It Can Think / Video Games

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• The UAVs that Erusea deploys against Osea in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown averted this trope, but Hugin and Munin play this straight. When they go online, they fly towards the Lighthouse to use its radio transmission capabilities to upload their data to automated drone factories to start a Robot War. When they’re shot down and fly in their base forms, one of them proceeds to record and analyze Trigger to further improve themselves, while the other one flies into the underground tunnel towards the lighthouse, hacks into the tunnel’s shutters to slow down Trigger and Count when they chase after them, and even stages an ambush near the end of the tunnel.
• The titular Ao Oni initially seems like a mindless cannibalistic predator, but quickly proves itself capable of thinking and planning. It's able to lay traps, cut you off by locking exit doors and destroying an escape ladder to trap you in the house, and your friends who have been turned into onis themselves are wholly capable of masquerading as humans, speech and all, to trick you.
• A few creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved:
  • Troodon selectively prefer to attack humans and tamed creatures over wild ones. Helena posits that they are Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, are not so much tamed as allied with by letting them battle and kill your creatures, and describes them as being capable of communicating their experiences to each other where most animals have to learn on their own.
  • The giant mantids in Scorched Earth are capable of tool use (they have opposable claws on their forearms), complex language, and sophisticated ambush tactics. Dahkeya's notes describe an incident where they broke a water pipe into the village purely so they could attack the humans that came out to fix it.
  • The Noglins in Genesis Part 2 are parasites that can control any creature to which they are attached. This includes humans, so they are by necessity intelligent enough to operate anything a human can operate, from spears to Humongous Mecha. This is intentional; Rockwell made the Noglins to enslave the Genesis ship's human personnel and serve him. Like Troodon, wild Noglins are tamed by allowing them to attack (in this case, possess) your creatures until they decide you're worth obeying.
• Bendy and the Ink Machine:
  • Although it's been revealed that the Projectionist used to be Norman Polk, he seemed to be one of the many mindless monsters in Joey Drew Studios. He never spoke to Henry, only screeching instead when he saw him. Prior to Chapter 4, he also had No Object Permanence, which allowed Henry to get away easily by hiding in a Little Miracle Station. However, at one point in Chapter 4, he chases Henry up the stairs. There, the door has been sealed shut ahead of Henry, and when Henry tries to hide, he keeps looking at the Little Miracle Station where Henry is, even coming closer. Luckily, Bendy shows up.
  • Although Bendy falls for Henry hiding in the Little Miracle Stations too, there are some points in the game where it's clear that he's got some level of intelligence. Perhaps the most obvious example is in Chapter 5 - he hid the one thing that could harm him, a reel labeled "The End," in the one place all the studio's other inhabitants are too scared to go: his lair.
• Grace Holloway in BioShock 2 has this realization about Subject Delta, the Big Daddy that you play as, should you choose to spare her.
  Grace: You had me under a gun... and yet you just walk away? No monster alive turns the other cheek... No monster does that. A thinking man does that.
• Bloodborne: Most of the bosses you face are humans who lost themselves to the Beast Scourge and are now feral. And then there's the first boss of the DLC, Ludwig the Accursed. He starts out as feral as any other beast, but halfway through the fight, he'll see the light of his Moonlight Greatsword and his human mind will return, changing his title to Ludwig, The Holy Blade and giving him a new moveset where he wields the blade as a Master Swordsman.
• Capella's Promise has the Mother, who was originally thought to be a monster creating weapon before being revealed as having intelligence. This might be a subversion due to the fact that Zanara fused with her, meaning he might be the reason that she gained intelligence.
• Creature Shock have you battling the main Geomorph, who looks like a savage, mindless insectoid alien monster, albeit one clad in armor. But after you put it down, the Geomorph revives itself and comes at you piloting a Jet Pack and blasting away with a BFS.
• As per the Warhammer 40000 example, while playing the Dawn of War II: Retribution Tyranid campaign you can hear Imperial Guardsmen realizing "They're using cover! They're supposed to be just animals!" In their defense, their training manuals do insist that Tyranids are simple-minded beasts.
• The Hillbilly in Dead by Daylight seems like any other mindless Hillbilly Horrors stereotype, but the fact that his default perk is Tinkerer implies that there is more to him than just brute strength.
  The Hillbilly makes impressive tools out of scraps. Tools aimed at maiming us in creative ways... It's horrifying to think it's actually intelligent.
• Dead Rising 4: Doctor Barnaby invented a hybridization machine that would prevent the recently infected from going insane, effectively making them sentient zombies. Unfortunately, the guy who tests this is driven insane from existing injuries interfering with the process, and he acts as the final boss railing against humanity.
