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Evil Is Not A Toy / Video Games

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Examples of Evil Is Not a Toy in video games.

  • Arc the Lad gets a moment of this when the King of a country that has been manipulated by demons willingly sets free the Big Bad and gets as far to say 'My first act shall be...' before he is vaporized for 'Serving his purpose'.
  • Baldur's Gate:
    • In chapter 5 of Baldur's Gate II a drow priestess summons a powerful demon lord to aid them with their planned assault on the surface elves. The protagonist has the option of tricking the priestess into offering the wrong sacrifice, upon which the demon promptly obliterates her. Her daughter then attempts the same, and again the protagonist can tamper with the sacrifice and have the demon kill her as well. The demon lord finds this hilarious, and will offer you the bargain instead. If you pick the right dialogue option you'll get a cool weapon, pick one of several wrong options and you'll get incinerated. Most walkthrough guides recommend keeping your stupid mouth shut.
    • In Baldur's Gate III, the Final Boss is the elder brain controlling the illithid Hive Mind that's been enslaved by the Big Bad Triumvirate. Unfortunately, the Artifact of Doom they used to do it ended up making the brain too powerful for them to control. If the Player Character agrees with the mastermind Gortash's We Can Rule Together plan and brings him to the final confrontation, the brain mocks him before killing him instantly.
  • Ayakashi: Romance Reborn: Aoi's route in Dawn Book II has Akiyasu who tries to summon Taira no Masakado, by throwing the MC away as a sacrifice. All to resurrect his late father. It backfires terribly when the malevolent wraith decides to possess the very person who summoned him. Akiyasu is visibly surprised the moment before he is possessed.
  • Bayonetta 3: Used as part of the "Demon Slave" gameplay mechanic. In the context of the story, Bayonetta needs the Infernals' power this time around to fight the Homunculi, bioweapons made from human technology. As the Homunculi are not beings of Paradiso, the demons wouldn't normally attack them. This leads Bayonetta to reveal the Demon Slave, an ancient Umbra art that enables her to forcibly take control of the Infernals so that they will destroy Homunculi. Where this trope comes in is in the rage mechanic tied into Demon Slave. If an Infernal takes too much damage in battle, they'll become enraged. While enraged, they cannot be given commands, and their attacks will harm Bayonetta herself in addition to harming enemies.
  • BlazBlue: During his training, Jubei constantly reminds Ragna that the power of the Azure Grimoire is not truly his power, and that it will never truly be under his control. As the creator of the Azure Grimoire(s), both of them, Yuuki Terumi seems to think he can easily control the power of the Azure. It backfires when Lambda performs her Heroic Sacrifice, enabling Ragna to overwhelm Terumi's Grimoire and halt Mu-12's rampage. This was all according to Terumi's plan and he takes advantage of this situation and uploads a virus that freezes Takamagahara, the reality warping supercomputer that held his leash. Granted, this did come at the cost of his monopoly over the Azure's power and Mu-12.
    • This trope also applies to Takamagahara, who paroled Terumi from his Hakumen-enforced imprisonment in the Boundary as a pawn for their plan to destroy the Master Unit. He proceeds to infect them during a blind spot in their omniscience.
    • Lotte Carmine so believed that if he could harness the knowledge of the Boundary, he could come up with something beneficial to humanity, even if it costs the lives of many people. Even his Mad Scientist mentor Kokonoe did not approve, and the result of that is that he gains nothing, and the Boundary corrupts him into Arakune. Even worse, his girlfriend Litchi decided to dabble on that as well to save him, and on the sign of first symptoms, when Kokonoe refuses to even help her, she decided to dabble with another Evil: NOL and Hazama, aka Yuuki Terumi. It's still unclear which one is Eviler than Thou in this case: Boundary corruption or NOL/Hazama. Lotte at least managed to learn his lesson and managed to pull himself together enough to warn Litchi to stay away from him and get Kokonoe to help her with her own Boundary corruption. Although even Litchi herself realizes that she already dug too far, and just letting it be as everyone else told her to will not make her problem go away. It's complicated.
    • One of the Six Heroes, Nine, also fell to this. She just banished Terumi after the murder of her would-be brother in law Tomonori, who tried and failed to kill Kazuma Kvar before Terumi could merge with him. When the Black Beast arrived, she decided to free Terumi and enslave him with Mind Eater, thinking she could control him well. That backfired, Terumi killed her and in irony's sake, she would get turned into Phantom, practically Terumi's slave.
      • To be fair to Nine, Terumi could not break the geas on his own, and he needed to con her close friend and his (body's) love interest, Trinity Glassfield, into having it lifted. Once it was, he shanked them both and tossed them into the nearest cauldron.
    • Chronophantasma reveals that, ironically, both Yuuki Terumi and Relius Clover are on the receiving end of this trope. Both of them were so confident in their ability to carry out their plans that they left control of Takamagahara to Imperator Librarius, with the intent of using them — and her — to draw out the Master Unit and have her expire in the process. Given they both abducted her from Celica's church explicitly for use as a vessel in Wheel of Fortune, they had no intention of keeping her longer than they desired. By the end, she reveals her true identity as Izanami (and Phantom's REAL boss instead of Terumi as he thought above) and leaves them to their fates whilst she seeks to destroy the Master Unit or eliminate those with the power to challenge her world of death. Long story short, you don't fuck with a god.
  • In Bloodborne, the Healing Church spread usage of the Old Blood throughout the city of Yharnam, which then began being used as both something that can heal the body and as a sort of recreational drug. Too bad that the Old Blood is eldritch in origin and causes those who imbibe too much of it, which is pretty much everyone in the city, to slowly turn into blood-crazed beasts. The Church tried to suppress this knowledge in the past, even barring and burning down an entire section of Yharnam after all its citizens became beasts, and kept promoting the Old Blood anyway, but by the time the game starts the whole city has been completely overrun.
  • In the backstory of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the Alchemist Guild were losing their financial backers to the Industrial Revolution, so they attemped to scare people by saying that if they abandon spirituality for the industrial revolution, demons will appear and destroy the world. Words didn't make the populace budge, so they summoned demons which they planned to defeat to prove their point that they were right and the revolution was wrong. The demons ended up being too much for them to handle and nearly ended the world until the Church stepped in to contain their mess and execute the guild for this.
  • Happens twice in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, depending on which ending you get.
  • In Chrono Trigger, the heroes have concluded that Magus is attempting to unleash Lavos in 600 A.D., which will inevitably backfire and result in The End of the World as We Know It in 1999 A.D. If given a chance, Magus explains that he knows damn well that he can’t control Lavos; he’s actually trying to destroy it. Given the fact that unaltered history went on to having the Fiends lose the war due to Magus' disappearance while Lavos' influence was temporarily lessened due to the summoning, it would seem he fought Lavos and succeeded in weakening it at the cost of his own life.
    • Also, we have the highly advanced magical floating continents of Zeal, whose ruler tries to harness the power of the world-destroying Lavos. As a result Queen Zeal goes insane and the city comes crashing down when Lavos gets angry.
  • Chzo Mythos has the druid Cabadath, who intends to open a portal to Another Dimension in order to take control over Chzo, an Eldritch Abomination and a god of pain, and have him fight the invading Roman forces. He fails miserably, and is subjected to an eternity of horrible torture. He is subsequently turned into The Tall Man, a sort of Dragon, and is used in a similar fashion by other minor villains.
