Our Ghosts Are Different / Video Games

"FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!"

Video Game examples of Our Ghosts Are Different.

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• 9 Monkeys of Shaolin has a ghost sentinel as a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere boss in the second stage. She cannot be harmed by ordinary weapons, and you'll need to concentrate and draw out your chi to damage her until she fades away. Later on you can battle lesser ghosts with the same weakness.
• Alone in the Dark features a ghost woman sitting in front of a fireplace, as well as several ghost dancers in Jacob Marley Apparel in the ballroom. If any of these are disturbed by touching them, they will shapeshift into a swirling multicolored mist which proceeds to chase the player. If it makes contact again, it's a One-Hit Kill to you. Fortunately, they are not intangible, i.e., they can't pass through walls or closed doors.
• Ashes 2063: Haunts are ghosts that inhabit locations where people have died in isolation, and are intimately tied to a paranormal phenomenon called "background despair". They are not fond of the living, belting out shrill wails upon seeing something they don't like, and attack by launching balls of purple energy with a black aura, as if they radiated darkness. They're also known to wander outside at night and during radiation storms, as seen by the player and told to him by a traveler; the latter was key to his decision to never again go back to the ruined city of Atlanta. Anomaly 210 in Afterglow houses a different, stronger kind of Haunt called the Phantom, that don't make ghostly noises, but rather Russian radio sounds, almost like they're manifestations of the submarine itself; even more eerie, these sounds can be picked up by actual encrypted radios, which is how the Anomaly was discovered. Zig-zagged in that Haunts behave almost exactly like ghosts, but are actually a living brain and spine in the guise of a floating, decayed corpse, and can be damaged and killed by conventional weapons.
• Beyond: Two Souls features Aiden, a ghost that shares a strong spectral connection to Jodie and is fiercely loyal to her. Later revealed to be Jodie's twin brother, who was stillborn.
• The "ghosts" in BioShock Infinite are actually quantum superpositions of two versions of the same person from different universes, one living and the other dead. They are aware of their state, but most are paralysed with confusion over which version of themselves they are. Lady Comstock, on the other hand, is angry about her state, and is able to extend the power of the dimensional tear that brought her back to resurrect dead enemies as her henchmen.
• Brain Dead 13:
  • The haunted ghosts wear nooses around their necks in the bedroom, and can drain the living soul out of Lance and rapidly age him to death.
  • There's a Jack the Ripper ghost who uses this Sinister Scythe to slice off Lance's face.
• City of Heroes: Metronome, the Praetorian counterpart to the Clockwork King is described as a disembodied psychic entity. He has a tendency to inhabit robotic bodies, has the power to control multiple robots simultaneously, and can transfer other beings' souls.
  • There's also Ghost Widow, one of Big Bad Lord Recluse's lieutenants, the Ghost Ship, the ghosts haunting Thriving Ghost Town Croatoa, the Pirate Ghosts in Fort Hades...it has a lot of ghosts, really.
  • The Ghost of Scrapyard. His character description contains a lampshade:
    You really hope every cape who has felt your wrath doesn't pull this poltergeist routine. It'll be a busy decade if they do.
• While most ghosts found in Conrad Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. are the lingering souls of the deceased, there are a few different categories they can be broken down into. Some return as residual ghosts, endlessly reliving past memories of their life, unaware of their surroundings. Others return as "intelligent" ghosts and actively interact with their environment, and may actually respond to attempts at communication. There are also poltergeists, which never vocalize or physically manifest, opting to just make their presence known by loudly moving objects in their environment, and actually aggressive demonic entities. Knowing which type you're dealing will help determine what kind of evidence you can find about them, and is crucial for eventually releasing them.
• Dead by Daylight: The Wraith, Nurse and Spirit can each be described as a different form of corporeal specter. Though they all differ in appearance and traits, each of their respective powers involves entering and exiting a spiritual plane at increased speed. The Onryō (Sadako) shares traits with the other three; being thematically similar to the Spirit, the ability to cloak herself like the Wraith and uses telekinesis to perform manual actions like the Nurse.