• Devil May Cry 5 has an example of this being Played for Laughs. Doppelgangers in the series are demons that take the form of another being and can be used by powerful enough demons to fight alongside them, though just how sentient they are remains in question. However, Vergil's doppelganger apparently has a strong enough sense of self to break away from Vergil's control and, much to his horror, start dancing. While it's debatable if this is a creature with its own thoughts, a manifestation of Vergil's subconsious, or an example of V living on after being reformed into Vergil, the doppelganger clearly knows what its doing when it beckons for the embarassed Vergil to join in and continues to humiliate its master until cut down.
• Zombiemen of various types in Doom. In the first few games, they aren't much of an example; just intelligent enough to walk around and fire their guns. In Doom³ and Doom (2016), they receive a massive step up.
  • In Doom³, compared to the slow, mindless shambling civilian zombies that can at best wield a flashlight or pipe wrench as a bludgeon, Z-Sec zombies can tactically sprint around, communicating through radio and firing standard firearms. Commando zombies are similarly intelligent, with chaingunners providing cover fire for their tentacled brethren.
  • In Doom (2016), the Possessed Soldiers are tactically cognizant and will make great use of their arm-mounted plasma guns; the Security will even tactically utilize their giant energy riot shields, firing in defilade and dropping the shield at range to adopt a more accurate firing stance. The regular Possessed, on the other hand, are just mindless zombies that shamble at you in a slow gait.
  • Brutal Doom amplifies the zombiemen's intelligence considerably. They fire their assault rifles in bursts instead of one shot at a time, can coordinate to hunt the player down, and can even operate tanks, helicopters, and mechas.
• Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening shows this trope early on with a talking darkspawn. It turns out that these all originate from one darkspawn, called the Architect, who was born free-willed and sapient and found a way to make other darkspawn free-willed and sapient just as he is.
  • The game proper also demonstrates this with regular darkspawn, which, while still mentally bound and completely loyal the Archdemons, still exhibit independent personality, such as making threatening gestures, giving battle cries, and even laughing evilly during fights. Overall, their behavior is fairly reminiscent of the relationship between Sauron and the Orcs.
  • The Mabari war-hounds. They were bred by a mage to be smart and understand what they are told, and additionally to remember, understand, and carry out complex orders. In Dragon Age II, Hawke's Mabari is smart enough to play cards (he'd do better if he'd stop wagging his tail whenever he gets a good hand)!
• Elden Ring: While most non-animal enemies attack you because they've gone mad after the Shattering, enemy behavior and item descriptions imply or explicitly point out exceptions.
  • When the scholars of Raya Lucaria haven't aggroed, they stand around reading books, implying that that's what they'd rather be doing and they're only attacking you because they consider you an invader of the academy.
  • Pages are exceptionally dangerous enemies because unlike most of the actual warriors (such as the Lordsworn Soldiers), they retain their wits and use tactics against you.
  • Perfumers in Leyndell can be seen tending to the wounded and talking to Pages when they're not attacking you.
  • Trolls are often treated as beasts of burden in the Lands Between, but they have human-level intelligence and can integrate with human society if given a chance. House Caria of Liurnia even has troll knights, and one of Ranni's servants is a troll blacksmith named Iji who spends most of his time reading.
  • Dragons' lore paints them as just as smart as humans; Adula was knighted by Ranni and Ezykes remained focused on killing practitioners of Dragon Communion even as the Scarlet Rot got to him. The Ancient Dragons were their own faction who fought Marika before the Shattering, and eventually became objects of worship as part of the Dragon Cult. All of them use their own lightning incantations, Fortissax struck up a lifelong friendship with the demigod Godwyn, and Lanseax fell in love with the human knight Vyke.
  • The Kindred of Rot attack you on sight because spreading Scarlet Rot is literally what they're born to do, and they can't communicate with humans anyway, but the description of the Pest Glaives they wield note that they possess a keen, if inhuman, intellect.
  • The Beastmen of Farum Azula seem savage and wield crude-looking weapons, but the item descriptions note that they quite possibly know more than humans, their weapons are well-made, and they have unique cultural practices like crafting pots specifically to use the broken shards as shields.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • In his "opus", series' recurring character St. Jiub the Eradicator recounts his quest to eradicate the much reviled Cliff Racers from Vvardenfell. As he was hunting a lone Cliff Racer, it led him into a trap where hundreds of Cliff Racers suddenly descended upon him. Two days of fighting and hundreds of dead Cliff Racers later, Jiub finally collapsed, exhausted and wounded. He would have died if not for the timely rescue of the Dunmeri Physical God Vivec, who was so impressed with Jiub's actions that Vivec declared him to be a saint.
  • In Skyrim, though they give the impression of mindless Morlock-like monsters, the Falmer clearly have some semblance of intelligence. They corral and breed chaurus, craft weapons and armor, brew crude poisons from fungi, and in Dawnguard they've built impressive networks of bridges and ledges throughout the Forgotten Vale to host their settlements on. According to some scholars and Knight-Paladin Gelebor the last surviving uncorrupted Falmer, they're beginning to venture above ground, and demonstrate cunning and deductive reasoning in their battle tactics.