  • This happens many times in the MMORPG City of Heroes. In every single case, it's up to the player characters to clean up the mess.
    • Most notably, happens to the players during the Barracuda Strike Force.
  • Summoning demons or Sleeping Ones in Conquest Of Elysium 2 is far from risk free. Anything can rebel against you if you're not generous enough with the sacrifice, and even massive sacrifices don't completely negate the risk. Considering that some beings can wipe out armies on their own, you better be prepared.
  • Zig-zagged in Cultist Simulator. Rushing straight into pacts with unknowable beings is a great way to quickly get bled of resources in unfavourable deals. And in this game, resources are things like your health, sanity, and ability to act normal in public. That said, if you're savvy to this trope and do your research, set things up properly, and prepare for what you're getting into, you might find an Eldritch Abomination appreciates that level of respect.
  • In Dark Cloud, Colonel Flagg releases the Dark Genie from the Urn. The genie proceeds to eat the leader of the Curse Dancers simply because he was hungry. When the genie is defeated, it turns out to be just a mouse that was sealed into the Urn with the true Dark Genie and managed to absorb some of its power. The real Dark Genie has long since possessed Flagg and kills him the second his body begins to falter.
  • The Ancestor in Darkest Dungeon never seems to learn despite repeatedly causing problems by meddling with Things Man Was Not Meant to Know.
  • Implied from a torn-up note in Dark Fall: The Journal. Its writer tried to resurrect a loved one via a pact with an Eldritch Abomination. From the panicked contents of said note, you can infer that it didn't go as planned.
  • Dead Rising 2: Any MegaCorp that thinks using zombies to further some goal is a good idea is asking for trouble, but the folks behind Terror Is Reality deserve mention for keeping an army of zombies around for a gameshow. Naturally they escape and destroy Fortune City.
  • Destiny 2:
    • Clovis Bray fell into this trap in his experiments regarding the Vex. He constructed a massive Vex gateway on the ice moon of Europa, intending to harvest the machines' radiolarian fluid. Sure enough, the Vex that emerged from the portal went out of control and caused the deaths of many.
    • Lakshmi-2, at the end of Season of the Splicer, attempted to use a Vex portal device to banish the Eliksni House of Light into outer space. All she ends up doing is allowing the Vex to attack the Last City, her being the first casualty of the attack.
    • In the Empress lore book, the Cabal general Umun'arath develops an unhealthy fascination with the Hive that the Cabal are locked in a Forever War with, convinced that they're perfect warriors with no fear of pain or death. So she begins mucking about with Hive magic, convinced that the Cabal need to copy the Hive to beat the Hive. Predictably, she loses her mind, and ends up using herself as a Human Sacrifice to summon the Hive directly into the Cabal capital.
  • Devil May Cry:
    • In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Arkham and Vergil both seek to unseal the evil Temen-ni-gru tower and seize the power of Sparda. In Arkham's case, he wants to use the power become a god, and in Vergil's case, he wants to surpass his father and rebuild his kingdom. Neither really has a chance of happening since unsealing the Temen-ni-gru would also open a portal to the Demon World, which would cause The End of the World as We Know It. As for the power of Sparda, when Arkham manages to get his hands on it by claiming the sword Force Edge, he quickly devolves into a hideous monster. As Vergil rightly points out, Arkham can't handle Sparda's power. In this case, however, it's a Downplayed example. The power of Sparda, which is revealed via the Devil Sword Sparda, Force Edge's true form, while immense, isn't inherently evil. In truth, the power can only be fully wielded by beings who are not only strong, but who also understand love and compassion, just as Sparda himself did.
    • In Devil May Cry 5, Vergil runs afoul of this again. After the events of Devil May Cry (2001), Vergil, on the brink of death, attempted to save himself by turning the demonic katana Yamato, which he inherited from his father, on himself, using the sword's true power to split the human and demon halves of himself into independent beings. The two halves, however, cannot exist separately, and were slowly decaying away. To make matters worse, the demon half, later called Urizen, without Vergil's humanity to keep him in check, nearly destroys the Earth. He takes the place of Mundus as the king of the underworld, unleashing a demonic army on Red Grave City. He then proceeds to kill thousands, sacrificing their blood to the demonic Qliphoth tree, intending to consume a fruit from this tree to become all-powerful. The Qliphoth itself, when full grown, would then cause the end of everything by fusing the human and demon worlds as one. As indicated by Vergil's human side, later called V, after Vergil was recompleted at the end of the game, he was actually horrified by what he had done.
  • The Wish spell in Dominions can be used to summon any unit you can think of. But if you summon a Doom Horror, it only has a 50% chance of being controllable instead of hostile, and the Horror that responds to your call may not be the one you asked for.
  • In Doom (2016), the Union Aerospace Company (UAC) found a portal into Hell, and decided that extracting the latent "Hell Energy" and filtering it into a clean power source they dubbed "Argent Energy" would be a fantastic idea. Needless to say, this resulted in the forces of Hell overruning Mars thanks in part to UAC's Olivia Pierce deciding to ally with the demons for power. She got her "power", alright — they turned her into a cybernetic spider monster who serves as the game's Final Boss. UAC head Samuel Hayden isn't much better; when the Doom Slayer (who understands how this trope works) starts destroying the Argent Energy facilities to try and head off the invasion, Hayden tries to stop him by insisting that humanity needs the Hell Energy, and the game ends with him confiscating a Hellish artifact from the Slayer and teleporting him far away so he can't interfere.
    • The sequel Doom Eternal shows that Hayden's actions ultimately led to a full-on invasion of Earth from Hell. For his part however, Hayden has tried to make up for this by personally leading humanity against the forces of Hell. He finally learns his lesson however when he learns that "Argent Energy" is made via suffering caused by torturing a soul to the point that it becomes a demon.
  • Dragon Age:
    • In Dragon Age II Merrill knows making a deal with a Pride demon — the most powerful and cunning breed of demon — to restore the Eluvian is dangerous, but thinks the risk is worth it. Nearly everyone around her disagrees, including her mentor Marethari, Anders, Fenris, and Rival!Hawke. In the end her detractors are proven right. The Pride demon was going to use the restored Eluvian to enter the real world and Merrill would have been its first victim. Only Marethari's sacrifice prevented this outcome. This is actually played with a bit as Merrill is actually immensely aware of the risks to her own safety that a Pride Demon possesses and tries to take appropriate precautions, but fails to think of how others who aren't willing to take the risks might be affeccted. Interestingly, she and Anders both lecture each other about this in regards to the spirits in their lives. Anders thinks Merrill is a fool for even considering consorting with a demon, while Merrill thinks Anders is naive for thinking there are "good" or "bad" spirits by fusing with Justice. As far as she's concerned, all spirits are dangerous and can't be underestimated.
      • Solas's comments in Inquisition put another potential spin on the situation. According to him, spirit interactions with humans have an element of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in that spirits are inadvertently shaped by human reactions towards them; if you're expecting a demon, then one way or another a demon is what you're gonna get. This raises the possibility that the spirit Merrill wanted to contact was a relatively benevolent wisdom spirit, but became a Pride demon because that's what everyone thought she was going to find.
