Humanity Is Infectious / Video Games

• Robo, from Chrono Trigger. The robots in the future are trying to finish off what remains of the humans. But Robo, after spending time with the party, has become much more compassionate, to the point that he's willing to help the humans destroy the robot factory and even his own "mother" (the central computer) in order to protect them.
• This trope is Deconstructed in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. Crusadermon interacts with humanity after possessing the body of Rei Kishibi, and through this, learns about humanity's darker emotions like ambition or the joys of crushing someone beneath you. Crusadermon hates humans, but takes to these new feelings well.
• Something like this happens in Dissidia Final Fantasy, only in this particular case Prishe, an Elvaan girl who recruited the Warrior of Light to Cosmos's side. Prishe and the Warrior discuss the Warrior's lack of memories. While the Warrior claims he’s okay with that so long as his fighting gives him a purpose, Prishe argues that emotions are more important than mindlessly following orders. The lessons Prishe taught him are later responsible for shaping his eventual heroic personality.
• The Elves in Dragon Age: Origins were immortal, but became mortal literally through exposure to humans. Or so they say.
  • Though it's also implied that it might also have been because they were interbreeding with humans, where in this case, Humanity literally was infectious to them! In the modern times of the game, an elf-human hybrid is indistinguishable from a pure human. Inquisition and The Masked Empire gave a different answer putting it entirely out of this trope (though of course the other explanations remains in-universe examples of this trope) — the elven race was never immortal in the first place. The elven ruling class had some means to become immortal, but that was not something spread to the common populace, and the entire thing was pretty much broken by civil war before humans showed up.
  • The sequel has another dark take on this trope: a spirit representing a virtue (Justice) can become twisted into a demon (of Vengeance) through exposure to the emotions of the human it's possessing (namely, rage at the injustices of how mages are treated).
    • It was a two way street though. Justice was corrupted into Vengeance because of Anders' rage toward the injustice against mages, and Anders became a lot less reasonable and more prone to acting without thinking due to Justice's influences (the latter being due to the fact that there is no time in the Fade, so concepts like patience are alien to a spirit like Justice.) Theres also the fact that Justice applies a Knight Templar attitude to Anders due to the fact that his only real personality traits are that he is the spirit of Justice. That's just what he is, its all he knows. That doesn't mix well with humans.
  • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, it is revealed that spirits can become more human if they learn how to grow, change, and deal with issues the way a human does , like Cole can potentially do. Doing so causes the spirit to lose some of its spirit-like qualities and abilities, in Cole's case the ability to erase himself from people's memories, but it also renders them immune to binding, and they can better understand concepts outside their purview, and feel emotions the way humans do. Cole describes being human as feeling more "real". It is possible that this process makes it so that they can't turn into demons, either. A humanized Cole, a former spirit of compassion, will begin to feel negative emotions like anger, frustration, and confusion without any ill effects. He also says that negative emotions that use to bounce right off him will now "stick" without hurting him.
• In The Elder Scrolls, there is some evidence that the Altmer (High Elves) want to be completely incomprehensible to humans, and that the fact that they are not is evidence of this trope to them. (During Morrowind development, it was suggested that Altmer be written as completely incomprehensible to humans, but the idea was dropped.) That said, their culture does still have some bizarre moral components and beliefs, such as the mortal world being a prison for their immortal souls and that seeking to undo creation is a noble cause.
• Weaponized in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim- humans trained in the use of the Thu'um created a word of power from their hatred of the dragons and the hopeless despair they felt facing an immortal foe- when used on a dragon, it imparts them with human fear and mortality. As dragons are immortal creatures who can't die unless killed by another dragon, this is so alien to them that it causes them to fall out of the sky and crash.
• League of Legends has Ahri, is a kumiho (the Always Chaotic Evil Korean counterpart of the Kitsune) who — in her first backstory before the mass Continuity Reboot — was convinced that she could become a human if she killed and ate the souls of enough human beings. It turned out to work a little too well — as she became more human, she began developing human traits that she didn't previously have... including a conscience. She eventually swore off murder and joined the League to find out if there's a way to complete her transformation without any more killing.
  • The game also features a more ominous, downplayed variant with the Voidborn. The Void they come from is a primal yet knowing and all-consuming nothingness, and when initially summoned into the physical plane, they are hellbent on consuming all and physically resemble a horrific non-euclidean optical illusion as much as they do a living creature. However, the more they experience (and consume) the world of space, time, and heat, the more they start to adapt to it, gaining more physicality and personality which makes them look like a "normal" monster native to Runeterra, possibly enough to forget about The Void's end-goal to luxuriate in their newly-found hedonism of linear existence.