• Many of the monsters from The Evil Within are definitely not mindless. This especially applies to the Haunted; they're capable of using weapons ranging from simple knives to firearms, dodging the player's attacks, setting up traps and ambushes, cooperating with each other, and often like to play possum.
• The monsters of Evolve fall under this. Story-wise, they're at least as intelligent as humans, identifying specific threats and adapting their tactics in response. One can only imagine the horror as the colonists realized that not only were these things massive and deadly, but intelligent as well. In-game, their intelligence depends on the player controlling them. This could range from simply being able to recognize a few strategies to openly toying with the hunters by dissecting and countering their advantages and tactics.
• Fallout:
  • Deathclaws, twelve-foot-tall bipedal reptilian killing machines, are smart enough to open doors, something many Fallout 3 players found out the hard way. Fallout 4, meanwhile, has a whole questline about a party of mercenaries that was tracked down and slaughtered by an angry Deathclaw after they stole its eggs. Should the player choose to return the last surviving egg to the Deathclaw nest, another Deathclaw will jump in out of nowhere, cover up the egg, and then watch warily, letting the player character walk away unharmed.
  • The player character gets put on the receiving end of this trope in the Old World Blues DLC of Fallout: New Vegas. The Courier's brain and various organs have been removed and replaced with Tesla coils and cybernetic organs by the Sink's Auto-Doc, a process that normally destroys the patient's brain and leaves the rest to wander Big MT as a mindless, aggressive zombie. It takes the Think Tank quite a while to realize that their newest "lobotomite" has been tracking their conversation and can, in fact, understand and respond to every word they've been saying.
• The Aragami in God Eater are an interesting example. Though they behave like constantly-evolving mindless beasts, they aren't actually "evolving" at all. Instead, they learn new configurations for themselves from the environment. For instance, the Chi-You type Aragami use the "bring it" gesture and martial arts moves. Another Aragami takes it cues from a tank, complete with biological missile launchers, but the treads are crudly adapted into misshapen forelegs. This is an enigma in-universe since it clearly implies higher learning ability, yet the only behaviour they display beyond violence and consumption is pack scavenging. Then there are humanoid Aragami, who can very quickly learn how social structures work, and eventually internalize concepts like empathy.
• Half-Life:
  • Everyone thought the Vortigaunts were just dumb slaves. Turns out they really aren't, as shown in 2.
  • Combine Gunships of Half-Life 2 are smart enough to realize that rockets are the only thing capable of harming them, so they accordingly try to shoot any enemy-fired rockets down. The gunships are a particularly interesting example, because the programmers didn't mean for this to happen. It was just a fluke of the AI programming to fire at the biggest threat (which the programmers were thinking meant anyone armed with a rocket launcher). When they first saw it happen in testing, it looked like a Real Life example, and decided to keep it.
  • A Fast Zombie in Episode One will, if you throw a grenade at it, lob it right back. It was originally a physics glitch, but the developers liked the idea and ran with it.
• The Flood in Halo. When first encountered in Halo: Combat Evolved, they seem like dumb zombies, just running toward you and whipping you with their Combat Tentacles. The first Oh, Crap! moment comes when they suddenly start using weapons. Then 343 Guilty Spark warns you that they're going to repair the Pillar of Autumn to escape from Halo. Wait... repair?! Turns out that they gain intelligence from the sentient beings they assimilate; they almost used Keyes' brain as a Borrowed Biometric Bypass to get to Earth. Then in Halo 2, they not only start attacking you with vehicles, but it's revealed that they're being coordinated by an ancient and highly intelligent Hive Mind; by the start of Halo 3, they've successfully taken over High Charity and several of its escort ships, and are poised to begin a galaxy-scale infestation.
  • The Forerunner Saga reveals the true extent of their intelligence; the Flood are the direct descendants of the Precursors (not to be confused with the Forerunners), who were the most technologically advanced species to ever live in the Milky Way, and have inherited all of their knowledge. This means that a sufficiently large infestation is capable of technological feats far more advanced than what any other species in the galaxy is capable of; the Forerunners had a huge Oh, Crap! moment when the Flood started reactivating Precursor relics. And then another whammy reveals itself: The Flood are not the Precursors, but a Precursor, one who transferred its essence into the Gravemind and took it over, which is what gave the Flood its sapience; before this, it was a ghastly, if somewhat manageable, parasite. After that? Full-on Outside-Context Problem.
• Hollow Knight: The Infection initially seems like some kind of zombie virus. But over the course of the game, players slowly realize that it's a sapient force that is actively trying to kill you; most clearly demonstrated when you see it reanimate some particularly powerful corpses at crucial points in your journey, or when you read the mind of a semi-Infected bug and hear their normal thoughts... mixed with urges to kill you. You, the player character, specifically.
