[GreyAndGrayMorality Everyone]]. All three of the ideological Affinities have some religious flavour to them in a straight {{Aver|tedTrope}}sion of OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions, and all civilisations will attempt to impose their chosen ideology on everyone else, violently if necessary. A Harmony Civ's end-goal is to invoke an AssimilationPlot and force all it's members into a psychic connection with the planet, with a very questionable tolerance for individual autonomy. A Supremacy Civ's end-goal is to invade -- sorry, ''[[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide liberate]]'' the Earth and it's people from their highly flawed fleshy bodies and [[UnwillingRoboticisation forcibly upgrade them to superior forms]]. A Purity Civ's end-goal is to exterminate the native alien life, including any of their transhuman counterparts, and terraform the planet to make room for Earthling settlements, in a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything disturbingly similar fashion]] to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost Generalplan Ost]], the Nazi plan for genocide and recolonization of Eastern Europe.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}} 2'', Nowe's friend and fellow Knight of the Seal Eris is a definite Knight Templar at first, rationalizing her superiors' questionable actions, threatening to harm Nowe when he expresses doubt about the Knights' righteousness, and [[MoralDissonance sporting a disturbing smirk when about to]] [[spoiler:burn Manah at the stake]]. Luckily, she wises up eventually...even if it took [[spoiler: General Gismor using her as a human shield and leaving her to die]] for her to do so. Gismor himself does not fit the bill: he doesn't care about justice or order, only personal power.

** Later on, in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', the Blue Dragonflight under Malygos also turn into this -- willing to kill tens of thousands and cause irreversible ecological damage to the planet to rid the world of mortal arcane spellcasters. The Red Dragonflight and Kirin Tor ''agree'' that continued mortal use of magic will destroy Azeroth. The Blue Dragonflight is simply taking the direct approach to solving the problem.

** [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII The sequel]] reveals that [[spoiler:a large amount of the disorder and corruption in society comes directly from the Knights Templar to begin with. As they see themselves as the only sane and reasonable organization, eliminating individuals who are truly good and powerful, and who coincidentally interfere with their personal agendas, is entirely reasonable. To give an idea just how twisted their view is, ''[[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]]'' was a member, as was [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]], Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill.]] It strongly suggests, however, that a good bit of the Templars in late-1400s Italy were actually "in it" for personal gain, or otherwise using the Templar Order's ideals as political cover to be personally scummy, i.e. Marco Barbarigo. Cesare Borgia, the main antagonist of ''Brotherhood'', doesn't even bother with that pretense and is all about military conquest and personal glory/greed, not even mentioning the Order. The Templars in "Revelations" seem to go back to the roots of what they intended. [[spoiler:Prince Ahmet]] believed that UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans as it would create a world where nobody is divided by their differences.

** [[spoiler:That seems to be the goal of the modern Templars. When you talk to Dr. Vidic in 2012, he mentions how both 12th century Earth and modern earth are the same, with society being unorganized and corrupt, and that the goal of the project he is putting Desmond through is to bring a sense of order to the world]].

** ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite's'' Team Plasma take the definition in its most literal form -- the members are dressed as Crusade-era knights, complete with Chi Rho on their chest cloth, and they claim that their mission is to "save" Pokémon from human enslavement. They look the part, for sure, and the methods involve theft to carry this out, so acting the part's guaranteed. [[spoiler:It turns out that Team Plasma doesn't follow this trope one hundred percent -- it's all a front for Ghetsis, one of the Seven Sages, to conquer Unova and be the only one allowed to use Pokémon. It is ambiguous how many Team Plasma members were truly in it for the cause they claimed -- the only one for sure being their [[UnwittingPawn figurehead]] leader and Ghetsis's son, N -- who's [[TheWoobie the least evil]] [[AntiVillain of the lot]].]]

* The villains of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' are literal and figurative [[UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar Knights Templar]], while the Assassin Order that Altaïr works for is made up of more moderate {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s.

** ''VideoGame/ZeroNoKiseki'': The D∴G cult is another disgusting example of this. They believe the Septian Church is lying about Aidios's existence because of how unequally the goddess's gifts were received, and that the church is really after political power. In order to create a true goddess, they kidnap children to perform deadly Gnosis experiments and prostitute them to blackmail politicians into serving their interests. Their high priest, [[spoiler:Joachim Guenter]], brainwashes mafiosos and soldiers into helping him kidnap the girl that he plans on turning into a deity, and when he's rejected by his supposed deity, he insists that she's just being tricked by the protagonists.

** ''VideoGame/ZeroNoKiseki'': The D∴G cult is another disgusting example of this. They believe the Septian Church is lying about Aidios's existence because of how unequally the goddess's gifts were received, and that the church is really after political power. In order to create a true goddess, they kidnap children to perform deadly Gnosis experiments and prostitute them to blackmail politicians into serving their interests. Their high priest, [[spoiler:Joachim Guenter]], brainwashes mafiosos and soldiers into helping him kidnap the girl that he plans on turning into a deity, and when he's rejected by his supposed deity, he insists that she's just being tricked by the protagonists.