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  • AI: The Somnium Files: This turns out to be the true modus operandi behind the New Cyclops killer, Saito Sejiima. By using a prototype Psync machine, he was able to swap bodies with his victims and kill them to throw off the investigators who repeatedly find their prime suspects as the next victims. It's also the reason why he's going after Date specifically: Date has been inhabiting his old body for the last six years, and he wants it back.
  • In Akatsuki Blitzkampf, this is one of the many powers wielded by Mycale. Since she's the spirit of a Wicked Witch who has been on the loose since the Middle Ages, she uses the bodies of young women with magic and fighting potential to keep herself inside the Enemy Civil War in the Nebulous Evil Organisation known as Gessellschaft. In-story, her host is the 14-year-old Kati, but in Anonym's ending, she "surfs" her way into Anonym's body.
  • In Albion, the Iskai species does this regularly: The Trii of a newborn has some unique abilities during the first week of its life; if an adult Iskai (assuming it's a female in this case) touches the newborn's Trii against hers, she can transfer her entire self into the spirit of the child. She can then begin life anew in her newly acquired body, while the former, adult one dies at the same instant. This act is commonly referred to as the Sebai ritual. The child is obviously never asked.
  • This is what may best sum up the system of Avenging Spirit. You play as a disembodied spirit that can freely possess enemy characters with different abilities and use them for yourself. Just don't take too long to find one or you'll evaporate.
  • Batman: Arkham Knight:
    • The Joker, now dead after the events of Batman: Arkham City, tries to hijack Batman's mind via his infected blood after Batman is exposed to Scarecrow's fear gas, appearing as a hallucination that, for the most part, simply makes jokes and heckles Batman, but gets stronger as the night goes on and tries to assert control. He even nearly succeeds couple times, most notably on Stagg's airship when Joker temporarily takes over and beats several militia soldiers nearly to death.
    • Besides Batman, four other people are infected with Joker's blood and each takes on one of Joker's traits:
      • Prizefighter Albert King inherits Joker's sociopathic violence and cruelty.
      • Professional singer Johnny Charisma has his showmanship and ego boosted to Joker's deranged levels.
      • Businesswoman Christina Bell develops a Joker-level obsession with Batman, even thinking they're lovers.
      • College headmaster Henry Adams gains Joker's sinister intelligence, even being able to hide his infection enough to fool Batman into thinking he's immune.
  • This is what happens if you get the bad ending in Black Dahlia.
  • The backstory to the Blood series reveals this as the dark god Tchernobog's method of reincarnation, with the Cabal formed after the first time he did it, just so he could always have a new body on hand. The penultimate cinematic explains that the entire plot of the game was so Tchernobog could take over Caleb's body, Caleb gaining power from killing off the entirety of the Cabal throughout the rest of the game so that when Tchernobog took his body over, he would have the power to "throw open the door between realities" and rule over everything that has and ever will exist. Caleb apparently became too powerful, though, since the plan backfires - Caleb gains his power and takes over his role as the One That Binds (with a major plot point in the sequel revolving around the repercussions of Caleb not realizing or particularly giving any shits about that being his responsibility now for a century), but otherwise remaining himself rather than becoming Tchernobog. A cancelled expansion for the sequel would have revealed, however, that Tchernobog did successfully possess Caleb, and that ever since the end of the original game the player was controlling Tchernobog who was in turn controlling Caleb, with the final confrontation of the expansion involving the Big Bad stealing Tchernobog's essence, thus having you control him in battle against Caleb.
  • In Cadenza 4: Fame, Theft and Murder, a bum named Adam who's wanted by the police swaps bodies with hot young rock star Michael Valance, and Mike has twelve hours to reverse the switch before it becomes permanent.
  • Dracula does this, or tries this, in several Castlevania titles. He succeeds in Curse of Darkness (though the host he ends up with isn't the one he wanted), can succeed in both Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow if you screw up, gets halfway there in Order of Ecclesia (meaning Albus was a fairly solid Plan B for resurrection), and it's implied that he intended to pull this on Simon Belmont in Castlevania II.