• Dead Space: Numerous people, a significant portion of them Unitologists, have claimed to see 'ghosts' near areas where necromorphs are on the loose. This phenomena is actually caused by the presence of a Marker, which can project the images of dead people — but only dead people — into other peoples' minds in order to manipulate them. The Black Marker does this in Dead Space: Martyr, and in the original Dead Space, the Red Marker does this by creating an image of "Nicole" to keep Isaac on track.
• Beached Things from Death Stranding are very weird take on this. They're the souls of dead people that have been Barred from the Afterlife due to somehow being trapped on their Beaches, personal pathways to the afterlife, following the Apocalypse How. They are invisible to the naked-eye and can only be sensed by people with DOOMs (an allergy to chiralium, causing mental instability and unusual abilities) and bridge babies (unborn babies with a connection to Beaches that were artificially moved from their stillmothers into portable pods). Their appearance varies a lot, but they usually take the form of a pitch-black floating humanoid attached to an umbilicus. They flock to locations of high chiralium density (such as when a dead body is cremated), their presence is hinted at by the manifestation of a black oil-like substance, seem to be blind and can sense people by their breath, can create more of themselves by devouring living humans, and if a dead body isn't cremated within 48 hours, it automatically becomes a BT. Larger BTs also have a small amount of antimatter at their core, so when they devour someone it causes a "voidout", a massive explosion caused by the energy released by the matter-antimatter annihilation. It is noted that most are actually benign and just kinda float around harmlessly, but enough of them are aggressive and their attacks do enough damage that they've nearly destroyed human civilization anyways.
• In Divinity: Original Sin II, ghosts are the souls of the dead, formed of the Source magic they accumulated throughout their lives: Invisible to Normals and unable to affect the physical world. Some are the same as they were in life, while others are trapped reliving one short memory; they might be held back from the afterlife by choice, Unfinished Business, or simple madness. As a Sourcerer, the player character can sample their memories or consume them for power.
• Dragon Age: Origins has a few ghosts that appear (along with demons) in places that The Veil (the border between the mortal realm and The Fade) is thin. They don't seem to have any special powers, and do nothing but harass the party (either by attacking them or just speaking nonsense and then running away faster than you can catch up). Some also speak intelligibly, either replaying scenes from their lives (usually having to do with their deaths) or singing creepy songs.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition (and the tie-in novel in which he first appears, Dragon Age: Asunder) also has Cole, who is something akin to a ghost. Rather than being like the above-described ghosts, Cole is a compassion spirit from the fade that crossed over into the mortal realm to aid a dying human; he then took that human's form and lost his memory of being a spirit. He has a physical form, but also has telepathy and the ability to tamper with people's memories.
• Dragon Quest V: The lives of the Counts of Uptaten were tragically cut short when monsters raided their castle and slaughtered everyone inside. Due to the influence of some nasty spirits, they were unable to move on to the afterlife until their jailers were defeated by the Hero and Bianca.
• Dragon's Wake has some unusual enemies that appear to be ghosts possessing the remains of their own skeleton. If the bones are are destroyed the ghost remains for a short time and continues attempting to attack the player.
• Dread Delusion: Ghosts are human-shaped echoes of a person's trauma and are unable to interact with the world around them, though some are lucid enough to carry on a conversation. Interestingly, since they're made of a person's trauma rather than their actual soul, it is possible for there to be a ghost of someone who is still alive.
• Dwarf Fortress: Ghosts of dwarves who were never buried and never received a memorial slab will haunt your fortress. Most will hang out scaring your living dwarves (which gives them unhappy thoughts); some will attack living dwarves as well (in addition to the obvious danger, this also gives the unhappy thought "has been attacked by the dead"). Some of them resume the work they left unfinished in life, too. Sometimes they even throw parties!
• The Elder Scrolls: Ghosts are immune to 'normal' weapons and arrows (they pass though them)and need enchanted weapons or those made of supernatural materials like silver to be damaged, but are apparently solid if you try to walk pass them, even able to hit you.
• Eternal Darkness has several character return from the dead as glowing blue ghosts to continue their struggle against the Darkness.