    • And in Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, the expansion to the original game, it is revealed that (weapons-grade spoiler) the Architect, a darkspawn born with free will, accidentally caused the Fifth Blight when he awakened the Old God Urthemiel and tried to turn him into a free-willed darkspawn like himself, with the intention that this could prevent future Blights. Instead, he spread the darkspawn taint to Urthemiel and turned him into the Archdemon, causing the very Blight he was trying to prevent. Oops!
    • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, after being inadvertently blasted forward in time by a misfired spell cast by a member of a violent nationalist Tevinter cult, Dorian notes the tendency in Tevinter to completely fail to grasp this trope.
      Dorian: It's the same old tune. [mocking] "Let's play with magic we don't understand, it will make us incredibly powerful!" [serious] Evidently, it doesn't matter if you rip apart the fabric of time in the process.
  • Dragon Ball Xenoverse: During the Beerus Saga, Demigra attempts to use his Black Magic to take control of Beerus. It initially appears he's succeeded, with Demigra even taking the time to indulge in some Evil Gloating...but as it turns out, Beerus was only faking it in order to draw Demigra out of hiding, and subsequently helps the Future Warrior fight him off, all while lampshading how stupid Demigra was to think he could use him for his plans.
    Beerus: Trying to control me? That's blasphemous.
  • Dragon Quest VI: You can visit the ruins of Graceskull Castle, and later see why it's in ruins. The king hit on the bright idea of summoning a giant demon to beat the Archfiend, the game's Big Bad. Astoundingly enough, this fails and results in the destruction of the castle. As it turns out, the demon they summoned is the game's Superboss. If you're sufficiently overleveled and can beat it in a few turns, the demon acknowledges your strength and cheerfully curbstomps the Big Bad for you.
  • The Elder Scrolls has a number of rules and guidelines for Daedra summoning that are designed to prevent this (at least in story; it's less of a problem for the player). One in-universe book, for example, tells the story of a boy who summons a Dremora to practice his Conjuration. The Dremora says the boy will need a soul gem to advance further, and hey! He just happens to have one on him that the boy can use. The boy accepts the soul gem...and the Dremora demonstrates how to use it by tearing the kid's heart out and trapping him in the gem. The book ends with the moral that you never accept a freely given gift from a summoned Daedra, because this breaks the magical bond that keeps them from killing you.
  • Exit Fate: Demon summoning (binding a spirit into a human host) is a textbook example of this trope. The result is a being who is immensely powerful and functionally unbeatable, but seemingly retains their full loyalty and most of their human nature, making them excellent supersoldiers. Unfortunately, their morality and loyalty quickly erodes as they become drunk on power, go rogue, and start killing everything for fun. Pretty soon whatever you created them for pales in comparison to the new threat.
  • This shows up twice in the Skyrim Game Mod Falskaar:
    • The reason that (former Brother) Vernan was thrown out of Bailun Priory is because he kept dabbling in experiments that eventually nearly killed two people. Brother Arnand tries to talk him down towards the end of the "Dreams in Oblivion" questline, pointing out that he's nowhere near in control. Sure enough, the Dream Crystal sucks him into Oblivion.
    • To call The Heart of the Gods "evil" is a big stretch, but the principle still applies. Yngvarr's efforts to take it over result in him being killed by a giant dragon spirit.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • In Final Fantasy V, the Big Bad Exdeath has the ultimate goal of gaining power over this power called "the void" and take over the world with it. He laughs at people saying the Void couldn't be controlled and is seemingly using it without any problems, but after you beat his tree form in the game's final dungeon, he loses control of the Void and it possesses him, which for you is also bad (the form Void-ified Exdeath takes, Neo-Exdeath, is the Final Boss of the game and an Omnicidal Maniac who wants to destroy all of existence, and then himself).
    • Emperor Gestahl from Final Fantasy VI winds up learning the hard way that he doesn't have nearly as much control over his psychotic Dragon-in-Chief Kefka as he thinks. Once they reach the Floating Continent, Kefka betrays Gestahl and claims the power of the Warring Triad for himself. When Gestahl then tries to stop him, Kefka effortlessly shrugs off everything thrown at him and brutalizes Gestahl, gleefully mocking him for not seeing the betrayal coming before kicking him off a nearby ledge to his death.
    • In Final Fantasy VII, Jenova was excavated by Shinra and used in genetic experiments to create Super Soldiers. Of course, using a poorly understood Cosmic Horror in unethical human experiments turns out really badly. Most of the SOLDIERS (including the top three) go mad and Turned Against Their Masters. The cumulation of this is Sephiroth, whose hatred and will combined with Jenova's destructive instincts and power lead to the destruction of Shinra and the near destruction of the Planet. Although Hojo, at least, was so crazy that he probably intended all this to happen from the start; he certainly isn't upset when it happens.
    • Final Fantasy VIII: The president of Galbadia announces to a cheering crowd that he has recruited Sorceress Edea to help "negotiate" with neighbouring countries. She asks the crowd if they have forgotten the horrors of the Sorceress Wars, and then casually kills the president. The crowd keeps on cheering.
    • The artificial moon Dalamud in Final Fantasy XIV TWICE. Built by the Allagan Empire as a giant solar collector using an imprisoned Bahamut, it caused cataclysmic earthquakes destroying their Civilization. Later the Garlean Empire decides it would be a good idea to cast Meteor and call Dalamud down to destroy the Three Kingdoms not knowing that it's artificial or that it contains Bahamut. It broke open in the atmosphere and released Bahamut wiping out both battling armies and causing a massive reshaping for a good section of the world. Moral of the story: don't try to use the power of what is essentially an elemental god whether you know it's there or not.
    • In Final Fantasy Dimensions, Emperor Elgo tries to harness the power of Nil, an intangible force of void, malice, and destruction, in his bid to become a god. It works for a short while, but after the heroes hit him for a while, he loses control of it. The Nil tears apart and transforms his body into three gory and fleshy "Chaos" forms, leaving him a horrifying mutant in a tormented existance (mercifully, only until the end of the final boss battle).
  • Fire Emblem; repeatedly. Spoilers ahoy!
    • The Big Bad of The Blazing Blade, Nergal, fully devoted himself to the dark arts in order to rescue his wife. Said dark arts consumed his free will and caused him to forget why he wanted power in the first place.
    • In The Sacred Stones, Prince Lyon of Grado tries to use his country's sacred stone to heal his ailing father. Good idea, except he knows the Demon King's soul is imprisoned inside, but he's sure he can control it. Not only does it control him, but it kills his father, resurrects it as a zombie, and promptly declares war against the world. Oh, and it consumes Lyon's soul by the end of the game. Oops.
    • In Path of Radiance, Mad King Ashnard declares war and pisses everyone off so he can generate enough chaos to unlock Lehran's Medallion and free the dark god inside. Luckily, the heroes stop him before it happens.
    • Averted in Radiant Dawn. Lehran is still alive and well and he starts another war, hoping to break the medallion. He doesn't want the god trapped inside but if she wakes up, her counterpart will wake up and turn everyone to stone. That's exactly what he wants. Radiant Dawn also retroactively averts Path of Radiance for this trope: the "dark god" imprisoned within the medallion is actually not a dark god at all, merely the embodiment of chaos, emotion, and free will, which means Ashnard was never using evil like a toy to begin with.
