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Chronic Backstabbing Disorder / Video Games

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  • Assassin's Creed:
    • Assassin's Creed III Benjamin Church to the point where Shaun, in his database entry he even said that he wouldn't be surprised if Church betrayed himself. By the time we get to go after him, he's betrayed and left the Templars (whom saved him from being butchered early in the game) and betrayed the Patriots twice. The first betrayal in that list was so bad that Haytham personally searched for Church, decided to enter an Enemy Mine situation with Connor, and when he finally catches him, he beats the living shit out of him. When Connor steps in and tries to interrogate him, Church just grins and says "Go to hell" before getting stabbed.
    • The street gang bruisers in Assassin's Creed Syndicate come down with this when the DLC is included. First, many of them belonged to the Templar's gang, the Blighters. Then Jacob Frye recruited them for his Assassin-based gang, the Rooks. In the Jack the Ripper story, they start working for Jack himself who, in fairness, was also an Assassin and one of Jacob's initiates so they were more of a Renegade Splinter Faction then a true turn. Then in the second Syndicate extra story they are back to the orthodox Assassins Brotherhood by working under Jacob's granddaughter, Lydia Frye.
    • The player character will almost certainly become this in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. The game is set during the Peloponnesian War, with Spartans and Athenians fighting for territories all over Greece. The player character can choose to defend or attack the incumbent powers in most territories, with a larger reward being offered for helping the invaders to seize control. Since there is zero gameplay incentive to stick with one faction over the other it usually makes sense to flip your loyalties on a whim and aid the attackers in any given conflict.
  • Baldur's Gate II:
    • The player character himself can do this: A silver dragon asks you to retrieve her eggs from a drow city. The drow want to feed the eggs to a lesser demon lord. The daughter of the Evil Matriarch wants to betray her mother, so she asks you to switch the eggs for fake ones. Her Defector from Decadence lieutenant offers another double-cross, by providing a SECOND set of fake eggs. So you can now give the Evil Matriarch the fake eggs (making the demon lord kill her for a double-cross), give the daughter the other fake eggs (making the demon lord kill her too for a triple-cross), and then finally as a Moment of Awesome you can betray the dragon and hand the real eggs over to the demon lord yourself for a quadruple-cross. Or you can give the eggs to the dragon, then kill the dragon and take its blood for use in a later side-quest. Kill the lieutenant too and nobody gets what they want except for you!
    • Saemon Havarian first appears as a captain hired to take you to Spellhold, where it turns out he was actually in the employ of Irenicus all along and had doped your meals on board for an easy capture. He then betrays Irenicus, helps you to boot him out of Spellhold, and offers you a ride back to the mainland. As it turns out, his ship has 'tragically' been stolen in the meantime without his knowledge, so he obtains your services to steal him a new one and rewards you with a Githyanki Silver Sword... Then, when the Gith show up to claim it, he abandons you to them! You also encounter him in ToB, where as soon as he sees you he tricks some local thugs into attacking you to get himself off the hook. Finally, he shows up to offer to show you a hidden backdoor into the Big Bad's lair... Which has an ambush outside of it, ready to take you prisoner. Unfortunately for the ambushers they had instructed him to dope you again so they can take you without a fight and he didn't, making it a double-cross of both ambusher and ambushee at the same time.
  • In the BioShock series, Atlas has a bad case of this. He pointlessly betrays both Jack in the original and Elizabeth in Burial at Sea. In both cases, he sacrificed a valuable, high-caliber solider for no apparent reason when their appointed task was done, but when they would still be useful in the immediate future. Nor did he have any reason to expect them to turn on him (neither having anyone else to turn to, as far as he knew), and he didn't gain anything from killing them.
  • Subverted in BioShock 2, where every hint given throughout the game (and experience with the original) leads the player to believe that Sinclair, your Voice with an Internet Connection, will betray you. And then...he doesn't. He even gets a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Captain Scarlett in the Borderlands 2 DLC Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty shamelessly betrays just about everyone she meets, and she's pretty cavalier about admitting it. Her intro even outright says "Will absolutely stab you in the back." The question is never if she's going to turn on you, but when. That said, she does make sure to reassure you that she won't betray you until after you've finished helping her retrieve Captain Blade's treasure, since a Vault Hunter has a much better chance of success at dealing with whatever traps there may be. Which makes the fact that she backstabs you before you both get the treasure all the more surprising.
  • In Civilization IV, almost all leaders will never declare war against civilizations that they are on good terms with, and you can't even suggest it in negotiation. Almost all. Catherine the Great of Russia is unique — if you bribe her sufficiently, she will attack her allies.
    • In V, Catherine has reasonably good Loyalty. And then you've got Enrico, Nobunaga, Napoleon, and Wu Zetian, who have the lowest Loyalty ratings in the game and will betray you because it's Tuesday.
  • Clive Barker's Undying: Bethany studied under various mages to learn all she could from them and then dropped them as soon as they were no longer useful. She finally met her end when Keisinger betrayed her before she got the chance.
  • Not an installment of the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series without someone trying to betray either the Nod player or Kane. Its become tradition to expect at least one Starscream to rear their head during the Nod campaigns.
  • The Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series' Soviet Union seems to live off of this. Indeed, it was originally planned that in the Soviet campaign of RA1 that a fight would break out between Stalin and Zelenkov, and that a gun would get knocked to you — allowing you to decide who you were to betray. Instead, Zelenkov kills Stalin, and then is killed by the nameless guy who has been in the background of all the Soviet cutscenes... Kane. That's right, Nod is so afflicted with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder that their members betray people in games they're not even canonically in!