• EXTRAPOWER features a few minor ghosts enemies. The souls of those slain trying to trespass on Blackberry's pyramid appear in Attack of Darkforce and Giant Fist as robed phantoms twisted into the pyramid's protection. The latter half of Star Resistance Stage 3 is populated by warrior ghosts from the Shakun Star's violent, warmongering past. These forsaken souls are bound to their buried battlegrounds and persist through the sheer force of their hunger for conquest. Flaming wisp type ghosts also share the haunt with the Shakun ghost warriors.
• Fatal Frame is about people being drawn to/trapped in haunted areas, the spirits of the dead who are either the original inhabitants who died during a horrible supernatural event, or the spirits of other people who later became trapped and killed by the ghosts there. There is also the Camera Obscura, your only weapon in the games, which seems to steal energy from the ghosts until they can no longer materialise (as opposed to capturing them, since they have a habit of turning up again later).
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy X: The Unsent look and act like alive people do, but due to the absence of a Sending (in which the dead person's soul is sent to the afterlife by a summoner) they stick around.
    • Some can also be held to the realm of the living if their death was unclean — e.g., they were killed before their time through malice such as Lord Jyscal — or if they have unfinished business with examples including Auron and possibly Maester Mika. I suppose if you think about it, Yu Yevon also counts.
    • Then there are the Fiends, the creatures most frequently encountered in battles. Essentially, if a dead person is consumed by resentment towards their death but lacks the strength of will to keep their mind together (as is the case with an Unsent) they become a Fiend, a vicious, monstrous entity that roams (or indeed, haunts) the land looking for living people to prey upon. As it turns out, the tendency for deceased people to become Fiends is actually the most pressing reason why sendings are performed.
  • Final Fantasy XI: Fomors are the restless souls of dead soldiers and adventurers given shape. One region in the game has them aggro depending on if you've defeated more of them or the beastmen that murdered them. Appease them enough, and they won't attack you unless you engage them.
• First Encounter Assault Recon has a couple very odd ghosts. The main antagonist of the series, Alma, has been dead for nearly 30 years, walks through walls, teleports, and does other things you'd expect of a ghost... yet still seems to have a physical body; her full powers weren't unleashed until her corpse is released from its stasis pod, and at the end of the second game, she gets pregnant. She also is able to conjure hundreds of ghostly beings out of her fractured psyche unconsciously. It seems a trait of extremely powerful psychics in this series to simply not die when they die, and Alma is the single most powerful psychic to ever live...
• Geist: John Raimi becomes a ghost after his soul and body are separated. He doesn't get many of the standard ghost powers, apart from possessing people. He can't even walk through most walls (though probably because that would break the game). He also meets another ghost, Gigi, who is the Big Bad's deceased sister.
• GhostControl Inc. has a wide variety ghosts to battle and capture. Examples include...
  • Poltergeist: Little blue ghosts.
  • Halloween Spirit: Bedsheet Ghosts
  • Spectre: Floating skeletons lacking their lower body.
  • Fire Spirit: Giant floating skulls made of fire.
  • Ghoul: Zombies.
• Ghost Master has many types of spirits. Some are formally living people and animals (such as one surfer dude hedgehog), while others are natural entities and even the collective will of hundreds of dead chickens. Interestingly some seem to have been 'born' ghosts. One particularly interesting case is a ghost described as the dream a man was having when he died given form.
• Ghost Trick: All spirits seem to linger near their bodies after death, but only certain ghosts have special "ghost tricks" that allow them to move around and affect the world through possessing inanimate objects or living bodies, or swapping similarly shaped items, as well as go back in time four minutes before a recently-deceased person's death. Only people who die near the Temsik meteorite receive ghost trick power, indicating even in that world it's a very unusual thing.
• Giana Sisters DS: Enemy Ghosts are skeletal, three-headed white spectres who are weirdly missing their bodies' lower halves. They are permanently flying in circles and cannot be damaged in any way.
• The Halloween Hack: The Evil Ecto looks like a green Palette Swap of the Soul Consuming Flame. They are found in the creepy part of Twoson sewers. They have a creepy yell and can Mind Rape Varik with Brainshock Alpha.
• Haunt the House: The ghost is presented as a sympathetic character who just wants some privacy.
• Several characters from Hidden City, such as the Mayor and Alex, are 'spirits', who despite lacking a proper physical body mostly look and act exactly the same as the normal human characters. 'Ghosts' also exist as shadowy monsters to be banished for treasure, as well as items to be found in various locations.