  • In Gauntlet Legends, the wizard Garm summons the demon Skorne in a bid to outdo his brother Sumner. The demon quickly overpowers Garm and has him chained up and tortured for his amusement. Subverted in the expansion Dark Legacy after the heroes defeat Skorne. Garm uses the last of his strength to merge with the pieces of the fallen demon and is reborn as an even more powerful monster that serves as the true final boss.
  • In Grand Theft Auto V the protagonists themselves are this: a gang banger wanting to become a more professional criminal, a retired bank robber who had been one of the most wanted men in America and an unhinged maniac. And a corrupt government agent and an extremely sleazy billionaire use them for their purpose, and then make every attempt possible to screw them. Depending on the player's choice, the protagonists can kill them when the billionaire and the agent attempt to use of them to kill the other.
  • In Gunstar Heroes The 4 Treasure Gems fry General Gray after completing the Boss Rush and reveal the real final boss.
  • Homeworld Cataclysm has The Remnant of the once-powerful Taiidani Empire team up with an extra-galactic viral entity called the Beast. Despite the heroes pointing out the absurdity of such an alliance, the Taiidan help it anyway. Then, when they realize they've been double-crossed at the climax, they attempt to walk away from the fight, only for The Beast to begin consuming their ships wholesale, declaring the Taiidan to be nothing more than food.
  • The arcade game House of the Dead reaches its climax as the Big Bad Doctor Curien unleashes his most powerful creation, Magician Type 0, and commands it to attack the main characters. Within minutes, the Magician kills the Doctor.
  • Iji is a rare case of the protagonists doing this: after the planet is devastated by an alien invasion, they try calling in another group of aliens they heard was opposed to the first. Turns out that the first aliens just wanted somewhere to hide and regroup. The other ones are out to conquer the universe, one Earth-Shattering Kaboom at a time.
  • Iratus: Lord of the Dead: At the end of the game, The Sage reveals he engineered Iratus' unsealing as an answer to the surface's leadership growing too corrupt and decadent, figuring a dose of Eviler than Thou would clean house and get everyone back on the right path. He then promises to have Iratus canonized as an Anti-Hero if he agrees to sleep until Fate decides he's needed again, confident in his ability to make a deal while he suppresses the necromancer's magic. Somehow it never occurred to The Sage that an immortal necromancer who sees life as a repulsive infestation to be purged might be inclined to tell Fate to go fuck itself and Take Over the World, and the squad of monstrous undead constructs the just slew the world's best chance of stopping him don't need magic to follow orders to kill one elderly sage...
  • Jak and Daxter:
  • The entire Aurum arc in Kid Icarus: Uprising was revealed to be part of Pyrrhon's plan to take control of the aforementioned Borg expies. It goes as well as you'd think. Notable in that Pyrrhon himself is a god, albeit a minor and not very respected one.
  • Killer Instinct 2013: In Season 3, Kan-Ra comes across the corpse of Gargos' old rival Eyedol and uses necromancy to bring him back to live, planning to use him as a weapon against Gargos. The minute Eyedol stands up, he attacks Kan-Ra before going to pursue Gargos for revenge.
    Eyedol: I...serve...NO ONE!
  • This is a recurring theme in Kingdom Hearts. While Dark Is Not Evil, Dark Is Poison, and using it without protection is a quick way to get devoured by it:
    • Riku gives himself over to the Darkness at the very beginning of the first game, thinking it's an easy way off his world and into the adventure he craves. It ends up separating him from his friends, destroying his homeworld, and apparently devouring the heart of the girl he and his best friend like. Oh, and it also denies him a glorious destiny as the wielder of the Keyblade, but he doesn't learn that until later. Having not yet learned his lesson, he makes a deal with Maleficent, and then another deal with Xehanort, to try and find Kairi's missing heart, all the while diving deeper into darkness. The net result is that his weakened heart ends up the victim of Demonic Possession, at which point he finally learns his lesson. It takes another two full games for him to dig his way out of all of the consequences of his initial recklessness, although the resulting Acquired Poison Immunity ultimately becomes well worth all the trouble it took to get it.
    • Terra in Birth By Sleep, Riku's predecessor, has a similar arc and turns out even worse for it. Riku managed to get away with only having his body stolen for a few days, while Terra spends twelve years under Xehanort's grip after trying to use the power of darkness for good but without learning to control his emotions as Riku did. Terra regains control of his body when Xehanort nearly murders Ventus and Aqua using chains.
    • Xehanort himself initially delved into darkness to gain the strength he needed to fix what he saw as a universe filled with villains and Ungrateful Townsfolk, only to visit far more suffering and destruction upon the worlds than any of them. He also came dangerously close to bringing about an even greater disaster by creating Vanitas, an Ax-Crazy maniac formed of pure darkness, and giving him the χ-Blade, a weapon that grants godlike power to its wielder. While Vanitas never has time to betray his master, it's made clear by the events beforehand that Xehanort himself was playing with fire.
    • Strangely enough, Maleficent of all people is shown warning the other Disney villains about relying too heavily on the power of darkness, pointing out how many have fallen to it and lost themselves. She's only overtaken when forcibly injected with greater quantities of darkness than she can handle by Xehanort, and after managing to recover, doesn't use that much again. Apparently being the "Mistress of all Evil" means understanding how dangerous Evil can be even to yourself.
  • Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: The Big Bad wants to bring a Dragon God back to life in hopes of being her main servant. He succeeds only for the Dragon God to reward him with death.
  • Kirby:
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:
      • Subverted in the backstory; an ancient tribe did use the titular mask for curses and hexes, right up until they realized exactly what they were "playing" with and sealed it away before it could do anything.
      • Played straight with the Skull Kid from the same game, who stole the mask from the Happy Mask Salesman without really understanding what it was, and used it as a tool to play sadistic pranks right up until it betrays him at the end. In fact, the mask was influencing Skull Kid's mind from the very beginning, twisting his playful nature into cruelty.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks:
      • This is the eventual fate of Chancellor Cole. During the final battle, he and Malladus (the Demon King whom he had earlier released from his seal) seem to make a good enough team together, but toward the end, once their getaway train has been wrecked and the Demon King is forcibly removed from Zelda's body, Cole makes the grave mistake of ordering Malladus to get back into her. Presumably fed up with all the nonsense that had occurred up to that point, Malladus simply eats him, hijacking his body to transform into his final form.
      • This also happens to Byrne, The Dragon for Chancellor Cole. He demands Malladus give him power, and it should be no surprise when he gets sent flying across the room and knocked out. It also leads to his Heel–Face Turn. Cole even mocks this.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Yuga attempts to revive Ganon and take control of him. He succeeds, but then Hilda thinks she can use Yuga to revive Ganon and rebuild Lorule with the power of the Triforce. She's very wrong. Yuga had his own plans for world conquest, and turns on her with the help of Ganon's power.
    • Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: Astor believes that Calamity Ganon chose him to be his heraldnote  and that it's his destiny to bring the world to its knees. He even claims Ganon's will as his own despite him claiming that no mortal can possess it. After failing to put down Link and Zelda one too many times over and trying to command it to do the job for him, Ganon was quick to put him in his place...and that place was inside Calamity Ganon.