  • Anyone with the Rebellious trait in Crusader Kings. Even if you can keep their loyalty going up, even if you support them with constant gifts, they will suffer random drops in loyalty to you, gain prestige gradually till they can claim your lands or even throne, and will eventually enforce those claims. And the worst part? If you put them back in their place, they'll probably revolt again, and give you the Realm Duress trait, making all your vassals like this. And if you do crush the rebel and take his titles, it upsets your other vassals... and you'll probably end up with them up in arms anyway.
    • In Crusader Kings II This is replaced with the Ambitious trait. It gives a character a nice stat bonus, a desire for more power for themselves and -50 relationship with their liege if they're a vassal. Combine with Envy for someone who will stop at nothing to get what they believes should be theirs.
  • The Voodoo Boys in Cyberpunk 2077 are a group of elitist netrunners who believe everyone outside their gang is worthless, and as a result have a nasty habit of "paying" their freelance assets in death once their job is complete. They're the ones who got V's Mysterious Employer Evelyn killed, and they try to do the same to them after deciding You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. To make matters worse, they're even traitors to the human race; they believe a Robot War is inevitable and desire to join the "winning side" by making contact with the hostile AIs sealed away.
  • Xana in Dark Messiah encourages Sareth to be a backstabbing bastard at every opportunity. She even encourages him to betray her supposed master and Sareth's father the Demon Sovereign by suggesting that Sareth should claim the Skull of Shadow's power for himself and leave his father to rot in Sheogh. Ironically enough, Sareth can betray Xana by purifying himself, an act that will render her Deader than Dead.
  • "Trusty" Patches The Hyena from Demon's Souls. The guy acts all buddy-buddy with you only to try and outright murder you mere moments later so he can take your stuff. He does this to you again in Dark Souls and again, 7 years after his first appearance in Bloodborne. There's some people you just can't trust — even if they're a vendor you might need. In Dark Souls III, after you've already spared his life for trying to feed you to a giant, he then tries to lock you in the tower behind the shrine to starve just because he's Patches and that's what he does. And in the Ringed City DLC, when he recovers his memory at the Purging Monument after spending most of it as Amnesiac Lapp, he immediately kicks you down a cliff...although he does at least leave his armour and help you out as a summon.
  • Inverted in the Dead Space series. Over the course of 3 games, Isaac is backstabbed by no less than 5 different characters.
  • This is essentially the goal of DEFCON, especially on the diplomacy game mode. Six players control shares of the world's supply of nuclear weapons, an on-screen timer lets you know when you can use them, you all start on the same team, and only one person can come first. You can be almost certain that at some point in the game every player will try to court every other player for an alliance, and every player will at some point attack every other player regardless of their past usefulness and / or loyalty.
  • Bat betrays every person he works for in Digital Devil Saga, except for Varin but that's only because he dies before he gets a chance to even try. Not surprisingly, his demonic form is Camazotz, a demon of treachery from Mesoamerican myth.
  • You get plenty of opportunities to be a backstabbing bastard in Dragon Age: Origins. You can betray Wynne in the "Broken Circle" Quest by agreeing with Cullen to purge the Tower, you can betray Kolghrim either by refusing to poison Andraste's Ashes with dragon blood or by poisoning the ashes to get the "Reaver" specialization then kill him afterwards, you can betray Zathrien or Witherfang at the climax of the "Nature of the Beast" Quest, you can betray Ignatio by deciding to kill him after completing the assassination contracts...it's a long list. All of these pale in comparison to the "A Paragon of Her Kind" Quest. If you play it a certain way both candidates for the throne will be confident that you will support him. You're free to choose whoever you want. If you've been performing tasks for one candidate there's nothing stopping you from picking his rival in the end.
    • Queen Anora can also do this to you twice! Once when you rescue her in Arl Howe's estate when you tell Sir Caulthren that you're here to rescue her and twice in the Landsmeet if you don't agree to get her to the throne. You can also backstab her if you're a female Human Noble who's romancing Alister by promising to support Queen Anora for the throne to gain her support, then turning around and pushing the idea of making Alister king with YOU as queen instead of Anora at the Landsmeet.
  • The Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi What-if Saga The Plan to Conquer Earth's ending implied that the main villains (Broly, Mecha-Frieza, Bojack, Cooler, Baby Vegeta, and Super 17) intended to utilize this trope on each other.
  • In one of the Dynasty Warriors games where one is allowed to create a custom character, the player can do quite a bit of this. Often one of the other two kingdoms' strategists will send you a letter asking you to defect to their side. Notably, this can happen repeatedly, and you can keep defecting as many times as you receive offers. Do this enough, and your character will gain the title of "The Hidden Blade," with a well deserved reputation for being reliably untrustworthy.
    • Also, see the section on Lu Bu in the Literature examples.
    • Similar to main games, Dynasty Warriors Online allows you to do this, but it's never called betrayal even by the game. You have a faction that you are part of for the game, you are assigned a general who gives you your pay and rank missions. If you go to a specific general each day and collect 2 months worth of stamps, you can get one stamp per day on a character, you can "reincarnate" and go to a different faction mid-war. You are treated as a new warrior to them rather than as a traitor to your old faction. if you made a habit of this you could probably go 4 different times per scenario. You don't get anything for doing this, though.
  • Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
    • Archdemon Libra prioritizes balance between powers, but they also admit that this means they'll eventually betray whoever they're contracted to if the latter is too powerful compared to their enemies. However, they make sure to warn their sync partner of this before forming the contract.
    • Robun has a habit of sacrificing his friends to complete his Hunter missions, even if they were perfectly cooperative. In Chapter 3, he sacrifices himself and his entire team to unleash Sagittarius on the party, though Akira manages to save Artica from this fate.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • It is quite possible to have this general in the series, depending on how you choose to play. Whenever it may tickle your fancy, you can sneak up behind the guy giving you your quest and backstab him. To death.
    • Boethiah, the Daedric Prince of Plots (encompassing Deceit, Conspiracy, Murder, Assassination, Treason, Unlawful Overthrow of Authority, Betrayal...) is essentially the embodiment of this trope. He (sometimes "she") exists to cause and exacerbate this condition in mortals, and he is not above pulling this himself the moment his followers outlive their usefulness or simply because he is bored. Most of his quests throughout the series involve pulling this in one way or another. In Skyrim, Boethiah requires that you bring and sacrifice a follower (someone who trusts you) at her shrine in order to even summon her to receive her quest. (And that quest has you killing her other followers and then hunting down her "unworthy" former champion.)
    • Xivilai are a massive and powerful form of lesser Daedra. Xivilai are noted for their strong tendency toward betrayal in addition to their strong hatred of subordination.
    • Morrowind features the Dunmeri Great House Hlaalu. Being focused on mercantilism and trade, Corrupt Corporate Executive types thrive as members. You can even join in on this if you become a member. One quest in particular has you tasked with killing the Kwama Queen of an egg mine belonging to the rival of the quest giver, who is another member of House Hlaalu. You can extort the rival out of thousands of gold with the promise not to kill the queen...then kill it anyway for the maximum reward. Even among the Councilor ranks, murder and assassination are perfectly acceptable methods of improving your standing.
    • Within the plot of Oblivion, there's a lot of backstabbing going on (literal and figurative). It gets downright ridiculous after a while, to the point that you can almost guarantee someone is going to backstab someone else or turn out to be a double agent before any given mission is over.
    • In Skyrim, the Daedric quest of Mephala (a Daedric Prince whose sphere is "obscured to mortals" but who is associated manipulation, lies, sex, and secrets) is to recover and recharge her artifact: the Ebony Blade. In order to restore it to its full power, you need to use it to kill people who trust you, which primarily means you'll be backstabbing people you've completed quests for.
  • Elibian Nights has Erik. In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, he had attempted to betray Eliwood and Hector in order to kill them and unify Lycia under his father's rule. Come Hector becoming the ruler of Lycia, Erik joins with Dawson and Yorick's rebellion against him... only to switch sides mid-fight, because he realizes staying with the rebellion will cause him to lose whatever chance he had left to rule Lycia himself. Of course, nothing is stopping Hector from just killing him.
  • Benny in Fallout: New Vegas betrays everyone he can. First (that we know of) he betrayed Emily Ortel by not giving her anything like she promised for programming Yes Man, who is in turn just an instrument to complete his betrayal of Mr. House. Then he betrayed the Great Khans he had hired to help him kill the Courier, by slinking off just before they got cornered in an ambush. When you meet him at The Tops you have the option of talking to him in his room, and depending on how you handle things will either not show up in the room and sic some goons on you, or will make a very reasonable deal with you to give you a cut of the profits from his scheme to take over New Vegas, so long as you become his errand boy/girl. However, when you report to work to do some fetch quests, you find he has run off. Dummied Out dialogue reveals he would have tried to kill you again after you saved him at the Caesar's Legion camp.
    • The Courier can also engage in chronic backstabbing; helping the Powder Gangers wipe out Goodsprings, then betraying them to the NCR, then switching sides to the Legion in the second act, bombing the Monorail and wiping out Camp Forlorn Hope, followed by upgrading the Securitrons and having the Khans break their alliance with the Legion, killing Caesar, and finally offing Mr. House and installing Yes Man in the Lucky 38, proceeding to a independent Vegas.
    • Every deal made by Caesar's Legion is done in bad faith. The Legion doesn't have allies, just prospective slaves and enemies. Nipton falls to this, Ulysses' tribe fell victim to this, the White Legs fell victim to this, and potentially the Great Khans can fall to this unless you find some way to cancel their alliance with the Legion. Allying with the NCR in the end-game and setting up alliances with all the minor factions of the Mojave creates a beautiful Aesop: no matter how powerful, numerous or ruthless you are, you can't win if you alienate everyone else to the point where they gang up on you.
    • Similarly, Fallout 3 has multiple backstabbing opportunities, such as helping Mr. Burke nuke Megaton, then turning Roy Philips and his fellow feral ghouls loose on Tenpenny Tower; rescuing the Big Town captives from the Super Mutants only to sell Red into slavery immediately after; rescuing the Little Lamplight residents from Paradise Falls followed by enslaving Bumble; self-destructing President Eden and Raven Rock but infecting Project Purity with the Modified FEV anyway; and finally, capturing Adams Air Force Base from the Enclave followed by calling an orbital strike on the Brotherhood of Steel's Citadel.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Kain Highwind of Final Fantasy IV. It was at least partially mind control, though.