• I Spy: In I Spy Spooky Manor, you make some ghosts by putting ingredients into a strange machines, the resulting ghosts depend of what you put and you can make 7 ghosts. In the original game only the 7th one is necessary to win the game but in the deluxe version, the ingredients for the final ghosts are the 6 first ghosts and the skeleton that served as your guide through the game so you need everyone.
• Killer7: A number of characters are ghosts (officially named "Remnant Psyches"). In particular, the syndicate's first kill, Travis, is Mr. Exposition. Ghosts spoke in terrible Gratuitous English in the original Japanese version; in the American version, ghosts can't speak in coherent language, sounding like they're talking through a garden hose — though you can still make out the original Engrish in places.
• In King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, the heroine must lay to rest several ghosts in a haunted house. To achieve this, she must unite them with an object that was dear to them during their lifetimes. For instance, the baby wants its rattle; a weeping woman wants her locket, the miser desires a pouch of money; a soldier is searching for his medal; a little boy wants a toy horse. Oddly enough, all these objects are found in the graves of these individuals, alongside their earthly remains...leading one to wonder why that wasn't enough to set them all at rest, or why the ghosts themselves didn't know where these items were. Of course, the requisite shovel can be used precisely five times.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Ghinis are spherical ghosts with stumpy tails and arms and a single cyclopean eye. They haunt graveyards and have a chance to spawn whenever Link bumps into or moves a gravestone; once a certain number is defeated, a giant Ghini may also spawn.
  • Poes are recurring enemies in the form of hooded figures carrying lanterns, which in some games hold their souls. They're usually found in The Lost Woods.
  • The Legend of Zelda describes Peahats (flowery enemies fluttering around the screen) as being the ghosts of flowers. Pol's Voices, hopping rabbit-like creatures defeated by loud noises, are also described as being ghosts.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
    • The game features the ghost of the Zora Queen, who offers Link the Zora Armor, which is required for the Lakebed Temple, after he protects her ailing son from King Bulblin.
    • The game marks the debut of Ghoul Rats, ghostly mice that don't really attack, but like Poison Mites, they instead slow you down, leaving you open to other enemies. Like every other ghost enemy, they are invisible and can only be seen and attacked when you use Wolf Link's senses.
    • Death Sword, the Mini-Boss of the Arbiter's Grounds, and the only boss that jointly requires Link to use both his Wolf and Human forms to weaken him. He is invisible like every other ghost enemy unless you use Wolf Link's senses to attack and make him solid enough for his human form to damage him. Unlike the other ghost enemies in the game, Death Sword doesn't host a soul fragment that can be extracted, and it disintegrates into Poison Mites when he’s defeated.
    • It also features the very chilling ghosts of the guards of Hyrule castle, who silently and desperately point Link to the Princess.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Princess Zelda herself becomes a ghost after the villain steals her body, and can aid Link by possessing Phantoms, enemies resembling living suits of armor.
• The Lost Crown: Ghosts range in power and malevolence from fleeting translucent figures, to a pesky kid who keeps pushing the elevator buttons, to dangerous roiling black smoke-columns that hound you around the room.
• Lucifer Ring have ghosts as a common enemy in Bair's mansion that the player must defeat. They can be killed by the sword, somehow.
• Super Metroid has Phantoon, a flying, bulbous, tentacled thing with an eyeball in its mouth. Its powers include invisibility, levitation, intangibility, and attacking with flaming blue balls of plasma. Apparently it gets its nutrition by sucking on the electrical current of the wrecked ship it lives in. Also inhabiting the wrecked ship are coverns, ghost-like entities that look like half a dozen rotting human heads rolled together into a ball. Then he returns in Metroid: Other M, where he's also absolutely huge with some sort of dimensional powers.
• The Matrix: Path of Neo has a programmed ghost that Neo must defeat to learn the One-Hit Kill techinque so that the ghost can 'pass on'. Also has an Averted Trope, Playing with a Trope example. An ex-cop turned security guard believes that he killed Neo when Smith BodySurfed him in The Matrix. So, when he sees Neo six months later he freaks out and fires at Neo. Neo, of course, stops the bullets and when the security guard sees it, believes that Neo has come back as a ghost to take Revenge.