  • Pops up a few times in League of Legends.
    • The champion Kayn chooses to wield the Sinister Scythe Rhaast. Rhaast is a Darkin, a race of living weapons with the power to possess whoever wields them (There are two other Darkin champions whose wielders learned that the hard way). Kayn is aware of all this (his master Zed, who's The Unfettered, originally sent him to destroy Rhaast because the Darkin was just too dangerous), but he's arrogant enough to think that he can turn the tables and expel Rhaast instead, and his will is strong enough that Rhaast can't just outright take him over. Gameplay-wise, it can go either way- the player starts the game as base Kayn, and can choose to go either Darkin (Rhaast wins) or Shadow Assassin (Kayn wins). If the Darkin route is chosen, Kayn has one moment to realize how screwed he is before Rhaast impales him and goes on a rampage for the rest of the game.
    • In the lore of the games past, the rebellious Shuriman vassal state known as Icathia started poking at The Void, a realm of infinite hunger inhabited by Eldritch Abominations, to tip the balance of their rebellion. It worked and they won their freedom from Shurima...but the Void consumed them soon after.
    • A cadre of foolish necromancers revived the brutal warlord known as Sahn-Uzal to do their bidding. Sahn-Uzal, who had dubbed himself Mordekaiser during his time in the afterlife, slaughtered them and went on to nearly conquer all of Runeterra before he was slain again.
  • In the LucasArts adventure game Loom, the head of the Guild of Clerics makes ominous plans to rule the world with an army of the dead. As soon as he opens a portal to the world of the dead, its ruler Chaos floats through and kills him in a rather gruesome manner. Chaos then proceeds to take over the world by himself.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Fawful attempts to harness the Dark Star, a being of raw evil, to gain ultimate power, but it overpowers him to become the real final boss.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Bowser and Antasma (a being of Nightmares created by eating nightmares) team up. You can see where this is going... but not quite the way you might expect. Bowser turns out to be the evil that isn't a toy and betrays Antasma, even mocking Antasma for thinking it might be the other way around.
  • Saren Arterius in Mass Effect finds Sovereign's mind-control powers quite useful in acquiring minions, but has the foresight to set up a research lab to find out how it really works. He's Properly Paranoid, because Sovereign is also influencing him.
    • Researching the rachni, the krogans, the geth or AI in general has a tendency to backfire spectacularly, even if none of them are evil per se. The problems with the rachni aren't new either, Javik reveals that the Protheans tried to use the rachni as weapons "until they turned too cunning and warlike, and turned on us".
    • In Mass Effect 3, The Illusive Man attempts to take control of the Reapers. But as much of a Magnificent Bastard as he is, he was still out of his league there and ends up indoctrinated.
    • Javik claims that something very similar happened during their Reaper Cycle. A fringe group tried to take control of the Reapers, became indoctrinated for their efforts, and screwed over everybody else. There's a reason the Reapers leave tech all over the galaxy.
    • According to Vendetta, there is evidence of certain patterns manifest and repeat in every previous Cycle of Reaping, suggesting that renegade groups rise up to try this plan — only to fail miserably, get Indoctrinated, and hamper everyone else's efforts — Every. Single. Time!
    • On the other hand, taking control of the Reapers is an option given by the Catalyst. Arguably the least awful option, as it neither destroys all synthetic life in the galaxy (including your allies), nor forcibly converts all organic life into synthetic. The Catalyst does state however that the Illusive Man could not have done it however, as he was already indoctrinated. Presumably this applies to everyone else who tried to control them as well. So this option was valid, but because they always underestimated the Reapers, no one else ever made it far enough to implement it.
  • There's only one Mega Man (Classic) game where Dr. Wily is a final boss, but fails to be the final one: Mega Man V for Game Boy, in which he pulls his usual hijacking routine only to fall victim to this trope. The ancient robot Sunstar has no interest in following Wily's orders (though he's happy to kick Mega Man around anyway).
  • Anyone trying to harvest Metroids is usually unlucky enough to find out that they are untameable. This is particularly evident in the first Metroid Prime where the Space Pirates have Metroid stasis tanks and then Samus cuts the power and they run amok and sap the life force of their researchers. Metroids aren't all bad, though, since Metroid Fusion reveals that the Chozo had cultivated the creatures in order to prey on the X Parasites, which are even less friendly to organic life. And the Federation tries to weaponize both over the course of the game (so far, nothing bad has happened with their attempts, but Samus blows up the space station she's on in order to destroy everything on it because the Federation don't seem to get the message that they're messing with something they can't control).
    • Also during the Metroid Prime Trilogy, there's Phazon, the highly radioactive substance that can corrupt anyone who comes in contact with it. The Space Pirates see it as a power source while Samus just wants to get away from the stuff as it ruins planets. The Federation manage to use it as a power source for weapons, but take precautions to ensure it doesn't drive its users insane. A scan of a PED Trooper who had the containment device for the Phazon breached/damaged reveals he was eaten alive by the Phazon, so its clearly still dangerous. By Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, it's been forced on her by Dark Samus so she makes the best of a bad situation by channeling its power through a special suit that can use Phazon that her body produces, though heavy reliance on it also has potentially lethal effects. At the end of the game, she manages to destroy all of the Phazon in the galaxy by destroying its source.
  • Minecraft: Story Mode: Ivor planned to show everyone that Gabriel was a loser by summoning a controllable Wither and making it fight him. Unfortunately for him, slapping a Command Block into a Wither assembly does not make a controllable Wither, but a Wither that can control the landscape around it and assimilate it into itself, giving birth to the Wither Storm.
  • Mortal Kombat:
    • An odd case of this happens in Mortal Kombat: Deception; Big Bad Onaga tricks Shujinko into bringing together the Kamidogu to revive him, then takes them all for himself afterwards in order to fuse all the realms into one. This, in turn, turns out to be another ploy by an even bigger Big Bad, the One Being, who is manipulating Onaga into doing so to revive it, with Onaga's ultimate "reward" being non-existence. And, as a backup plan, the One Being also manipulated Onaga's traitorous successor, Shao Kahn, into conquering realms to fuse with Outworld to achieve the same goal. So far only Ermac, Shao Kahn's former enforcer, seems to be aware of his presence. The Elder Gods also know about the One Being (they did the sealing, after all), however, they are idiots.
    • Mortal Kombat X: In Jason Voorhees' arcade ending, the revenant menace of Friday the 13th catches the attention of the Netherrealm's new ruler, Liu Kang. He offered Jason a plentiful bounty of victims in exchange for his fealty. Jason's response? He doesn't like this arrangement, and simply disembowels Liu Kang and strangles him with his own innards, as Jason's loyalty lies only with one person: his own mother.
  • Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark has a drow queen bind one of the nine lords of Baator. This does not end well. Baator is Fire and Brimstone Hell. Don't mess with the entities living there.
  • Octopath Traveler II: Kaldena tries to use the shadow magic to become stronger so she can avenge her tribe that was killed off, but is consumed by the shadow magic and painfully mutilated into a Humanoid Abomination, before being killed by Temenos. She was actually tricked by Arcanette, the leader of Moonshade Order to learn the wrong way of using shadow magic and go against the Sacred Church. The said order is also the very organization that killed off her tribe.