  • In Chains of Satinav, a villain survives being burned at the stake by swapping souls with a raven right before it happens. Of course everyone assumes he's dead, so it comes as a surprise when they realize he's wreaking more havoc — this time in raven form — thirteen years later.
  • In Chrono Cross, this happens to Serge. Apparently, someone needed to get around the whole 'Chosen One' business, and switching bodies with Serge seemed like the best way to do it. Things get even more confusing later on.
  • Cyberpunk 2077:
  • This is the plan of the Big Bad in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. Junko Enoshima lives on as an AI and, using the old Ultimate Despair members currently residing on a VR-Island to correct their ways by the Future Foundation, decides to play the Killing Game with them all. Anyone who died in the VR-Island would be available for her to download her consciousness into and roam the world again.
  • In DC Universe Online, a storyline in Metropolis has Giganta getting help from Circe to create a ritual that will allow her to steal Wonder Girl's body. If you're playing as a hero, the ritual succeeds and Giganta obtains Wonder Girl's powers in addition to her own. If you're playing as a villain, Giganta botches the ritual and her powers are given to Wonder Girl, so the only difference depending on your faction is the dialogue and which of them do you fight once the ritual has been undone.
  • The final game of the Deep Sleep Trilogy reveals that this is what is going on with the Shadow People — they are monsters created out of people who had their bodies taken in their sleep, their minds trapped in a dark world for eternity unless they find someone else to pull the same thing on them. It also reveals you were a victim of this by a Shadow Person in the second game, and the ending comes down to you having to choose whether or not to continue the cycle by taking over another person or remaining in dark world forever.
  • This happens to Adell in the worst ending of Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories when the Real Overlord Zenon takes over his body, and then makes him eat his little brother and sister. Nightmare Fuel, indeed.
  • Dragon Age:
    • In Dragon Age: Origins, the witch Flemeth is said to have had many daughters, but only one of them, Morrigan, is encountered by the party; after reading Flemeth's grimoire, Morrigan becomes convinced that Flemeth has been possessing her daughters and plans to do it to her, though Flemeth denies it. Dragon Age: Inquisition sheds some more light on this. It's true, but according to Flemeth she can't steal a body. Consent is required.
    • The Archdemon, upon being slain, automatically does this to the nearest Darkspawn, making it impossible to kill — unless a Grey Warden strikes the final blow (which forces the Archdemon's spirit to travel in the Warden). Since Darkspawn are essentially soulless, the Archdemon can possess another darkspawn with no problems. Attempting to do the same to a Grey Warden destroys both of their souls.
    • The Envy demon does this to the Templars and attempts to do so on the Inquisitor. Worthy of note is that What Could Have Been suggests that it could have been much worse.
  • Lobelia in Duel Savior Destiny has the ability to steal bodies via necromancy, but oddly enough the only person she tries it on is the only one who is capable of stopping her.
  • In Fable: The Lost Chapters, Big Bad Jack of Blades is revealed to be an ancient entity living inside his mask, who has spent aeons influencing the world by moving from host body to host body.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • In Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, Big Bad Hojo does this to Weiss.
    • This is the specialty of Final Fantasy VIII's Big Bad Ultimecia, who possesses every sorceress she can get her hands on: Edea, Rinoa and Adel, in that order. Luckily everyone makes a full recovery and Ultimecia is defeated. (Besides, she borrows instead of steals.)
    • In Final Fantasy XIV, this is the Ascians' bread and butter, hijacking bodies as they see fit. This technique is taught to other characters, and even the Player Character gets hit with this in the Endwalker expansion.