  Security guard, freaking out: [Shouting as he runs off] I killed you! I killed you! Get away from me!
  Neo, trying to tell the guard he's wrong: Wait, I'm not dead. I'm here to help you.
  Security guard, not listening as he runs up the stairs: Get away!!
  Agent, 5 minutes later: You see Officer, he's not a ghost, he's just a man. Just another criminal.
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has The Sorrow, a long-dead psychic who haunts an enemy of his old team by forcing him listen to the tortured souls of all the people he's killed on his mission.
• Metro 2033, hands down. The ghosts interfere with most electronics, which means no Night-Vision Goggles and no flashlight, only your bullet lighter or the night-vision scope of a gun if you have it. Some locations cause flashback-like hallucinations, some can control you, and if you bump into them, you'll be stuck with them, forced to relieve their final moments over and over again forever. There are also the tormented souls in the old Kremlin, who will trap any living person they can reach in an effort to not be alone; this happens to Pavel if you don't intervene. To make it worse, this isn't natural; according to Khan, [[spoiler:heaven, purgatory and hell were destroyed by the nukes, and the souls are trapped in the Metro since there's no afterlife to go to.
• Minion Masters: Currently, there are three ghost minions in the game: The Ghost which possesses enemy minions turning them to your side, the Haunting Hugger, who also possesses enemies but only damages them until they die, and the Frostfang Familiar, a vampire-ghost that gives the Vampiric-effect to friendly minions as well as a cold aura around them for a short time after giving the Vampiric-effect. There is also the Ghost Turret which, rather than being a ghost itself, has spiteful ghosts as ammunition.
• Monster Rancher: Ghosts are monsters obtainable only if one of your Monsters dies.
• Phantom Brave: The titular Phantoms are unable to interact physically unless confined to an object.
• Pokémon: Ghosts are just another type of Pokémon. In general, most Ghost-type Pokémon like to play pranks on people and scare them. A key characteristic of most is that they seem to be composed mostly of gases rather than solid flesh (or, in the case of Rotom, plasma), while others are physical beings with supernatural abilities, and a few others still are explicitly the spirits of deceased beings. For this reason, some people don't think of most of them as real ghosts in the common sense... they simply have characteristics of ghosts.
  • Yamask, Cofagrigus/Runegrigus, Phantump, and Trevenant are real human ghosts. Yamask is an animated death mask (while its Galarian variant is a human ghost being drawn into a cursed rune), Cofagrigus is an animated sarcophagus, and Runegrigus is a cursed rune that used the Yamask spirit to fully restore itself, while the latter two are essentially ghost-powered Treants. Drifloon and Drifblim are also stated to be human and pokémon spirits.
  • Honedge, Doublade and Aegislash are ancient metal swords possessed by spirits, but are still considered ghost-types.
  • Shuppet and Banette are discarded toys animated by a malevolent will. Mega Banette appears to actually be at the point where the aforementioned will has gained enough power to be able to manifest without the toy.
  • One of the strangest is Shedinja, a discarded cicada shell that achieves unlife when its "parent" pokemon evolves.
  • Spiritomb is a composite of 108 wicked souls that were bound to a special stone.
  • Golett and Golurk are golems from a far earlier civilization who may or may not be powered by magic or actual ghosts.
  • Sandygast and Palossand are animated sand cursed by the grudges of restless dead Pokemon.
  • Mimikyu is some sort of unseen spirit with a horrifying appearance that (poorly) disguises itself as a Pikachu.
  • Dhelmise is one of the strangest — it's the soul of seaweed possessing living seaweed fronds that binds itself to oceanic debris for form.
  • Sinistea and Polteageist are spirits inhabiting tea who pour themselves into china to hold their form.
  • Galarian Corsola and Cursola are undead coral.
  • Dreepy, Drakloak, and Dragapult are undead prehistoric amphibians.
  • Sableye is a kobold, not a ghost, and is thus closer to The Fair Folk than anything else.
  • Decidueye isn't really ghostly at all — it's a humanoid owl that can channel spirit energy.