• The Beast from Homeworld Cataclysm starts "merely" as a ship-consuming techno-organic virus, but having absorbed enough data from the assimilated ships it becomes self-concious, learns to synthesize itself a Voice of the Legion from their communication records and becomes smart enough to strike deals with other villains (and even to screw them over).
• In the first Hunter: The Reckoning video game, when the Hunters first meet Carpenter and he speaks to them, they promptly react by pointing their guns at him. Carpenter responds with this speech:
  Carpenter: Do you think I can't see you shaking at the other end of that barrel? Do you think I don't know your brain is trying to process the horrible fact that 'Oh my god it talks!' and if it talks, it thinks, and you can't stand that, can you?
• In The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, using objects found around the battlefield as bludgeons and projectiles will result in hearing the horrified voices of your assailants as they realize the Hulk is no mere mindless brute.
  "It's constructing a rudimentary weapon!"
  "It's learning as it goes, sir!"
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • As Yen Sid explains in Kingdom Hearts II, this is what separates the Heartless from the Nobodies; while the Heartless are little more than mindless animals who function on instinct, the Nobodies are fully capable of thinking things through and planning ahead.
  • Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, aka Xehanort's Heartless, is in fact a Heartless himself, but retains all of his human intelligence and selfhood; the real Ansem the Wise theorizes that this is because Ansem/ Terra-Xehanort willingly became a Heartless.
  • Kairi is able to realize that the Shadow following them is Sora because it shows signs of intelligence most Shadows don't. (Presumably for the same reason as Ansem, Sora willingly chose to become a heartless)
• Kirby:
  • The Master Crown in Kirby's Return to Dream Land. At first glance, it just looks like a powerful artifact that grants its wearer great powers such as ripping apart time and space itself to create rifts to other dimensions. However, when seen on Magolor's head, it can be seen wiggling around and its claws wrap themselves around his ears, implying that the crown is sentient and controlling him. In addition, Magolor Soul's pause description implies that he is outright possessed by the Master Crown and has turned into an Empty Shell. Deluxe confirms all of this - according to its pause description, whoever wears the crown will not only be granted great powers, but the crown will use The Power of Hate to fuel the wearer's heart with darkness and will slowly be turned into a Omnicidal Maniac and drive them to destroy everything. We see this in action in the Magolor Epilogue, where the crown possesses the restored Gem Apple Seed and turns it into a Botanical Abomination by possessing it. Not only that, but the new Flavor Texts for Magolor Soul focus on freeing him from the darkness of the Master Crown as he slowly becomes the crown himself.
  • There's also Void Termina from Kirby Star Allies. His first form is merely an Almighty Idiot powered by the darkness and hatred in Hyness' heart whose sole instinct is to destroy anything and everything around him. Once he is exposed to Kirby's happiness and friendship, however he starts to become more strategic in his attacks, such as using fire and ice arrows and using replicas of the Master Crown. Once you encounter his true form, he is said to have started thinking and feeling, suggesting that Kirby is somehow causing Void Termina to become sentient and be exposed to feelings. As Void Soul, he gains more sentience and fights without needing to rely on Hyness to do so. Then, as Void, he has gained full sentience as well as fully being exposed to Kirby's joy and happiness as he learns to settle down and enjoy life; this culminates with his Redemption Equals Death moment upon defeat, where Void decides to Go Out with a Smile - Kirby's smile - and is most likely being purged from the darkness it was once powered by.
  • In Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Specimen ID-F86, also known as the Big Bad, Fecto Forgo, is all that is left of Fecto Elfilis, a would-be alien conqueror that caused widespread chaos across the New World before it was captured, contained, and experimented upon for 30 years. Then, it split into two separate beings (Forgo being one of them), seemingly falling dormant forever — which meant it was judged safe enough to be turned into a tourist attraction before the very civilization that captured it left the planet behind to be Reclaimed by Nature. You would expect ID-F86 to remain a motionless, lifeless specimen until the universe ends, but it turns out to have masterminded the entire plot in its sleep, and when it opens its eyes, it wastes absolutely no time absorbing its brainwashed Beast Pack minions in a bid to return to its original form.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The very original The Legend Of Zelda 1 featured Moblins who not only could speak, but would outright bribe you to leave them alone.
    IT'S A SECRET TO EVERYONE.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the eponymous Majora's Mask reveals itself in the climax to be capable of speech and being the real puppetmaster of the Skull Kid supposedly responsible for all the chaos in Termina. Up until the moment it opens its mouth, Tatl was eager to lay the blame for everything on the Skull Kid.