    • Final Fantasy XII, oh my! Among various other political machinations, House Solidor (the Archadean Emperor's family) all seem to have this. The implied background is that the eldest two sons, possibly on separate occasions, plotted against Emperor Gramis, who had the third son, Vayne, kill them. During the game, Gramis plots against Vayne, correctly predicting that Larsa, the youngest son, would make for a better and more stable Emperor. At the same time, The Senate is trying to seize power from House Solidor, particularly fearful that Vayne will take the throne. At the same time, Vayne plots against Gramis, The Senate, and Larsa framing the Senate for Gramis' murder, so that he can take the throne before Larsa can. As the plot goes on, Larsa plots against the Archadian war, making contact with rival and conquered countries to make peace. In the climax, the brothers actively raise their swords against one another.
    • The antagonist of Final Fantasy XIV's initial Ninja quests, Karasu Redbeak, suffers from this. You're introduced to him as responsible for undermining Doma's attempt to rebel against Garlean rule - selling secrets and backstabbing the leader whom he was sworn to serve. It turns out he was only an underling of the mastermind behind that particular betrayal - who Karasu then betrays by revealing his master's Faking the Dead ploy to your job tutor Oboro. After an expansion of posing as an information broker (which itself involves learning what you can and selling it to the highest bidder, customer loyalty be damned), he then turns on Oboro once again by hiring a band of disgraced samurai to steal a scroll from Oboro's village... who he then sells out in turn by sacrificing them to you and your allies in a "game" to decide who gets the aforementioned scroll... the terms of which he then defies by holding the last of your allies hostage at knifepoint until the prize is handed over. His new master Hanzo promptly immolates Karasu as soon as the scroll is handed over - not to reward him as a traitor deserves, but simply because Karasu is the son of someone Hanzo hates. In a demonstration of Magnificent Bastardry that would make Revolver Ocelot proud, it turns out that Karasu not only survived that, but gave Hanzo a fake scroll, and he and his Bunshin clones serve as your NPC allies for the Ninja's final solo instance... only to promptly run off with the scroll before Oboro and co. can meet back up with you. When you see him again in the post-Shadowbringers job quest, he sees through Oboro's deception-disguised-as-parley and manages to successfully stop him from taking the scroll back.
    • In Final Fantasy Tactics, Chronic Backstabbing Disorder has apparently become a pandemic. One character in particular (Delita Heiral) is arguably the reigning king of this trope. As the game goes on it becomes practically expected of him to stab whoever he appears with. And he is one of the good guys. Well, for a certain value of good guy at least.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • In the Tellius duology (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn), Naesala betrays everyone several times over, to the point that the habit is hilariously lampshaded when another character exclaims "Naesala betrayed us? Again?" He did have an excuse, though, as we learn in Radiant Dawn.
    • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, House Rowe of Faerghus has a history of backstabbing and changing its alliances on a whim. When the fortress city of Arianrhod was first built, it was meant to be an Adrestian stronghold, but House Rowe declared its allegiance to Faerghus immediately after its completion. During the war on non-Empire storylines, the current Count Rowe switches sides again, flipping to the Empire and ambushing your army's troops in Ailell. Rowe himself acknowledges it in the Empire storyline of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes when his bannermen, Gwendal and Lonato, warn him against crawling back to the Kingdom after he'd already betrayed them for the Empire.
  • Geneforge:
    • In the first two games of the series, this is a viable option for the player due to the number of factions. It also makes an Omnicidal Neutral playthrough much easier if you can join a faction, loot their treasury, and simply walk into their leader's chambers before turning against them. Sadly, this is almost impossible in the later games.
    • Phrariton in the second game. According to him, he had allied with and subsequently turned his back on all four major factions before deciding to lord over his own territory and pursue research.
  • Ryuzo from Ghost of Tsushima. First, he betrays his best friend Jin and the rest of Japan by selling out to the Mongol Empire. Then once the tides start turning, he tries to betray the Mongols and go right back to Jin's side like nothing happened. It doesn't work out.
  • Alex of Golden Sun suffers from a severe case of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, which is made all the more confusing because of the ambiguity over which side is "good" and which is "evil." As of the end of Golden Sun: The Lost Age, he appears to be the only member of the main cast who was unambiguously evil. Then the Golden Sun: Dark Dawn comes around and he's back to being infuriatingly enigmatic.
  • Grand Theft Auto:
    • All the Player Character in the games have this as an organizing principle, the usual storyline has a formula of infiltrating a criminal organization or group, starting a series of mission chains which ends with killing the person who gave you that mission, and later, rinse, repeat until eventually you are on top. Of course there's a set of True Companions you are not invited to betray and can't hurt but by and large you don't progress by being loyal.
    • Grand Theft Auto 2: In order to complete all missions, you will have to eventually start killing members of a previously friendly gang to get their rival to offer you jobs. Once all missions from all gangs in an area are completed, the gangs catch on and all their leaders will be out to get you. Note that the other way is to simply accumulate enough money where you'll be shown the way to escape the city.
    • Grand Theft Auto III: It's a running theme in the game that that everybody - even player character Claude - is ready and willing to put one in an ally's back to get themselves whatever advantage they think they can get out of it. Catalina betraying Claude in the opening kickstarts the entire plot, and Claude, in the name of tracking down Catalina, either betrays or is betrayed by his bosses several times:
      • After several missions for The Mafia, Claude learns the boss Salvatore Leone has become so paranoid that he's set up a car bomb to kill Claude, whereupon he jumps ship to the Yakuza, whose first mission is to go back and kill Salvatore.
      • One of the missions for the Uptown Yardies on Staunton Island requires you to take out the Diablos, who you previously worked for in Portland. The final mission in turn has them set you up for an attack by drugged-up suicide bombers, courtesy of the Colombian Cartel.