  • Oyadori No Ko: The main characters are trapped inside Hell as an offering to the Devil, as it is said that whoever survives Hell for three days will release the Devil on the world. The Devil worshippers have been doing this for a long time, and were told by the Devil that he will bring about happiness and freedom once released from his prison. Almost immediately after being freed, Emokinia stabs one of the followers to death for standing too close, then blows up the rest for screaming too loud, and throws the last two into a wall for being in the way.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door:
    • Sir Grodus seeks the treasure behind the titular door in order to Take Over the World. The Shadow Queen, the "treasure", blows Grodus up only a minute after he frees her for daring to command her. This all happened because the Shadow Sirens, the Shadow Queen's true servants, had deliberately tricked him into thinking that she was bound to serve whoever released her from her imprisonment.
    • It also parodies this trope. Throughout the game, the player encounters four black treasure chests with a voice inside them, each of which begs the player to open them and set them free. When freed, the beings in the chest laugh evilly, change the background music to sound more evil, and then gloat about how they have tricked the player and will now curse him. In each case, the "curse" is actually a new ability. This is actually intentional on the part of the "evil" beings, who were the former heroes who sealed the Shadow Queen.
  • Pokémon:
  • Produce: C'mon Toshio, did you really think that you could negotiate with an Eldritch Abomination? Congratulations, all your friends are dead and you'll now have to live with their blood on your hands.
  • Psychonauts 2: As you learn more about Maligula's backstory, you discover she was Lucrecia Mux, a former founding member of the Psychonauts, and her powers of hydrokinesis were used by Gzar Theodore of Grulovia to quell unrest in his country. After accidentally destroying a dam with endless unnatural rain, causing a flood that killed hundreds of innocent protestors that included her sister and brother-in-law, Lucrecia's "fight-or-flight" response snapped. She became the Maligula we know today, a terrifying force of nature that took the combined efforts of the other founding Psychonauts to stop at great cost. And The Mole in the Psychonauts turns out to be Gristol Malik, long-lost heir to the throne of Grulovia who foolishly thinks he can control Maligula and get back the life of unlimited prosperity he had in his childhood- only for her to try to kill him as well when he gets her out.
  • Quest for Glory IV brings us Katrina, a deeply lonely and incredibly powerful vampire and sorceress who desires to unleash a Cthulhuesque Eldritch Abomination called the Dark One, and plunge the world into permanent darkness so vampires can walk abroad at all hours of the day without fear of the sun. It's never really seen what would happen if she had succeeded, as Katrina sacrifices herself to protect the Hero from Ad Avis while the Hero subsequently banishes the Dark One back to where it came from. However based on the Nonstandard Game Over message if the Dark One is released, it probably would not have ended well for anyone.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Subversion due to Retcon; at the end of the first game Albert Wesker tries to unleash the most powerful of the Umbrella Corporation's virus born monsters (the Tyrant) on the main characters. He gets a claw to the torso for his trouble. When Capcom decided to bring him back for later games they retconned his death by saying he planned it all along and injected himself with a virus which put him in a deathlike state and gave him superhuman abilities.
    • Played straight in Resident Evil: Outbreak File #2. In the last level, "End of the Road" a visibly nuts Umbrella researcher releases a Tyrant to destroy the loose hunters, over the objections of the only competent Umbrella employee in the whole series, and without taking any of Wesker's precautionary measures. Guess how it ends.
  • Return to Castle Wolfenstein:
    • Katarina resurrects Heinrich, who turns her into some sort of weak zombie slave.
    • Earlier in the same game, Helga von Bulow is turned into ground meat by the creature she resurrects.
  • In Runescape's elven questline, an elf lord and a human king join forces as Co-Dragons in service to an evil god called the Dark Lord. They make a Deal with the Devil, offering it Human Sacrifice to empower it so it can aid them in their conquests. The Dark Lord ultimately devours their souls.
  • In Sacrifice, part of Eldred's backstory is that he summoned a powerful demon called Marduk to destroy the armies of his enemies. Marduk, revealing himself as an Omnicidal Maniac, fulfilled the exact letter of the bargain by destroying Eldred's entire world. Eldred flees to the world the game is set in, and is dismayed to find that Marduk arrives there not far behind him (one of the local gods had the same idea he did). Marduk himself says there's enough idiots willing to summon him that he has destroyed countless worlds.
  • Every time someone stumbles on Filth in The Secret World they will try to harness it, only to be turned into mindless Ax-Crazy Humanoid Abomination or enslaved by Dreamers and trapped in their delusions. Apparently, their whispers are very persuasive.
    • Slightly subverted for Powers That Be, but played straight for everyone surrounding them: Lilith has wards that are effective against Filth, but each of her tries has gone wrong, with the latest bringing The End of the World as We Know It to previous iteration of reality.
      • Played straight with her attempts in creating a Cult: puppet leader goes rogue and associates directly with Dreamers, trying to assassinate her in the process.
      • Subverted somewhat with The Host — even though they originally harnessed Dreamers' power to create Earth in first place and know, how to control it, they understand dangers. Grigori are opposed to touching Dreamers at all, while Nephelim want to wake them with all precautions and full control.
      • Well, Lilith already tried it.
    • So far averted with Philip Marquard: while he's working on releasing Dreamers, he's not planning to control them, he only wants to throw the world in their maws and join them at the feast. Judging by John's transformation, he actually has a good chance.
  • Everyone who uses the Emigre Manuscript in Shadow Hearts assumes that, unlike the poor bastards before them, they'll be able to hold it together long enough to bring their loved ones Back from the Dead. They usually end up a statistic. The only time it works properly, it requires a Heroic Sacrifice and still produces an Eldritch Abomination.
  • Shadow of the Colossus: At the beginning, Dormin clearly tells Wander that slaying the titular Colossi to resurrect Mono will have unpleasant consequences. Wander brushes it off and continues anyway. It ends with Dormin, a demonic entity, being released and possessing Wander. But Dormin does keep Their promise, and it's ambiguous whether or not They're evil.
  • Shin Megami Tensei has a very simple law of magic-you can attain ludicrous amounts of power by taking demonic (or angelic) essence into your body. Your mind, either because of the power, or because of how you abuse it, is going to degrade to the point you end up doing incredibly stupid stuff and killing yourself through sheer idiocy. Or being enslaved to a divine being for all eternity. Your choice, folks.
    • In an early chapter of Shin Megami Tensei II, you are sent to track down the scientist Harada, and find him opening a gate to the Abyss so he can access an unlimited supply of demon servants. He directs the first demon he gets to kill you...and it immediately kills him instead. Turns out he botched the ritual...
  • Penelope in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time wanted power, wealth, and complete dominance over her boyfriend Bentley because she think he can provide her with it. To get that, she steals his time machine plans and hands them to Cyrill Le Paradox, intending to use both sides to make billions of dollars in weapon designs, murder all of Bentley's friends, and conquer the world. And all because she hated Sly. Who saved her life from a dragon summoned by a misogynist! Her idiocy and insane ambition costs Penelope everything; going from being a well-respected member of the Cooper Gang with a bright future ahead, to a homeless scumbag with no allies left, hunted down by Interpol for countless crimes, and tied with Clockwerk as the worst enemy in Cooper history.