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening, the Avatar was born to be a victim of this for Grima. Making things worse is that in a way, they already are Grima. They weren't just born, but actually they were bred to become this. The Grimleal cult has been carrying a Super Breeding Program to get the perfect Soul Jar for Grima for at very least four generations. The Avatar is just the most perfected and pure "product" of it.
  • In Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, Ennard's goal is to hijack the Player Character's body in order to escape the pizzeria. They succeed, but their victory is short-lived, as Michael Afton's body eventually rejects the machinery within it, forcing them out. Michael is left horribly disfigured, but lives to continue his crusade against his Archnemesis Dad.
  • The leaders of the Will in the Galaxy Angel II trilogy require possessing humans so they become their vessels in the physical world. Under normal circumstances, body possession is unable to fully take control of its host unless said host experiences monumental despair and a lack of will to continue living. Herea is able to put Roselle in this state after he finds that his locket is no longer with him, and he tries to get Kazuya's chosen Angel to do the same for Serena by killing Kazuya in front of her. Ultimately, however, when Roselle sees his locket again (that Kazuya had kept following his Heroic Sacrifice), he's able to regain control of his body and drive Herea out, while saving Kazuya's Angel before she breaks.
  • In addition to trying to turn your ghost into an assassin, the villainous plot of Geist also involves giving your now-empty body to a demon. Similar possessions happen during gameplay as well, and there is even a deathmatch mode revolving entirely around taking over someone's body and throwing it into a bottomless pit or similar.
  • In ICO, this is what the Evil Queen plans to do to Yorda, and why Ico has to rescue her.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Kingdom Hearts: Having become a Heartless years before the first game began, Ansem/Xehanort possesses Riku once Maleficent has unwittingly carried out most of his plan for him (his idea of a reward is to force her into her dragon form and point her at the heroes).
    • Birth by Sleep: It turns out that the thing that possessed Riku was the result of a previous body-jacking: the original Xehanort took over Terra's body to increase his lifespan. In the same game, Vanitas commits this against Ven in order to forge the X-Blade (which can be created by forcibly merging a heart of pure darkness and a heart of pure light), although those two started out as one person; Ven defeats him but is rendered comatose. Vanitas also, had Ven proven not to be strong enough, intended to pull this on Aqua as a Closest Thing We Got scenario since her heart is as close to "pure light" as one can get without being like Ven or a Princess of Heart.
    • Dream Drop Distance: Xehanort's ultimate plan is revealed to be splitting his heart across thirteen vessels. He's got Xigbar, Saix, and at least two time-travelling versions of himself. With Riku now "resistant" to darkness, he tries to turn Sora, of all people, into the 13th. At this point, he's practically The Virus...
  • The villains of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks plot to have the Demon King Malladus possess Zelda's body, and in order to prevent Fighting from the Inside, they zap her soul out of her body. Zelda is justifiably... displeased... when she learns this.
  • Mega Man:
    • At the climax of Mega Man X3, after his latest body is destroyed, Sigma reverts to his virus form and decides to steal X's body, only to be thwarted at the last moment by Dr. Doppler. It wouldn't have worked, because X is ultimately revealed to be completely immune to the Sigma virus, but Sigma didn't know that at the time.
    • This is probably the case in the biggest reveal in Mega Man Zero 3: Dr. Weil, prior to the start of the series, stole Zero's original body, turning it into the Ax-Crazy Omega.
  • After you defeat the Dark Lord in Miitopia, it is revealed that it was a mere bystander that was possessed by a vile entity called the Dark Curse. Said Dark Curse then tries to pull another Grand Theft Me on the player character, but the Great Sage takes the blow instead to protect them. Cue the Darker Lord, which gained the abilities of the Great Sage.
  • Reptile falls victim to this in his ending in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, which sees him getting possessed by the newly reborn Dragon King, Onaga. While still in Reptile's body, Onaga goes on to serve as the Big Bad for the series' next installment.