      • Donald Love's second mission has you pose as a member of the Cartel to kill Kenji Kasen, another boss of the Yakuza, to drive down real-estate prices by setting off a gang war between the two.
    • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Frank Tenpenny has a raging case of the syndrome. The only character he doesn't screw over (often fatally) by the end of the game is Big Smoke, and then probably only because he hadn't yet outlived his usefulness; after CJ kills Smoke, Tenpenny expresses his appreciation for CJ killing Pulaski and Smoke.
    • Grand Theft Auto IV: Dimitri Rascalov backstabs every alliance he makes throughout the course of the game, regardless of what outcomes are chosen. At the start of the game he sells Niko Bellic out to a debt collector after convincing Niko to kill his boss Faustin. He doesn't change at the end of the game. In the Deal ending, he double-crosses Niko twice over when he murders some clients who were going to buy heroin and takes the heroin for himself, then sends an assassin to kill him who accidentally kills Roman at his own wedding; then he murders business associate Jimmy Pegorino so he can keep all the profits for himself. The Revenge ending boils down to Niko getting wise to his tendencies and killing him before he can get another chance to stick the knife in him.
    • Grand Theft Auto V: Michael who would do anything to fulfill whatever selfish desire he had at the time. He betrays his friends to be with his family by faking his death. Years afterwards, he cheats on his wife and altogether ignores his entire family, even though he later attempts to patch things up in his own way... which gets complicated. If Ending A is chosen, he helps Franklin kill Trevor. If Ending B is chosen, Michael gets betrayed by Franklin and gets killed by him. And in Ending C, Michael can shake off this tendency and join the other protagonists for a truly epic showdown with their enemies once and for all.
  • Guns, Gore & Cannoli has Frankie. Vinnie, the mob bosses, the scientist who created the zombie plague, the Nazis in the sequel...nobody is safe from this guy!
  • Axel in the Kingdom Hearts series has this problem. He is part of an alliance with Marluxia and Larxene to take over the Organization... but he betrays them because he's actually The Mole. Zexion and Vexen oppose Marluxia and Larxene's plan, so Axel should be aligned with them, right? Nope, he kills Vexen and has the Riku Replica kill Zexion. Turns out Axel's working with Saix and the two of them want to take over the group themselves, killing other traitor factions and loyalists that would get in their way. But then Axel becomes friends with Roxas and Xion, and leaves Saix behind. And then he (semi-accidentally) betrays them too!
    • Organization XIII in general has this problem. Almost all of them has had some scheme going at one point or another. In fact, it's one of the reasons they ended up The Soulless to begin with. Exceptions are Demyx, who just wants to play his sitar; Luxord, who just wants to play poker with Marluxia; and Roxas, who just wants to eat ice cream with Axel and Xion — (apparently enough to try to take down Riku and the entire Organization just to have a chance to revive Xion).
    • Topped by the reveal in 3D that Xemnas, their leader, and Xigbar betrayed the entire organization by lying to them from the beginning about the Organization's goals, leading to most of them defecting to Sora's side by the end of III.
  • Knights of the Old Republic features this in both games, this being attributed to how easily enticing the Darkside is.
    • In the first Bastila falls to the darkside after being captured by Malak, despite the fact you could have easily defeated him at the point of capture, and in the second Kreia reveals herself as Darth Traya, who has been manipulating you from the start.
      • Kreia actually has a philosophy on betrayals, seeing such things as necessary!
      • In both, you get the chance to betray everyone, from small families on Dantooine to your True Companions.
    • In the first game, the "GenoHaradan" missions. Hulas, the Rodian who gives you all the missions, gives you a final four missions to kill 'criminals', later revealed to be other "Genoharadan" leaders he has hired you to kill so he can assume sole power. Then he betrays you, but has the pleasant gentlemanly nature to set a time and place on Tatooine, although he tells you to come alone while he brings a small gang.
    • Also in the first game, while infiltrating a Sith training academy, the academy master's apprentice knows that her master is planning to kill her, and asks you to help her when the time comes. You can then tell the master, who will tell you to play along but turn on the apprentice when the time comes. You can tell the apprentice about this, and she will ask you to play along but, again, support her when the time comes. Whichever one you choose at the showdown will naturally try to kill you immediately afterwards.
      • You can thwart the apprentice from killing you by appealing to the bit of lightside still in her: You can later find her at the Dantooine academy if you do.
      • Even better, when the time comes to do the betraying, you can betray them both and kill them. Honestly you could say the entire planet of Korriban is this trope.
    • In the Fan Game Knights of the Old Republic III: The Jedi Masters, if the Player Character is Dark Side their Spirit Advisor Freedon Nadd will order them to kill his mooks. When his minions question this, he mocks them and says the very fact that they're surprised by this is why You Have Outlived Your Usefulness.
  • Last Scenario: Tassar is an abject failure of a military leader who pretty much betrayed all the organizations he belonged to just to save his own skin every time things went pear shaped. His luck eventually ran out after requesting help from Helio who instead sent him to the Biorite Facility where he was transformed into a misshapen horror that later fought and was killed by Hilbert and co.
  • In The Legend of Zelda game Hyrule Warriors, if Ghirahim is helping you fight large bosses in Adventure Mode, don't expect him to be helping you for very long. He even has the gall to suggest that you're the one getting in his way afterwards (although he gets extremely frustrated if you take your attention off the bosses and beat him down as a result).