  • On two occasions plant monsters are shown to be far more intelligent than just mindlessly hungry predators, so much so that they seem wholly sentient. Kalle Demos, the boss of The Forbidden Woods actually waits for Link to arrive before eating Makar and then laughs at Link, while the Big Baba of The Forest Temple leaves a key out in the open until Link arrives and then eats it in front of him, to force him into a confrontation and lure him into range to get it back.
  • Speaking of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, a number of enemies show considerable intelligence despite their monstrous visage. Floormasters will wait in ambush, seek objects to throw at you, and even catch bombs and throw them back. Darknuts appear to have been trained in martial arts and will use effective, if rudimentary, jabs and jumpkicks. Most notably, at least one Moblin is literate and capable of reading, writing, sending, and receiving letters.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
    • Calamity Ganon is assumed by the inhabitants of Hyrule to be a mindless force of evil and destruction, with its origins as a Gerudo man barely remembered. Everyone is caught off guard when it possesses the Magitek machines that defeated it 10,000 years ago in an act of unexpected tactical foresight.
    • Several of the more humanoid monster types, although Always Chaotic Evil, often show signs of deeper culture and tactical thinking. Bokoblins and Lizalfos will attempt to grab any kind of weapon before engaging you, they'll whack away bombs you toss at them, they'll set weapons on fire if open flames are present to improve their attack strength, and can be seen chatting, dancing, cooking food, and sleeping together peacefully when not aggro-ed. It's mentioned in a side-quest that the Lizalfos once had an advanced kingdom which once warred with and nearly defeated the Zora nation, and both species have scattered settlements around Hyrule. If you wear a Moblin mask it will fool Moblins, but they'll be suspicious and attempt to speak with you — when you don't respond, as Link doesn't speak their language, they will attack.
    • Despite being incredibly aggressive and vicious monsters, the Lynels are described as having "intense intelligence", which is depicted by their comparatively advanced battle tactics. When one spots you, they often won't immediately attack, but just observe you until you pull out a weapon or get too close. Unlike other enemies, they will shoot arrows up in an arc when you get too far or take cover behind an object. They will try to fake you out by charging up one type of attack only to end up performing a different attack. And they aren't fooled by the crude masks that can be used to sneak past other monster types. Their attacks as a whole are also far less telegraphed than basically any other enemy type.
• Man-Eating Plant is a rather odd Android game where you play as... like the title said, a Man-Eating Plant. But you're actually sentient and capable of expressing emotions, including glee and excitement as you gobble up assorted goblins, humans and blobs. With several accompanying thought-bubbles:
  "Hungry... Deeeeeeath! Taaaassste Good!"
• In Mass Effect, you come to a space station which was overrun by rachni, and you can read a log where a scientist states "we treated them like beasts, should have treated them like POW's". Mind you, the race is well known to be sentient - although their appearance can certainly deceive. The theory was that without the connection to the Queen that all the warriors would become mindless beasts, and in the eyes of the Queen that is what they have become, but it turns out they're insane due to a warped childhood; no parental figures, and their lullabies are "Silence of the Void" and "Eldritch Death Knells".
  • In Mass Effect 2, the yahg are revealed to be this. Originally abducted for study, a yahg specimen showed increasing intelligence and was chosen by the Shadow Broker to join a strike team tasked with eliminating threats. The yahg had other plans and decided instead to kill the Shadow Broker and take his place. This yahg remained the Shadow Broker for years until Liara and Commander Shepard show up.
  • It comes up again in the third game, in which it's possible to recruit the rachni against the Reapers. Many characters express a little too much surprise at the technical prowess the rachni display. Hackett Lampshades it, saying that in hindsight, these guys once waged war on the entire galaxy: you can't do that without being very smart and technologically advanced.
• Happens quite a bit in Metroid.
  • In Metroid Fusion, Samus and the computer discover that the X Parasites' capacity for intelligence increases over time, especially since they gain access to their victims' memories and knowledge. The X claim a scientist so they can set the station's core to meltdown, destroy all of Samus' upgrade access points, and steal an upgrade for themselves.
  • The fact that the icy, blue X which once targeted Samus for her newly-found weakness to the cold (due to her now part-Metroid DNA), start to run away from her soon after she recovers the Varia suit, which negates this weakness, but not before a few of them suicide dive you, then the others flee when they see it's not hurting you anymore.
  • The X continue to show off in Metroid Dread, as once they break out of quarantine on ZDR, one of them possesses Experiment No. Z-57 and tries to block up the thermal vents in Cataris in order to freeze over the planet and kill Samus via her Metroid vulnerablility. Only the fact that Samus just got the Gravity Suit prevents this from working. It also fights smart during the boss fight.
  • Implied with the series' titular creatures in Metroid II: Return of Samus. Samus's weapons and upgrades are typically acquired through Chozo statues. In this game when you find the statue offering the Ice Beam, it's been seriously damaged; the head has been torn off and the body slightly crumbled. Metroid have a crippling weakness to extreme cold, making the Ice Beam an incredibly effective weapon against them. The fact that this statue is the one that's been damaged makes it clear that they attempted to destroy the upgrade to keep anyone from using it.