  • When the Sonic the Hedgehog series got into more complex plots, Dr. Eggman got into the notable habit of trying to control beings more powerful than he is to Take Over the World, only to inevitably get betrayed near the end.
    • In Sonic Adventure, Dr. Eggman releases Chaos and feeds him Chaos Emeralds. This one obeys him for a while, but turns on him just before attaining his ultimate form.
    • Sonic Adventure 2: Eggman releases Shadow the Hedgehog from his suspended animation in a military base, then turns him into a minion for his latest plot. But it turns out that Shadow was using Eggman in his own plot to destroy the Earth as revenge for G.U.N. killing his friend Maria.
    • In Sonic Heroes, it is revealed that Metal Sonic, whom Eggman created to be Sonic's better in every way, became so consumed with surpassing his enemy that it overrode his loyalty to his creator. Deciding that Eggman was too incompetent to ever succeed in his goals, he locked Eggman up, took over his robot army, and began his own plot to Take Over the World and kill Sonic in the process.
    • Dark Gaia was released from his can (which was the planet, no less) within the first few seconds of Sonic Unleashed, only to break apart and be of no use to anyone, at first. Yet when fully restored, Dark Gaia immediately sends Eggman flying when he tries to control it.
    • In the DS version of Sonic Colors, Eggman corrupted the Mother Wisp into the Nega-Mother Wisp to use in his latest plan. By the end, she has escaped captivity and starts going on a rampage, forcing Sonic to defeat and pacify her.
    • In Sonic Generations, Eggman averts this for once, as he takes control of a time-erasing creature by mechanizing it and it never turns on him.
    • In Sonic Lost World, it actually happens to him early in the game when he attempted to harness the Deadly Six's power. It was caused by Sonic himself disposing of the Restraining Bolt Eggman was using to control the Six without even bothering to find out what it was. The Deadly Six subsequently turn on Eggman, forcing him into an Enemy Mine with Sonic and Tails. At least this time, he salvages the situation by manipulating Sonic into taking out his new rivals and becoming the Final Boss.
    • Discussed in Sonic Frontiers: one audio log has Eggman musing to himself about finding a way to take control of THE END, an Eldritch Abomination responsible for wiping out the Ancients in the distant past, after escaping from Cyberspace. Thankfully though, this never comes to pass, as utterly useless an endeavour that might have been to begin with...
  • Averted in Soul Nomad & the World Eaters, thanks to proper estimation of the threat involved and planning how to deal with it. Layna manipulates the main character into awakening the Omnicidal Maniac Gig who sleeps inside an Artifact of Doom, and then shields him/her from the ensuing Demonic Possession. This forces Gig into co-inhabiting the protagonist's body, producing a fused being possessing the power needed to Save the World. In short, it works.
    • ...Except for in the Demon Path, in which it turns out that the protagonist isn't a very nice person and immediately goes on a genocidal rampage with Gig's powers, starting with her.
    • Played straight in the normal path anyway, in an unrelated incident. Put short, controlling a World Eater is unfathomably stupid. For the long explanation, King Strauss VIII bought a Crimson Tear with intent to use it to control World Eater Feinne (who is almost completely mindless, so it should tell you how bad it would be to try to control either of the other two). His attempt at fusing with Feinne in an attempt to control her starts with a "hiccup" — Feinne simply blows straight to oblivion the back half of the Kingdom of Raide! He attempts to continue despite this, and, well...OM NOM NOM.
      Gig: If you want to know why they're called World Eaters, well...there you go.
  • In StarCraft:
    • The Confederacy believed the Zerg were just animals and that it was a good idea to use them as a weapon by placing Psi Emitters to attract them to any planet they wanted. They were wrong. And they learned it the hard way.
    • The main reason why the Confederacy was unable to control the Zerg was that Arcturus Mengsk stole the plans to build the aforementioned Psi Emitters and used them against the Confederacy; but notably, Mengsk himself didn't have to deal with his pets running amok, probably because he was Genre Savvy enough not to use the Zerg again after the fall of Tarsonis. Both times he did summon the Zerg to destroy the Confederacy, he then just left before they could target him; he also correctly predicted the Protoss would follow and fight the Zerg. Nonetheless, the fact that he used the Zerg on Tarsonis and particularly that he abandoned Kerrigan there hit him pretty hard in Brood War and even harder in Starcraft II.
    • The UED came to sector with the goal of enslaving the Zerg, and using them to annihilate the Protoss. They succeed in gaining control of the (admittedly juvenile) Overmind, but still have difficulty controlling the Zerg, particularly over great distances. On one mission special scientists are sent to control them, and upon their deaths the Zerg immediately turn on the remaining UED forces. Admiral Gerard Dugalle seems aware of this in the opening cinematic ("Dissecting a dead Zerg in a lab is one thing, unleashing them on men another"), and openly acknowledged it in his final message to his wife. "The creatures we were sent here to tame are untameable" indeed.
  • In StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm:
    • This is directly invoked by the protagonist. After curing Sarah Kerrigan from her Viral Transformation in Wings of Liberty, Valerian Mengsk finds out she still has some Zerg mutagen inside her, and asks her to control Zerg Drones to see how much of her powers remain. Kerrigan quickly grows an army of them, wrecks the entire lab, and then takes them back to their cages to show to Valerian how dangerous it is to think you can control such a chaotic species. Fortunately, Valerian is smart enough to get the message. This in turn bites Kerrigan when she and Raynor then have to escape the facility, and are forced to fight their way past the Zerg Kerrigan created. Aware of this trope, she refuses to try to control them again.
    • Furthermore, Mengsk has been creating a Hybrid army to use against the Protoss and Zerg. He thinks he can control them; Stukov (who had previously tried to help the UED control the Zerg) is less optimistic.
    • Then finally in StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, the Moebius Foundation was also breeding hybrid, which turned them into a Psycho for Hire army. Alarak even comments how frequent this is within the Terrans.
      Alarak: You wander too close to a black hole, and it'll crush you.
  • Star Fox: Assault has Pigma Dengar getting in on this trope primarily just to get rich. In Mission 2, he steals a Core Memory from the Aparoid Walker that Fox just destroyed, believing it'll make him rich. By Mission 4, he's found a way to use the Core Memory to infect machinery, controlling his own Aparoids to throw Fox off his tail. But eventually the Core Memory starts to influence him and eventually he is infected by the Aparoids, resulting in him being assimilated by them. By the time the Star Fox team finds him in Mission 5, he is fused into a mining space station ranting about the Aparoids' ultimate existence, and they are forced to destroy him to retrieve the Core Memory. As horrible a fate as it was, Pigma kinda brought it on himself.
  • In the Star Trek Online mission "The Measure of Morality", the Excalbians re-enact scenarios from history to study Good and Evil in order to decide the future direction of their society. This includes using the Borg, which manage to break the bounds of the simulation and assimilate a (simulated) Iconian while seizing the World Heart containing that civiliation's accumulated knowledge. They then break completely free to assimilate Excalbians and use their matter-manipulation powers to create copies of ships used by other evil factions. This is only subdued by a team-up of Star Trek captains from across the franchise (and the Player Character), finally convincing the Excalbians to abandon the pursuit of Evil.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • The Dark Forces Saga has it as a recurring trope — you get a "We Can Rule Together" proposal and either decline it or reply "I Can Rule Alone."