  • In Lords of the Realm 2, all of the nobles will eventually do this to you if you ally with them.
  • In Mass Effect, the krogan are a species whose homeworld bred them to be brutal, vicious, and straightforward, to the point that not only is treachery the norm, it's expected and understood. Having a "krannt" — a team of warriors who are loyal enough to you that they won't shoot you in the back — is a sign of a great leader.
    • Shepard can become one of the kings/queens of this by the events of Mass Effect 3. You can backstab Samara, replacing her with her psycho daughter Morinth. Later, you can backstab/defy Cerberus and the Illusive Man by destroying the Collector base. Then you can backstab the entire krogan species by sabotaging the genophage cure, which also involves backstabbing and killing both Wrex and Mordin, if they're both alive at this point. Then you can (and perhaps will be forced to) backstab either the geth or the quarians. Yes, Mass Effect 3 lets Shepard potentially betray and kill a species, two even if you weren't paying attention to what the infamous endings did..
  • Metal Gear:
    • Revolver Ocelot is the master of this trope, and — via a parody series — the Trope Namer. In almost every game, he's pulling a Fake Defector from one nefarious organization to another, sometimes through multiple fronts. The only man he is unquestionably loyal to is Big Boss.
      • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots reveals Ocelot was, in a weird sort of way, on Solid Snake's side the whole time, though his role in forming the Patriots in the first place classifies him firmly as Anti-Hero rather than Hero.
      • In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, despite not appearing, the backstory revealed he'd pulled the hitherto unprecedented feat of backstabbing his own mother before he was born.
    • The only other person who backstabs as much as Ocelot and gets away with it is Naomi Hunter. She pulls several in Metal Gear Solid, and in Metal Gear Solid 4 she betrays the good guys and the bad guys multiple times, confusing everyone. Her eventual goals were mostly good, but man. Did the ends really justify the crazy roundabout means?
    • The Patriots as an organization qualify as well, since they usually manipulate people into acting in accordance to their will (even feeding some people ambitions to betray them in order to carry out exactly what was intended all along). They even out-backstabbed Ocelot, as they deliberately kept some information about the S3 Plan from him. Given his role in founding the group, he may have deduced their true intentions anyway.
    • In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Technical Pacifist engineer "Huey" Emmerich goes from a Generation Xerox of his Nice Guy son Hal/"Otacon" to securing himself a place in XOF by helping them destroy the MSF base. When Huey learns that the Diamond Dogs are out to avenge that betrayal and Skull Face is questioning his relevance, he defects to Mother Base, only to eventually lash out against their (understandable) disdain for him and recapture XOF's support by mutating a strain of vocal cord parasites. The Diamond Dogs try Huey in a Kangaroo Court (albeit one where it wasn't that hard for them to prove he really is guilty) and exile him from Mother Base for planning to use his young son as a pilot for his battle mech...then murdering his wife when she refused to comply. Years later, Huey's suicide nearly becomes one final horrible backstab, as he attempts to drag his stepdaughter into the pool to drown with him.
  • Mortal Kombat:
    • It's standard for any villainous character's ending to involve them killing the Big Bad and taking his place. In Deadly Alliance there are two big bads, both having displayed CBD for the entirety of their appearances. Guess what happens in their endings.
    • Tanya is a known sufferer, who's known to either betray or intending to betray every master she works for. Tanya is a bit more committed in Mortal Kombat X and seems to be on good terms with her boss, Mileena (who is promising that once crowned empress again, she will allow Edenia to return to being a separate realm instead of being tied to Outworld). However her usual tendencies still exist as in her Arcade Tower ending she turns Rain over to Kotal Kahn in order to gain mercy and be spared, which she then uses to plot her next move whilst serving Kotal Kahn.
    • Rain himself is pretty bad about it too, stabbing his allies in the back in order to gain recognition and power. Even after the Reset Button he's still up to his old antics. His Arcade Ladder ending in Mortal Kombat 9 has him betray Shao Kahn for not giving him an army but then turn around and used the army he took from Shao Kahn to overthrow Earthrealm, where Raiden was grateful for his suppression of Outworld. In Mortal Kombat X he gave Mileena the idea to steal Shinnok's amulet but is only doing it because he knows that whenever she uses it, it will drain her of life. Once the amulet completely kills her, he will step in and finish the job, making himself the emperor of Outworld in the process.
    • D'Vorah is no stranger to this in Mortal Kombat X, as she was initially The Lancer to Outworld's new ruler, Kotal Kahn, who took over the realm after overthrowing Mileena. She was actually The Mole and Evil Genius for Quan Chi, who entrusted her to get Shinnok's prized amulet, thus making her a Dragon with an Agenda. And her arcade ending reveals that she even kills Shinnok and steals his power for her own gain by using his corpse as a living incubator for her larvae (turning them into Kytinn-God hybrids loyal to her) and elevate herself as the true queen of Kytinn, obliterating other realms in doing so. This shows that her loyalties lies to no one but herself.
    • However, none compare to the original Big Bad of the first game, Shang Tsung. To sum up how treacherous he is, in the Mortal Kombat 11 DLC Aftermath, literally everyone's first reaction to hearing that Shang Tsung is aiding the fight against Kronika is disbelief and mistrust. It's so bad, that Kronika even calls him out on it when he backstabs Sheeva, Kitana, Raiden, Fujin, Shao Kahn, and Sindel in rapid succession. And then it turns out that Liu Kang was so certain that Shang Tsung would fall into this that he actually anticipated this without fault and actually lied to him about being trapped at the beginning of time before he challenges him to one last fight. Needless to say, only a complete idiot would legitimately trust Shang Tsung. Oh, and by the way, he was one of said Big Bads in Deadly Alliance.