• The Materials of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable games are Humanoid Abomination created from the remnants of the Darkness of the Book of Darkness. They were supposed to be Omnicidal Maniacs like the Darkness of the Book Darkness was, and in the first game, they were. However, thanks to their interactions with the characters in said first game and their own budding sentience, they returned in the sequel a lot more human than before. Not only did they gain their own Dark Pieces, which are only formed when someone has their own hopes, wishes, and regrets, but they've also become individual enough for two of them to reject their original Omnicidal Maniac goal as something that is both obsolete and runs contrary to their new goals in life (i.e., making friendly rivals out of their former enemies).
• The reason given as why EDI in Mass Effect 3 eventually comes to self-identify as being human, due to the influence of the two most important people in her life, Shepard and Joker. You can see the beginnings of it in in Mass Effect 2 where as EDI learns from Joker, it starts to absorb more of his personality including playing practical jokes.
  • Happens with the geth known as Legion, who is utterly perplexed by the fact that of all the available material at hand, it specifically used a piece of Shepard's armour to patch itself up... because it's become a fan.
  • Likewise, compare Legion in Mass Effect 2 to how it is in Mass Effect 3, or to the unnamed geth AI that replaces it if either destroyed or never activated during 2, which is a backup copy of Legion's platform made before it left the Perseus Veil in search of Shepard. It's abundantly clear that the time spent with Shepard's crew changed it a lot.
• Nasuverse: A common trend in stories set in the Tsukihime or Fate/stay night franchises is non-human entities (gods, fae, vampires, demons, sentient spaceships, or Eldritch Abominations) taking on human traits through interacting with humanity, often unwittingly. Usually this results in them gaining empathy or an appreciation for mortality.
  • Ultimately happens to Avenger aka the will of Angra Mainyu in Fate/hollow ataraxia, although a unique example in that he's relearning it rather than discovering it. For centuries he had been defined solely by his hatred and bloodlust for humanity due to the nature of his birth, but impersonating Shirou Emiya over the events of the story reminds him what it means to care for others, and ultimately he sacrifices himself to end the "Groundhog Day" Loop everyone has been trapped in.
  • Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star: Altera, the vanguard of the Umbral Star and the main antagonist, goes through this. She was born as a weapon to annihilate all life on Earth, but circumstances transpire such that a piece of her lives life as a human being on Earth following her defeat in prehistoric times, and her true self has the memories of that piece. The central conflict of her character arc is the conflicting desires of following her original mission to destroy everything in sight, and of living a happy life with people she loves.
• This trope is a major recurring theme in NieR: Automata: All of the current inhabitants are the androids that humans built and the machines that aliens who invaded the planet built. Humanity has actually been extinct well before the events of the game as a result of the first NieR, and the aliens were killed by the machines who Turned Against Their Masters. But the lingering effects humanity has had on Earth are felt by both groups; the androids are programmed to love humanity and fight back the invaders on its behalf, while the machines become fascinated by the artifacts the humans left behind and the abstract concepts they represent, especially emotions. At its best, it results in some of the funniest scenes in the game, like the machines awkwardly attempting to imitate sex in the desert or the complete butchering of Romeo and Juliet in one sidequest. At its worst, it leads to the machines becoming suicidal and/or vengeful, with Adam in particular being fascinated with the prospect of humanity's tendency for wars and bloodshed.
• In Nocturne (RPG Maker), the vampiric Reviel finds human life insignificant due to their mortality and unchanging lifestyle, which is why he feels no remorse for hunting them. He changes his tune when Luna keeps believing in him even after she learns of his true nature and even dies trying to protect him. Despite Reviel's previous rants about humans' inevitable mortality, he regrets Luna's death and turns her into a vampire. Later, he learns that his fellow vampire, Khaos, went through a similar experience, only he failed to revive his human lover and now wants to deconstruct and reconstruct the world to bring her back.
• The Big Bad of Persona 3 grew empathetic to humanity through his time residing in the consciousness of the protagonist and, though he couldn't stop The End of the World as We Know It, offered SEES the chance to live out their lives in ignorance of it, so they wouldn't be afraid.
  • Also Aigis, who develops human emotions during her time with SEES and through her Social Link plotline with the protagonist.
• The twist ending in Prey (2017) reveals that Alex is trying to invoke this with the player character, who is actually a Typhon implanted with mirror neurons, and the whole game is a simulation created to test if it works. How successful he is depends on your choices. If you showed at least some degree of empathy during your playthrough, in The Stinger Alex frees you and offer his hand. You can either embrace this trope or defy it completely by killing him.
• In [PROTOTYPE], the human Alex Mercer is actually dead, and you've actually been playing as a lump of biomass that resembles him. As he consumes people, he gains access to their memories and skills, but also appears to develop admirable qualities like compassion and love. While he starts off as a revenge-driven Villain Protagonist, over the course of the game he becomes more and more heroic (well, as close to a hero one can get in this story); he cares more about Dana than the human Alex Mercer did, he cares more about the lives of innocent civilians and marines than most of the humans do, and eventually performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Manhattan from a nuke, though the sacrifice part doesn't stick.