      • In the Dark Side path in Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, Jerec succeeds in his attempt to turn Kyle to the Dark Side...only to have Kyle immediately try to kill him. Now that he's evil, Kyle doesn't have to hold back or worry about innocent bystanders getting in the way. Though Jerec survives that particular attack with no trouble, and ultimately Kyle kills Jerec no matter which path you choose.
      • In Jedi Academy, Tavion has it bad. In the Dark Side route it goes the same way Kyle's Dark Side did — you slaughter both Jedi and Sith on your way to Tavion, kill her, claim her artefact and take over the Empire remnant after evading Katarn. In the Light Side, the ghost of Marka Ragnos whom she was trying to resurrect carelessly possesses her and puppets her body as a last ditch effort to fight you off.
      • And in a smaller example, one mission starts with the bad guys releasing an unstoppable mutated rancor into a spaceport with the intention of looting the city after its passing. It immediately starts killing and eating them (while they for some reason try to fight back instead of stepping aside and letting it do its thing).
    • Knights of the Old Republic:
      • Averted: Darth Revan unearthed an ancient Artifact of Doom known as the Star Forge, which functioned both as a powerful enhancer of dark side power and as a rapid ship production facility — but stuck to the more mundane latter usage, which was good, as the former usage had caused the downfall of its creators when they'd started to use it in that manner. His apprentice, who tested things and decided to try it, didn't live long enough to have the long-term bad effects happen to him.
      • Tilt your head and squint, and you can see Bastila and the Jedi Council's efforts to use the greatest weapon — turning someone to their cause, hoping to get the locations of the Star Maps — as this trope. Whether it's averted or not depends on the player. The Jedi were wise enough to know that this was a dangerous gamble but they were smart enough to send a pretty Light-side woman along...
    • Star Wars: The Old Republic: On Belsavis, the Sith Empire frees the Dread Masters, six Sith Lords who are dangerously insane even by Sith standards, from a Republic prison. They're loyal to the Emperor, but once he's killed-ish, they go rogue and become enemies of both the Empire and the Republic.
  • In Stellaris, if your empire is taking the Psionic Ascension path, then one event has an entity contact your leaders through the Shroud and offer you a deal: a long list of unbelievable bonuses to your empire that last fifty years and would make you an unbeatable Game-Breaker, "if we will only bring forth the end". It's not made explicit what that means, but the bold red text next to it saying "DO NOT DO THIS" implies nothing good. You may think you can fight it with your massive fleet, just like you can the various other forces in the galaxy that are trying to kill you. Nope. After the fifty years are up, it's over. Every ship, every base, every planet you control is immediately destroyed by an Eldritch Abomination that spawns in the center of your empire, save for a few refugees led by a scientist who saw it all coming and organized an emergency expedition to an uninhabited planet at the far edge of the galaxy out of this thing's reach. Worse, said Eldritch Abomination now seeks to scour the galaxy of life, saving your little refugee colony for last, and you'll get no help from the other empires given that you now have a -1000 diplomatic penalty with all of them for dooming them all; even if they somehow manage to beat that thing back, they'll be coming for you next just for revenge. When it says it will bring forth the end, it means it.
  • Superhot has an interesting example since the game itself considers it this. Around mid-point of the game, the action briefly pauses with the red text telling the player that it's not a game, it is a tool. To enforce this belief, it forces the player character (AKA you) to punch yourself in the head to see if it hurts. After doing so, it tells you to stay away and closes out. The player doesn't listen.
  • Tales of Phantasia: Mars burns down the protagonists' town just to get one of the keys to unseal Dhaos. The first thing Dhaos does when unsealed is to disintegrate Mars. Well, that's the second; the first thing is to reveal that he himself had manipulated Mars to unseal him.
  • Trauma Center (Atlus): In New Blood, the Parnassus syndicate aims to use Stigma as a biological weapon, helping it evolve and become more infectious by spreading it and allowing it to die out naturally. Valerie Blaylock notes what a dangerous scheme this is.
  • In Undertale, both Flowey and Frisk get this in the Genocide Run. Flowey doesn't realize that Chara doesn't care about them until just before the end, at which point he makes a failed attempt to warn Asgore and then an equally unsuccessful attempt to convince Chara he never betrayed them. After the completion of the run, the player sells their soul to recreate the world, which leads to Chara killing your friends in any future pacifist run.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines played with this quite epically: the sealed evil LaCroix decided to unleash turns out to be just a good bunch of TNT, but hey, works just as good in giving him his just desserts!
  • Double subverted in Wild ARMs and the Alter Code F remake. The Sealed Evil in a Can, Mother, was being awakened by her Demon children. But once she was released, she told them that she was going to destroy the world, which is at odds with her children's desire to rule the world. So these Demons then betray Mother, helping the heroes to destroy Mother so that it will clear the way for them to rule the world. Mother turns out to be Not Quite Dead; she possesses the leader of the Demons, thus fulfilling the trope.
  • World of Horror has this come up on the Ending A path for "Perilous Parable of the Peculiar Painting". Reclusive painter Ichiro Mamiya is sacrificing people to the otherworldly entities he models his paintings after. If you choose to stay with Eimi when he tells you to go to the parlor, he's distracted from his sacrifice - and one of his patrons, sick of waiting for its tribute, lashes out and kills him. You must then fight the painting it's channeling itself through as a boss.
  • In the World of Warcraft instance of The Alcatraz, the end boss fight consists of a guy releasing monsters to attack the players. In the end he unleashes a big alien/demon/god and gets promptly killed by it.
    • Similarly, high-level Warlocks can summon creatures which may break free of their bonds and attack the player themselves, though they rarely succeed in killing them.
    • The warlocks of Auchindoun are particularly bad about this, apparently spending their entire time summoning up things they can't control and desperately trying not to get killed by them. One boss has a room full of people keeping it banished so it can't kill them. And the final boss has a bigger room full of people attacking it and being killed as they try to stop it getting out.
    • Also, the second boss of Trial of the Crusader is a demon summoned by a Gnome Warlock. He accidentally summons an Eredar Lord, however, who promptly kills him.
    • Zigzagged with the troll shaman Jin'do the Hexer, one of those serving the Blood God Hakkar the Soulflayer in Zul'Gurub. After his defeat Jin'do's spirit is taken to be tormented by the spiteful god, as one might expect. Less expected is that three expansions later Jin'do the Godbreaker returns to Zul'Gurub and life having enslaved Hakkar. However, his control is still unstable, and if the players manage to break the chains binding Hakkar the god obliterates his treacherous servant immediately.
    • Demon hunters use demonic powers against them, and have to constantly fight back the demons' influence over them. If they fail (as often happens to non-important NPCs), they either explode or become complete demons themselves.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses, Seto orchestrates the events of the entire game to resurrect a Card Guardian who had struck a deal with his ancestors. Seto expects that the Guardian will help him rule the world. Predictably, the Guardian is NOT HAPPY. And then you find out that Seto has been awakening Card Guardians for years looking for the right one. Dude clearly doesn't learn from his mistakes.
  • ZombiU: Boris and his gang sic zombies on survivors they kidnap and relish in their struggle. However, a group of zombies break free from containment and proceed to tear the kidnappers apart thanks to the light and music.

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