      • Mortal Kombat 1 takes this to the logical extreme by having Shang Tsung betray the only person he has not already betrayed: himself.
  • In Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe The Joker turns on Deathstroke while on a mission for Luthor. He was infected with "RAGE" but unlike the Flash and other characters, stayed in character, even going after Batman with his newfound strength. Batman understandably knocks him out after the fight and informs Lex he shouldn't have trusted the clown.
  • Masayoshi Shido in Persona 5 kills several of his associates to further his own goals and to prevent others from disclosing any information regarding his rise to power. He kills the Shujin principal for failing to deal with the Phantom Thieves, Okumura in order to frame the Phantom Thieves for causing the mental shutdowns, the SIU Director for his connection to the conspiracy, and even Akechi for his participation in the murders (although Shido's own cognitive version of Akechi was the one who did the job).
    • There is also the Traitor, Goro Akechi. Not only did the Traitor betray the Phantom Thieves, they later revealed they were waiting for an opportunity to betray their boss, Masayoshi Shido who also happens to be Akechi's father, and did all of this under the nose of the police, who they seemed to be betraying when they joined the Phantom Thieves in the first place. While the Traitor's true allegiances never change, it takes a bold person to betray three separate groups at once.
  • Your own crew in Pixel Piracy will eventually revolt against and kill you if you fail to keep their morale up.
  • The Vizier of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Betrays the Indian King, gets miffed when King Sharahman doesn't give him the Sands, tricks the Prince into unlocking the Hourglass. Narrator!Prince even lampshades it in the narration on the road to Azad.
    Prince: Trust not a man who has betrayed his master, nor take him into your own service, lest he betray you too. I learned the truth of this, to my sorrow, the day we arrived in Azad as the sultan's honored guests.
  • The Resident Evil series gives us Albert Wesker, a man who seems to have betrayed every superior, subordinate, and partner he has ever worked with. Considering Resident Evil 5's revelation of Wesker being an Unwitting Pawn in Ozwell E. Spencer's plan to make himself a god, it's very likely that Spencer himself also qualifies under this, arguably even more so than Wesker.
    • Ada Wong has also at some point or another turned on just about everyone she's worked with: Leon, Umbrella, Krauser, Wesker himself, and possibly her bosses at the Agency, as well as cutting ties with Simmons's organization. However, she is ultimately more sympathetic because she rarely kills those she's suckered, and aside from Leon, who she genuinely cares for even if she sometimes uses him, every person she's turned on would have done the same to her in a heartbeat.
  • Rome: Total War: The AI is *unintentionally traitorous*. Diplomacy and military AI do not "communicate" in the game. The diplomatic AI will look solely at factors like the ones on the diplomacy screen (relative power, reputation, current relations, money, etc), while military AI will look at the actual strategic map. The military AI will out-of-the-blue betray you even if you're allied; all it sees is "City with only one unit in the garrison, ATTACK NOW!" and doesn't even look at whether or not its an ally or neutral city.
  • Silske the Mahjarrat from RuneScape makes a living off this trope. In the backstory, he betrayed the Barrows Brothers and turned them into wights, and if he is to be believed, he betrayed his god Zaros by not warning him of Zamorak's plan to kill him. In the game proper, he betrays the player in the quest Ritual of the Majarrat by trying to turn them into a wight (they're saved by an NPC Taking the Bullet), betrays his fellow Mahjarrat in The World Wakes by killing Guthix instead of merely awakening him (which sets the whole Sixth Age into motion), and betrays Linza by turning her into a wight. Ironically, the player finds out that he himself is being manipulated by Jas.
    Wahisietel: Sliske is not only mischievous; he's also dangerous. I'm not even sure he trusts himself.
  • Saints Row 2: Dane Vogel. When he makes a deal with the Brotherhood to release their gang members from jail, he hijacks their weapon shipment after the gang members are killed by You. He had a partnership with the Ronin that he betrayed when they couldn't protect his company, and teamed with the Saints to let them take them out. And in the Ultor missions, he sends his personal hit squad to wipe out the Saints. Then he blames it on the Board of Directors, allowing you to take them all out so he may take full command of Ultor. Then you kill him.
    • In Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, Dane betrays the Devil. However, he never betrays Gat and Kinzie.
    • Tanya Winters in the first game. She betrays Tony Green for Warren Williams, Benjamin King for the both of them to rule the Vice Kings, and Warren himself so that she can take over by herself.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog: The player, as Shadow, can choose to ally themselves with one faction or another in each level—Sonic & Co., GUN, Dr. Eggman, the Black Arms, or even no one at all. This affects what level you go to next, but not the way anyone treats you afterward, so you can freely behave this way.
  • In Shiren the Wanderer for the Wii, people are betraying each other all the time. The character named Sensei is supposedly your uncle/mentor, then joins a hulking bandit leader and tries to kill you. He later rejoins you casually. Asuka rescues you, later fights you for like five seconds (still having access to the Bag of Sharing) because she worries you will accidentally destroy the world. She joins you again when you defeat her.