• Monster Hunter:
  • Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate: In the G-rank missions, you receive reports that a number of fortifications have come under attack and their damaged parts are missing without a trace. At the end, you fight a Neopteron known as the Ahtal-ka, who doesn't appear to put up much of a fight... ...and then it hops into a web-spliced Humongous Mecha built from those very same missing parts.
  • Monster Hunter: World:
    • The game has Pukei-Pukei during the The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt crossover quest - if you have Geralt free it from being trapped in roots produced by Leshen, not only will it help you fight the Leshen, but if it survives the battles, it will outright try to thank Geralt by giving him an attack gem.
  • Ruiner Nergigante in the Iceborne expansion. It was trying to eat Shara Ishvalda, another Elder Dragon that was causing mass destruction across the New World, but knew it couldn't drag it out of hiding alone. So it waited where Shara Ishvalda was likely to be, made a show of fighting the Sapphire Star, played dead even whilst being carved, and then dealt the killing blow to Shara Ishvalda after it was weakened by the hunters. And then, since it likely knew it couldn't take on 12 Hunters at once, it opted to just fly away after the kill rather than sticking around to eat its meal. In short, this thing appears to be capable of what seem to be rudimentary plans.
  • Monster Hunter: Rise introduces a bunch of monsters that can think. Bishaten, Tetranadon, Goss Harag, Somnacanth, the list goes on. The new Elder Dragons, Wind Serpent Ibushi and Thunder Serpent Narwa, top them all with disturbingly human thoughts (even though they're mostly about how horny they are).
• The Shades from NieR. At the beginning, they seem like mindless monsters. By the end, they're using weapons and armor, and they can sucker the title character into a deadly ambush with one of the Plot Coupons. This is a big part of The Reveal: Shades are human souls stripped from their bodies.
• NieR: Automata explores this with the Machine Lifeforms. While some of the androids of YoRHa, like 9S, are quick to dismiss Machine Lifeforms as unthinking automatons who act without any rhyme or reason, there are some that exhibit varying — and increasing — levels of intelligence, enough to found communities, civilizations, and even religious cults. The Reveal that YoRHa androids are built using Machine Lifeform cores makes them more alike than unlike.
• Nihilumbra: The Void is not just some mindless force of nature, it's learning how to hunt you down better.
• One of the more terrifying aspects of Penumbra: Black Plague is this trope. The dog/wolf monsters in Overture seemed to just be aggressive beasts. Your first encounter with one of the infected in Black Plague? It's looking for you with a flashlight in its hand.
• In Project × Zone, after defeating Nemesis for the first time, it utters its catchphrase as usual, prompting both Chris and Jill to comment that they now work for BSAA. And then...
  Nemesis: B......S......AA......!
• Redlight in [PROTOTYPE] seems like your typical zombie plague. In the backstory, however, is the way the first outbreak occurred: after the test subjects - a few citizens of a small town - were infected, nothing happened at all for four years until the scientists who'd expected a spectacular response packed up and let their guard down. At that point every single subject - by then the entire town - suddenly mutated and attacked all at once. The Virus had waited patiently, spreading quietly, for just such an opportunity. It only acts that way when it has a Runner to direct it, though; the rest of the time, it really is your typical zombie plague.
  • And of course the next iteration, Blacklight, is a fully sapient individual, obviously capable of complex independent thought, speech, planning, and emotions - Alex Mercer, the player character. Then you find out what the real Alex had done: namely, in a gesture of revenge against his former employers, he released the Blacklight Virus upon the city of Manhattan before being gunned down. Upon finding this out, the virus itself is disgusted and appalled.
• In Raiden V, after exploring the cave full of crystals in Stage 2, Max comes up with a hypothesis that the Crystals are actually an intelligent lifeform that can communicate with one another mutually. Max's suspicions are confirmed when he made an SOS call to a French port, where the Crystals were for sure staging an attack, as that is where Max sent a shipment of the crystals he retrieved from the cave. Upon meeting Kraken, Max's concerns grow even more as it showed the Crystals can upgrade the machinery they contaminate. Later on, Max orders a mission to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) facility, where the shipment of crystals from the cave ended up. As Max expected, there was a massive amount of contaminated machinery invading the LHC. Max then hypothesized that the Crystals had a sort of commander giving orders, as the LHC invasion was organized as if it was a precision military operation. Again, Max was proven right. With the help of Valbarossa Hawkeye after her flagship was contaminated and the information from the SHIFT facility they destroyed, Max and Eshiria were able to determine that all of Max's hypotheses were unfortunately true, with Helga confirming that the information stored on one crystal is shared collectively with all the others. This necessitates Helga relaying the order from the council for the Bellwether and Fighting Thunder to launch a counter-offensive towards the Crystal's homeworld in order to put an end to their threat once and for all.