  • Muramasa: The Demon Blade:
    • This happens to Momohime; Jinkuro, her possessor, accidentally possesses Momohime while trying to possess Yukinojo, another powerful samurai and Momohime's betrothed.
    • It also happens to Arashimaru in his second ending.
  • In Myst IV: Revelation, the central plot involves Atrus' evil son Sirrus attempting to transfer his mind into the body of Atrus' young daughter Yeesha: partly to escape his imprisonment, but also so that he can learn the Art that Atrus was willing to teach her but not him.
  • Kaine in NieR is partially possessed by the shade Tyrann, and he threatens to fully take over when she comes close to death or is overtaken by the Black Scrawl. In endings C and D, that's exactly what happens.
  • This as a key factor of the gameplay in Paradroid. The technical explanation given in the intro scroller of the game is that the player controls a helmet-like robot ("influence device") which can take over other robots, gaining access to their abilities (upgrade weaponry, movement speed and armor).
  • The Big Bad tries to do this to Curtis in Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh. Inverted in that the Hecatomb is Curtis (or rather, the original Curtis Craig), and from his point of view, it's the player who's stolen his life.
  • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky has this as Dusknoir's back-up plan. He's going to lure Grovyle to a frozen tundra whose trees have the power to destroy souls, kill him, take over his body, travel to the past to befriend the guild, and then destroy everyone there... at least, he was, until he pulled a Heel–Face Turn at the last moment.
  • In Post Mortem (2002), one of the characters has used this method in order to live for hundreds of years.
  • In Scrapland, D-Tritus is given a program that allows him to hack into The Great Database and overwrite any robot he wants.
  • Thanatos's plan for Dyluck in Secret of Mana. Dyluck is forced to kill himself at the end to stop this.
  • Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: Pinkus is an undead pirate whose signature ability has him possessing the body of an enemy, making a perfect disguise.
  • Shin Megami Tensei:
    • Near the beginning of Devil Summoner, Kyouji Kuzunoha dies in a mysterious accident, and then the protagonist is killed by Sid Davis. He then wakes up in Kyouji's body. Later on, Kyouji (now in Takashi's body) hatches a plan to get his old body back by sending the protagonist to Hell, but it fails because he's been out of the body for too long.
    • Persona 2:
      • Kyouji Kuzunoha is back at it, now possessing the body of a middle-aged third-rate PI named Daisuke Todoroki, with no sign of leaving any time soon.
      • Tatsuya Suou pulls this in Eternal Punishment, as he spends the entire game possessing the body of his Alternate Self.
  • Space Quest:
  • Stacking takes place in a world populated by Russian matryoshka dolls and as such, the main character, as a particularly small doll, can "stack" within larger dolls and make use of their various abilities.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic:
    • Darth Zash tries to pull this on her apprentice, the protagonist of the Sith Inquisitor storyline. She has been living under a Force illusion for quite a while; in reality, her body is desiccated and almost dead-like. When Force techniques that preserve a dying body were no longer enough, she decided to perform an ancient ritual and transfer her consciousness into another person, extinguishing the host mind in the process. Being the sly Sith she is, she makes the protagonist prepare everything for the ritual without revealing its true purpose until the very end. It backfires hilariously.
    • In Knights of the Fallen Empire, this is Emperor Valkorion a.k.a. the Sith Emperor Vitiate's ultimate goal. Everything he put The Outlander through was done for the purpose of making The Outlander a suitable host body for his spirit. Like with Zash, it ultimately backfires.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, a boss named Doopliss transforms into a shadow version of Mario. After the battle is over, the player learns that Doopliss actually swapped bodies with Mario. What follows is a bizarre confrontation, where Mario (in the shadow body) and one of his enemies must fight Doopliss (in Mario's body) and all the party members Mario has acquired by that point in the game. Bonus points because, unlike most examples of this, Doopliss stole Mario's NAME as well as his body; While as a shadow, Mario's voice is muted if he tries to say his name (as shown when Vivian says she can't hear him).