  • Sly Cooper:
  • In StarCraft: Brood War, Kerrigan or her lieutenant, Duran successfully betrays every major organization in the game. She gets away with it because her later targets are out of contact with her earlier targets. There isn't a single moment in the entire expansion campaign when the player isn't somehow furthering her goals. Duran was never even working for Kerrigan, either.
  • Deconstructed in Star Wars: The Old Republic where the Empire (with all the infrastructure and political stability of a third-world Banana Republic crossed with 1600's Italy) stockpiled and invaded the Republic (who were caught with their pants down because Revan and The Exile were idiots charging into an obvious trap and made no provision to warn the Republic these guys still existed). As long as they had the Republic to fight, they were fine. Once the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, the Sith predictably started passing the time backstabbing each other with everyone else from the military, the intelligence service, and even low-level officials trying to undermine each other while individual Sith occasionally splinter off into their own fiefs. Out of the four Imperial player classes, only the Bounty Hunter is actually fighting a Republic target for their Final Boss, and the Hunter can actually choose to make a Heel–Face Turn and kill the Darth hiring them instead! Even Darth Malgus and the Dread Masters that Imperial players free on Belsalvis decide to start their own empires and wage war on both factions. The Republic, inefficient as it can be, stands united. By the time the Makeb storyline rolls around, Darth Marr is telling Imperial players that the lack of experienced Sith, officers, and officials, along with their military losses and lack of infrastructure, have pretty much left the Empire screwed.
  • In Tales of Symphonia, Kratos and Yuan go from helping you to backstabbing you to helping you to backstabbing you, back and forth constantly. There's also Zelos, who is playing several of the factions of the game up against each other so he can join whoever's the winning side, but does so considerably more subtly.
    • Tales of Xillia has Alvin, who repeatedly betrays both the party and the antagonists. The party always lets him come back, but the trust between them has some serious dents left in it. He, of course, has his reasons, but by the fifth or sixth betrayal, it all gets kinda silly.
  • Eric Sparrow in Tony Hawk's Underground is this in a nutshell. First, during your trip to the skating contest at Tampa Am, he "forgets" to sign the player's name along with him, which forces the protagonist to impress the other competitors outside the contest to gain admission. Then, right after the protagonist does a McTwist over the hovering chopper between the buildings in Hawaii, Eric edits the tape to make it look as if HE was the one who nailed the trick and shows it at the premiere at the Slam City Jam of Vancouver, which allows only Eric himself to become pro. And finally, in Moscow, Russia, Eric, in a drunken stage, causes a tank to crash into a building and runs away, leaving the protagonist to take the blame for his actions and kicked off the team. It gets to a point where Eric becomes your former friend turned enemy in the end.
  • Total War: Warhammer II: To fit them being this in the lore, Dark Elf and Skaven factions have loyalty mechanics to manage for their armies (Clan Eshin are exempt). Of note, Tretch Craventail has the unique faction trait of receiving a buff from breaking treaties.
  • Terry Higgins in True Crime: New York City betrays the entire NYPD by faking his death, the four crime syndicates by having Marcus apprehend the leaders, pins the blame on Victor Navarro, his own boss, for the entire mess, and leaves Marcus when he refuses to join with him.
  • The plot of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is Nate and brother Sam finding Libertalia, the legendary "pirate utopia" founded by Henry Avery and a set of major pirate captains. It was intended to share their loot and rule without the rules of society. When Nate and Sam find it, the place is a total ruin with obvious signs of some massive battle. It turns out that a society led by pirates, people whose sole goal in life is robbery and hoarding wealth, was doomed from the start. It didn't take long for the pirate kings to fight for the treasure so Avery and Thomas Tew got them all together to make peace over a dinner...and poisoned the entire bunch so they could have the treasure for themselves. Then, when the populace rises up in revolt, Tews stabs Avery in the back to try and get the treasure himself only for Avery to end up killing him and the entire "pirate utopia" became a mass graveyard.
  • The Betrayal game mode from Unreal Tournament III's Titan Pack is basically CBD: The Game. It's an Instagib-based gametype where your only weapon is a Shock Rifle whose two modes kill enemies and teammates respectively. Since the fraglimits tend to be high and the two most effective methods of garnering points is through backstabbing your teammates and gunning down said backstabbers repeatedly, playing Betrayal is looking over your shoulder for teammates as well as enemies. Successful betrayals are also tallied up against your name on the scoreboard, and next to your name on the team roster, so everyone can see how much of a bastard you've been.
  • Zeikfried from Wild ARMs does this to Mother by donning a blue robe and guiding the heroes to the Tear Drop before urging them to destroy her while she's vulnerable. Later on, he does it to Boomerang by sending out a horde of monsters to destroy him alongside the heroes.
  • Janus Cascade from Wild ARMs 3 first backstabs Virginia and, after he's teamed up with the Prophets, he keeps announcing his intention to betray them at the right moment and seize Filgaia for himself. He would have succeeded, had Siegfried not come back from the dead, taken his spear back and then gutted him as a sacrifice.
  • In The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Letho the Kingslayer and the Lodge of Sorceresses share this trait.
  • World of Warcraft: Galen Trollbane, son of one of the most powerful human kings in history, ended up killing his legend of a father out of jealousy. He then dies (violently). Then he's raised as a Forsaken, and betrays THEM so he can finally claim his father's kingdom. Then as a Death Knight in Legion, he has you clear out some trolls under the condition that he relinquishes his father's body for raising as a Death Knight. He then betrays YOU in a bought of Suicidal Overconfidence and ends up using his father's sword to defend himself (poorly), resulting in his second death.

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