  Helga: [regarding the Crystals' intelligence] I've heard that even among terrestrial lifeforms, if an individual learns a new way to hunt, the same method of hunting was suddenly acquired by other individuals all around the world. This may be like the collective unconscious that Jung talked about.
  Max: It's hard for me to understand difficult things, so can you explain it in more layman's terms?
  Helga: Simply said, the information that comes into contact with crystals is being leaked to all the contaminated weapons.
  Max: I see. So they are making it as unclear as possible as to where they're heading.
  Helga: That's correct.
• Many of the monsters from the Resident Evil series have varying displays of intelligence.
  • Resident Evil (Remake) uses this as a Tear Jerker when battling Lisa Trevor. You can fight her by knocking her off the ledge, but if you push the four boulders off the edge to crack open the grave where her mother's body is, she'll sadly take the skull and jump from the ledge herself.
    Lisa: Moth...ther...
  • Similarly, when she appears in the Wesker levels of Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, she displays a decent degree of planning and understanding. She appears to recognize Wesker as one of the people responsible for turning her into a monster and hunts him relentlessly, unlike the other survivors who she really only attacked when they entered her living spaces and wouldn't bother to chase them once they left. She also lies in wait to ambush him, and even seems to understand that the mansion is minutes away from blowing up as she does everything in her power to block Wesker from escaping out the front door.
  • The T-00 Tyrant from Resident Evil 2 (AKA: "Mr. X" or "Trenchy" depending on the version) is smarter than the zombies and other creatures you have to deal with, having been created specifically to Leave No Witnesses and to retrieve a G-Virus sample. Notably this actually works against it late in the game as Claire manages to dupe it into falling off a catwalk and falling into a massive smelting tank using a sample of the G-Virus as bait — the thing is so fixated on it that literally all it thinks about is getting that sample, like a computer program or an ant following a pheromone, and so it runs right off the edge trying to grab it and falls to its death or so Claire thinks. The Remake ramps the Tyrant's intelligence up even further, such that it spends its time in the Raccoon City Police Department looking for you specifically, honing in on any loud sounds you make from slamming doors or firing your gun. If a zombie stands between it and you, it will shove it out of the way. Conversely, if it sees a zombie grab you, it will stand and watch: if the zombie ends up killing you, it still technically counts as destroying its target. If you try to fire at its face, it will raise a hand up to block your bullets. Overall, the Remake version of the Tyrant is a methodical — and unrelenting — hunter. It even seems to be fond of its hat, as if you shoot the hat off and then manage to ditch it, you might catch a glimpse of it morosely feeling its hatless head.
  • The Nemesis from Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Unlike all the other monsters up to this point, it is smart enough to follow orders, track the main character, open doors, use weapons, set ambushes, and speak (albeit only one word: "S.T.A.R.S.", his mission target). Even when Jill tries to make her escape via helicopter, Nemesis is smart enough to shoot the helicopter with a rocket launcher to cut off her escape.^note Though not smart enough to wait for her to board the helicopter first. Later game events imply, especially in the remake, that he's purposely toying with her to make his hunt more fun.
  • Those infected with Las Plagas, as seen in both Resident Evil 4 and 5, are practically human in intelligence. They are capable of using weaponry, setting traps, cooperating with each other, and (depending on the actual host) can even speak properly. A good example would be the Verdugo. If you blast it with a rocket launcher, it shrugs off the explosion and tauntingly wags its "finger" at you before resuming its attack.
  • Resident Evil 6 features several monsters that are quite intelligent than the standard RE enemies:
    • First off, the game features an evil(er) knockoff of The Nemesis with Ustanak. It's smart enough to predict where you're going and set a trap rather than just smash through the wall to keep chasing you, select and equip weapons, and even deploy small flying creatures in a search pattern to cut off your escape and track you down. And if you think you outsmarted it by hiding in the dumpster, try it three times.
    • Secondly, The C-Virus zombies are considerably smarter than the T-Virus ones. They can use tools such as melee weapons and guns (though not very well), and even climb over obstacles such as fences.
    • Lastly there's the J'Avo, who have retained almost at the very least enough intelligence to behave like normal soldiers.
  • Rachael from Resident Evil: Revelations seems to exhibit this trope when it starts jumping out or air vents to attack you.
  • The Lycans from Resident Evil Village have degraded into savage beasts, but are still smart enough to stage ambushes, use weapons, and strategize (e.g. dodging and keeping a safe distance) when facing the player.
• The Scurge in Scurge: Hive.
  • Interestingly enough, it's initially averted, then the aversion subverted, because a mid-game conversation points out that the Scurge originally didn't have any sort of sentient thought. It only began to develop such after absorbing enough sentient life that it began to form its own collective mindset and began planning its escape.