    • Cackletta does this in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. She takes over Bowser's body after she is reduced to a ghost and he is barely conscious. Worryingly, Bowser's body takes on several characteristics which her body had, and one two she didn't.
    • In a rare heroic example, Mario himself can do this as one of the main gameplay mechanics in Super Mario Odyssey. By throwing Cappy at them, Mario can possess things; not just standard enemies like Goombas, Koopas and Cheep Cheep, but also objects like fireballs or a rocket, and even other living creatures like frogs, people, and dinosaurs.
  • In Tactics Ogre, a hidden conversation suggests that Deneb is like this, but it's not that surprising. It does, however, add a whole new dimension of Squick to her character.
  • Tales from the Borderlands has an unusual case: the protagonist, Rhys, is a Cyborg who accidentally uploads an AI reconstruction of Handsome Jack into his brain. Jack attempts to take over Rhys' body several times, not always with Rhys' permission, although he usually only manages to take control of his cybernetic parts. In Episode 3, however, if you sided with Jack at the end of the last episode, it is possible for him to temporarily take full control of Rhys' body, voice and all, after Rhys takes a bad fall and is rendered unconscious — this only serves to make the rest of the team baffled and angered by Rhys' apparently sudden smug attitude and casual machismo, as Jack doesn't exactly act nicely when in Rhys' body or even really try to act like him at all.
  • The Voodoo Lady's locket is the cause of this one in Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan. When played around with the button on the locket, pressing it can cause some possession effects with voice changes, like the Voodoo Lady's possessions of De Cava and Guybrush, and Guybrush's possession of the Voodoo Lady.
  • Tales Series:
    • Towards the end of Tales of Symphonia, Mithos has lost his body in a previous fight with the protagonists, though his soul lives on in his Cruxis Crystal. Realizing that the good guys are finally going to totally screw things up for him he attempts to steal Lloyd's body, only to have the character who most likes Lloyd in that specific file interrupt and get possessed instead. Mithos promptly uses their own body to kidnap them. Due to the possibility of this happening to one of seven characters, dialogue gets slightly Narmy from trying to avoid gender pronouns afterwards. Interesting observation, though: despite being Lloyd's dad, Kratos doesn't seem to lift a finger in this scene and is the only character who doesn't have the possibility of getting possessed. Granted he's just been beaten up, but still...
    • Lycia Spodune and Creed Graphite, the two Sufficiently Advanced Aliens of Tales of Hearts, have had their bodies sealed away for two millennia. Lycia has had her consciousness passed down along the female successors of the Hearts clan, in the benign variant of this trope. Creed played the normal, evil version for a while before being finally sealed inside the main character's body.
  • In Treasure of the Rudra, a large portion of Surlent's chapter is spent trying to win his body back from Culgan, the Starter Villain from Riza's chapter. He's given the choice of using either a warrior's body or a wizard's body, which happen to be the bodies of the deceased Rostam and Huey from Sion's chapter. You'll end up needing both as you'll lose the first one you picked after a certain boss battle, and if you progressed far enough into Riza's chapter to encounter Surlent before this point in Surlent's chapter, you will be forced to pick the warrior as that's the body Surlent will have in the cutscene.
  • In Needles Kane's ending in Twisted Metal: Head-On, he wishes to switch bodies with Calypso before ordering Calypso's men to kill the latter.
  • In Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams, the Martians were wiped out by a plague and sent their minds into the Dream Realm to survive. Now an evil overlord named Raxachk wants to escape from the Dream Realm, but needs a body to do so. To this end he sabotages a space cannon to bring suitable hosts to Mars so that he could inhabit one.
  • In Undertale, resetting from the Genocide ending requires the player to sell their soul to the Fallen Child. Going for the Pacifist Route's Golden Ending after doing so will result in the Fallen Child again taking over the protagonist and killing everyone. You've Earned Your Bad Ending.