  • Alolan Marowak also isn't ghostly, but like Decidueye, it can channel spirit energy.
  • Hisuian Typhlosion is a Psychopomp who transmits spirit energy through its flames to cleanse tormented spirits, rather than anything ghostly.
  • Basculegion is yet another channeler, this time using the souls of dead Basculins who failed to swim upstream to empower itself.
  • Annihilape is not undead, it's the result of a Primeape who should have died from its own rage managing to purge itself of all emotions and ascending into an embodiment of fighting will and killing intent.
  • Hisuian Zorua/Zoroark are explicitly undead Zorua/Zoroarks who died of exposure to Hisui's brutal climate and conflicts with native Pokemon, and were resurrected through their bitterness and hatred for the living. They are also among the most explicitly malevolent, as they are murderously violent and will attack the living on sight.
  • Cubone's mother in Pokémon Red and Blue is an actual ghost, being a spirit out for revenge until calmed. You can't see its form unless you have a Silph Scope, and even then you can't catch it.
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 features real human ghosts in haunted houses. In the Sinnoh games a ghost child appears in an abandoned mansion.
  • None of the three Ghost-type legendaries, Giratina, Hoopa Confined, or Lunala, are ghosts in the undead sense. Giratina is an Antimatter Eldritch Abomination dragon with gaseous wings (though, according to its Pokedex entry, it sometimes appears in graveyards like actual ghosts), Hoopa Confined is a Djinn stuck in a weaker form, and Lunala is a moon elemental who is actually an Ultra Beast, albeit a somewhat more benign one.
  • As the sole Ghost-type Mythical, Marshadow is somewhat more ghostly, as it is a timid warrior spirit who hides in shadows and studies the techniques of powerful martial artists.
  • Bramblin and Brambleghast take ghosts back into the weird category, being undead tumbleweeds said to be born when a wandering spirit gets tangled up in dried grass and blown along by the wind.
• Pac-Man: Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde (or Sue) are ghosts that are deadly unless Pac-Man (or Ms. Pac-Man) eats a power pill. Them being ghosts may not be true. They're referred to as either "monsters" or "ghost monsters". They appear to be alive and made of flesh, instead of being dead and untouchable.
• Putrefaction has the Putrid Spirits, ghosts manifested when a cluster of the putrid's energy begins assimilating into a humanoid form, appearing as ghostly entities that attacks you. The lowest-level varieties of these enemies can be dispersed by shooting at them, but the stronger types needs to be frozen by your ice gun to gain a physical form - before you switch to another weapon and blow them to bits.
• RuneScape, while still having it's fair share of "ghosts are just dead people", has one particular slayer monster called "Aberrant Spectres"; ghosts that smell so bad you need a high slayer skill and a nose-peg to not take fatal damage while fighting them.
• Silent Hill:
  • Silent Hill 3 says that ghosts who killed themselves or were killed unexpectedly must re-live the moment of their death over and over because they don't know they're dead, and will try to kill other humans because they've grown mad from it. Needless to say, one tries to kill you.
  • Silent Hill 4: The ghosts you encounter are all Walter's Victims. They come out of walls leaving blood and goo behind, and just being near them causes Henry to get massive headaches and lose health. They look like mangled versions of their former selves, and in the case of some of them like Jasper,◊ exactly how they looked while dying.
• The Sims: Dead Sims can remain in the world as ghosts, translucent versions of themselves.
  • Starting in The Sims 2, the method of their death affects their color, power and behavior:
    • Drowned Sims turn blue and leave puddles and may leave bubbles in bathtubs.
    • Electrocuted Sims randomly jitter with electric shock.
    • Sims who burned to death turn red and occasionally leave piles of ash. They tend to be angrier and less peaceful than other ghosts.
    • Sims who starved to death are pale blue and will attempt to raid refrigerators.
    • Sims who were eaten by the cowplant are green, and will taunt the plant with a slab of meat held out of its reach. They will also become angry at Sims who drank the life essence the plant produced after eating them. In 4, they instead become one with nature and will make plants grow or die depending on their mood.
    • Sims who froze to death are light blue and complain of being too cold.
    • Sims who died of old age are white, and are the most peaceful ghosts.