• The Puyo Puyo series has Ecolo, a Spacetime Traveller. In his first appearance, he only sees humans as silly and as something that gets in his way of crushing all existence in Puyo. By the time 20th Anniversary rolls around, thanks to a case of amnesia, he starts to learn about how to act and what is and isn't considered "fun". The hidden unlockable costume for him shows that he has a case of Humanity Ensues.
• Star Ocean: The Last Hope has Arumat. In the game, he's a textbook example of Good Is Not Nice. In his bonus ending, he is visibly much more outwardly heroic in nature, and he comments on it himself. He blames being exposed to humans, especially Edge and Reimi, for this character change.
• A common occurrence in Super Robot Wars, but most notably in Original Generation 2, where it happens to no less than four characters across two (and a half) different factions:
  • Lamia Loveless is both The Mole and a Ridiculously Human Robot. Since the protagonists don't know she's an Artificial Human, they treat her with a level of affection and familiarity her creator never did, and she starts to develop feelings for them that contradict her programming. In a rare case of the "infected" not being rejected, her villainous creator actually sees this as a miracle, repairs her after her Heroic Sacrifice, and helps her escape back to the heroes. Her "siblings" Echidna Iisaki and Wodan Ymir follow the same pattern of developing human traits, but Echidna never performs a Heel–Face Turn and Wodan was made from the Alternate Universe corpse of a Worthy Opponent, anyway.
  • Einst Alfimi is an Eldritch Abomination in human form. She was created to be a soulless, emotionless replacement for mankind once they were wiped off the face of the universe. Unfortunately for the Einst, she was created from a sample obtained from the local Hard-Drinking Party Girl and Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Excellen Browning. After several fights with the protagonists, she abruptly switches sides after hearing Excellen's love interest deliver a Patrick Stewart Speech to her boss.
• A possible example occurs in World of Warcraft in Ulduar, where the raid group beats the tar out of Algalon the Observer and, in doing so, effectively cause him to feel empathy for the first time. He enters a recall order to a prior order he'd sent to have Azeroth scrapped by the Titans.
  • The Orcs too, with Patient Zero being Thrall, who, having been "Raised"^note As a slave and gladiator by Blackmoore, shows a good deal of human values, which spread through the orcs as they followed him. Most notable in Warlords of Draenor where we see the completely un-infected Orcs of Draenor, and their savage actions relative to those of Thrall's Horde. (Putting heads on pikes, for one).
    • Heck, Thrall even physically looks human-like, with a less hunched back and a lighter brow.
• Xenoblade Chronicles X has a race called the Orpheans, who are essentially Insectoid Aliens. While they don't have a Hive Mind, they do have what they call an "Ovah", which is some sort of sixth sense that guides them eventually revealed to be a sentient virus. They also reproduce asexually by "splitting off" from the original, creating an off-spring or two with memories and genetics from the Ovah of the parent (although they are not treated as children as they appear to be the same as the parent). As such, they have no need for genders. However, upon interacting with humans and possibly because of the planet Mira, some of the offspring ended up being strangely colored (dark red as opposed to dark blue) and are revealed to be female. The quest-giver who started this whole shebang, Nan'celeg, soon develops a strange feeling to the Orphean that split off from him, Nen'celeg. He tries to comprehend this much to her chagrin that what he is feeling is love. Nen'celeg then sees Nan'celeg as her "project" while Nan'celeg wonders if human interaction caused them to create females.
  Nen'celeg: You are so dense.
  Nan'celeg: But my density is comparable to most of the city's residents. Ah wait, you mean slow-witted then? But I am comparatively intelligent. Most strange.
  • And not just that. Orpheans generally lack social graces and speak through statistics and logic. As you progress in the game though you will see many Orpheans developing their own identities through interacting with not just humans but other aliens. You get to meet an Orphean who develops great skill in tennis, someone who is obsessed with trading cards, someone who becomes a botanist through a ritual (or someone else ends up becoming a masochist), and so on.
  • Such phenomenon isn't limited to just the Orphe either; a Prone can be seen studying humanlike war tactics (while the Prone are known for resorting to brute force instead), and a Wrothian longs for a carefree lifestyle instead of the strict duty to the monarch like his kind revere.
• XCOM: Chimera Squad member Verge is a sectoid who served in the initial Alien Invasion, using his Psychic Powers to compel humans to submit to his Ethereal masters. But in the process, Verge developed empathy with the very minds he was bending, so when the invasion succeeded and transitioned to a Vichy Earth scenario, he began leaking information to the human resistance, and ultimately turned on his superiors and joined the fight to liberate the planet. He views his service with Chimera Squad as a chance to atone for his past actions, and slavery in general is a very personal issue for him. On a more humorous note, Verge is obsessed with human cuisine, even though as a sectoid most of it is fatally poisonous to him, so he's willing to split a lunch bill with anyone who will let him use psionics to share their enjoyment of a philly cheesesteak.

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