  • The Undertale fan game and alternate universe project Undertale: Last Breath presents a rare willing example of this trope, in which W.D. Gaster takes control of Sans’s body to fight the human face to face, having made sure Sans didn’t die despite the fact that he had been hit by the human earlier (his HP had fallen below 1, but hadn’t reached zero, instead existing in the decimal range). This works well for a while, but once Sans’s body tires out, the human strikes them again, killing Sans and potentially Gaster as well. However, their efforts are not in vain, as this instance of body hijacking gives Flowey and Asgore time to prepare an ambush that finally kills the human off, once and for all.
  • A few instances in the Warcraft universe:
    • In Warcraft III, banshees can displace the soul of their target, granting you control of that unit perfectly, and destroying the banshee in the process. This is also played with by certain banshee mobs in World of Warcraft. This is because banshees are just souls: although if they find their previous bodies they can inhabit them. All undead actually can do this because their souls are not firmly connected to their bodies. Nathanos Blightcaller did this to his cousin Stephanos at the direction of Sylvanas Windrunner. It's unclear if Stephanos' soul is still around, or if it was destroyed in the ritual.
    • The priest's ability Mind Control is essentially this, except temporary. Very few priests lorewise display the ability to do it so it clearly takes a high power level to pull off successfully. Theoretically it could be permanent: but doing that on an unwilling target would require absurd amounts of power.
    • Sargeras, the evil Titan and leader of the Burning Legion, did this to Medivh, which rather put a dent in Medivh's ability to protect the world from Sargeras and the Burning Legion, like he was supposed to. This situation was caused by the sexism of the human kingdoms, providing a good explanation for the widespread and unquestioned gender equality in what is otherwise a pretty medieval-style kingdom. However, to demonstrate the absurd power level this required: Medivh was frequently able to wrest back control of his body from Sargeras, and used these moments of lucidity to plot against the Titan. While Medivh was a powerful mage, he was just a mage while Sargeras is the strongest of all the Titans who are all godlike in power level.
    • Essentially, this is what the Lich King did to Arthas Menethil through Frostmourne. Because the sword took a piece of Arthas' soul, the Lich King was able to fill that void in Arthas with his own spirit. Which is why he turned all evil and stuff (although Arthas was doing questionable things already).
    • This is a favorite tactic of the demons known as Dreadlords. In particular, there was Balnazzar, who stole the body of the Scarlet Crusade's leader. Since the Crusade was an influential faction in the Third War, this was quite a problem. Balnazzar goes on to reappear twice more, stealing other bodies of other important people.
    • This is what was done to create the original death knights, although in that case the original inhabitant of the body was long gone. Orc warlocks were put into the bodies of Alliance soldiers, creating warriors who could both use magic and use advanced weapons techniques. This is likely not true of the Lich King's Death Knights, at least in the case of individuals who were already magic users. Rather, their spirits are matched with their original bodies just, you know, dead. They are essentially mind-controlled by the Lich King though through the Helm of Domination, but this is not body-swapping: rather he's giving them orders in their minds. Sort of like a cross between telepathy and hypnotism.
  • This happens a lot to Lynn in Witches' Legacy. She can barely get through a game without someone — namely Elisabeth and Morgana — trying to steal her body.
  • In The Witch's House, it turns out that Ellen, the title witch, has pulled this on your character Viola via some magic. In essence, that you've been playing as Ellen the whole time — the freaky legless thing that chases you down near the end is Viola in Ellen's old body, which Ellen did horrible things to. The worst part though? The spell to switch bodies requires a bond of mutual trust, trust that no longer exists in either character at this point, meaning Viola would never return to her old body even if she did capture Ellen.
    "Just for a day? Hee hee... I guess I did say that."
  • In Xenogears, the entity known as Miang Hawwa can manifest instantaneously in any one woman on the planet if the previous incarnation is killed. In the end, when her current vessel is defeated, she migrates into Elly.

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