• In Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire, the Progenitor factions initially think of humans as relatively-intelligent animals rather than sentient beings. A couple of Encyclopedia Exposita entries and vignette events show them as taken off guard when humans prove them otherwise.

Missile attack on Zeta-5: humans activate first defense successful. Afterwards: danger posed by innovation suddenly clear.

— Usurper Judaa Marr, "Human : Nature"

• Played for Laughs on Slime Rancher with BOb, an NPC who is a pile of Pink Slimes in a trenchcoat who can be spoken to on the Ranch Exchange, revealing that the various slimes are indeed capable of speech and using technology. However, all he, they, whatever uses it for is to ask for chickens to eat with hilariously bad grammar and spelling.
  PSs.-- chickKn
• Several mutants in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. will use this:
  • One notable example has you wandering through an abandoned building and hearing the sound of a crying baby, coming from inside a closet. There's a Burer waiting inside for you to open the door.
  • Another example of this has a Controller growling to you a chilling warning ("LEAVE HERE, MAN!") should you approach the entrance of the cave it's dwelling inside.
  • As for Bloodsuckers, well, they will use dangerously efficient stalking and hunting tactics when facing you, and you will feel like prey if you're attacked by more than one of them at once. There's also a bit where one leaves a dying man on the floor crying out for help as bait to lure you into the open so it can pounce.
• StarCraft:
  • Arcturus Mengsk (and the Confederate scientists he stole the idea from) thought the Zerg were just a sort of eusocial animal that swarmed to whatever planet he placed a Psi-Emitter on. Oh, how wrong he was...
  • Even the Protoss thought this at first, until a Zerg probe they captured revealed that it was, in fact, looking for them.
  • Invoked in Hearts of the Swarm. Kerrigan's broodmothers are capable of autonomy and building up a force, but lack the strategic vision to be truly dangerous, so she has them intentionally made smarter. When pointed out this makes them a danger to her, too, she says she wants them as dangerous as possible.
  • The Primal Zerg that remain on Zerus, unlike the Zerg that were integrated into a Hive Mind by the Xel'Naga, are sapient intelligent predators that have spent generations hunting, killing, and adapting. They consider the other Zerg to be corrupted.
• Like most Vaults, the Vault of the Traveller in Tales from the Borderlands contains an obligatory giant monster, the largest one seen in the series, in fact. It comes as a horrifying realization to the characters that this one is actually intelligent. It's smart enough to leave Gortys alive because it knows that it will disappear if she is killed, and when hit with an ineffective attack, it laughs. To make matters worse, its main ability is one you really don't want a smart opponent to have: Teleport Spam.
• This results in a Mass "Oh, Crap!" from the whole party in Tales of Vesperia when it turns out a monster that has been harassing them as they traverse a dungeon (on the way to the Disc-One Final Dungeon) has actually been herding them into a trap. It takes the resident party Cowardly Lion stepping up and deciding to Hold the Line despite the risks for them to survive.
• According to the Tempedia in Temtem, some species show signs of intelligence:
  • The care with which Valash sharpens its claws is a sign of primitive sapience.
  • Seismunch is nearing proto-human cognition, as it tends to mimic human behaviours such as martial arts poses (which can be seen in its battle animations).
  • Pupoise is adaptable and known to use tools in the wild.
• Implied with some of the zombies in Timesplitters: Future Perfect, who are perfectly capable of weaponizing guns against you.
• Played for Horror in ULTRAKILL. The second part of the Alternate Reality Game reveals that Hell is no mere Eldritch Location. Instead, Hell is a living realm of suffering that is intelligent enough to learn how the Hell Expedition team's technology works just by watching them, how to use said technology, and attaching it to the Husks it tortures so it can have its own army of cyborg zombies. Hell is also a malevolent being that seeks to claim as many souls as possible while entertaining itself with the eternal torment of its victims.
• Warframe:
  • During the Second Dream quest, it's revealed that your Warframe is exactly that, just a mindless bio-mechanical frame piloted by the actual Tenno, the player character. However, after the Stalker stabs his new sword right through its chest and starts strangling the Operator, it springs back to life and rips the sword in half, forcing the Stalker to retreat.
  • This is taken further in the "Sacrifice" quest with Excalibur Umbra. When you first try to pilot him, he throws you out, almost kills you, and then starts running around the system slaughtering everything in his path. When you finally get control of him for good, his passive ability is that he can act independently when you are outside in Operator mode (normally warframes just stand still like statues without an Operator piloting them).
  • Warframe also has the Infested, the results of a techno-organic virus infecting and mutating various people and machines in the setting. Typically, Infested will mindlessly swarm the Tenno or whatever else they're attacking... until you encounter bosses. Which will talk to you and use fairly good tactics to try to kill the squad.

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