    • Vampire Sims who died of thirst appear dark crimson, with a pulsing red light where their heart should be.
  • Dogs, cats and horses can become ghosts in the same manner as Sims.
  • Ghosts are haunters who can be roused to anger if their gravestone is damaged, their spouse remarries, their family moves out or dies off, or their favorite object is sold. They can scare other Sims badly enough they wet themselves. Or die of fright — which produces a pink ghost.
  • Rather than call a ghostbuster or someone of that nature, simply moving the gravestone can get rid of a Sim ghost.
  • The Sims 3: Ghosts become playable characters once you complete a certain opportunity. They control more or less the same as normal sims, though they can walk through walls and other objects, as well as have a creepy sound effect on at all times. They're also immune to most forms of death. By making ambrosia, you can fully restore them to life. They are also capable of having ghost children.
  • In The Sims 4, a ghost's color is no longer dependent on their cause of death, but on their mood — red when angry, green when happy, etc. Their mode of death still affects them by giving them unique powers or behaviors — Sims who burned to death can start fires, electrocuted Sims can possess electronics, Sims who laughed to death are extremely jolly and playful, Sims who were eaten by the Cowplant can make plants grow or die, Sims who drowned track water everywhere, etc.
• In the 2002 Star Wars: The Clone Wars video game, the "Spectral Guardians" are a ghostly trio guarding Ulic Qel-Droma's tomb. Despite being nonphysical, they breathe fire, and destroying their coffins is the only way to defeat them.
• The main threat in The Suffering are violent ghostly monsters called Malefactors that embody different forms of execution and human evil, with each one having appearances themed around how they died. Most are just feral monsters out to kill every human in sight, but a few have retained their intelligence and human identities. Even then, the only truly benevolent one you meet is Horace Gage, who tries to help the Player Character survive and atone for his mistakes.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Boos are small round ghost enemies who generally approach Mario when his back is turned and remain still when he's facing them, at least in the 2D games. Games tend to alternate on whether they're the ghosts of living people or simply ghost-like spirit things of their own.
  • A number of other ghost enemies appear in various games, such as Lantern Ghosts draped in burlap sacks and Duplighosts who can mimic Mario's form.
  • In Super Mario Odyssey, the normal form of Cappy and most other Bonneters is a small and friendly white ghost wearing a hat. He possesses Mario's red cap, which in turn allows Mario to throw it like a boomerang, bounce on it, or possess enemies and other NPCs (as long as they aren't already wearing hats themselves).
  • Luigi's Mansion:
    • The first installment has a couple distinct types of ghosts. The mooks are not actual spirits, but rather Vincent Van Gore's paintings come to life. The "Portrait Ghosts", on the other hand, are truly undead, as their short biographies sometimes describe their lives, and the mansion has a few portraits of what seem to be living versions of them. Bogmire is an exception to this, as he's said to be a manifestation of the mansion's fear. The baby Chauncey's biography claims he was somehow born a ghost.
    • Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon has the ghosts from Evershade Valley, and these ones seem to be kept harmless by the Dark Moon. When it's broken by King Boo, the Restraining Bolt gets removed and they attack on sight.
    • Luigi's Mansion 3 has a variety of ghosts inside the Last Resort, most of which are seemingly working as staff. At least among the mooks, these ghosts are also normally friendly, only attacking under the orders of Hellen Gravely and King Boo. Once the latter's crown disappears, they regain their senses and help Luigi and friends reconstruct the fallen hotel.
• System Shock: Ghosts are referred to as a psychic echo and are only replaying the event that they act out. Often these events involve the violent death of the individual, such are one ghost reenacting his own suicide.
• Tales of Symphonia: A Ghost is fought in the second battle, to show how a magical enemy is stronger against physical attacks.
• Tears to Tiara 2: Simon, the setting's Jesus expy, hangs around on his old staff in the hope of being able to save his disciple Abraxas.
• Totem Tribe has the Shades, one of the main villains in the game. They are ghosts that are said to mastermind monster attacks and even take over target's nightmares. They even used Aruku's dreams to make a false clone out of her to mock her.
• Touhou Project has poltergeists, phantoms, ghosts, half-ghosts, vengeful spirits, and Mima.
  • Poltergeists are considered to be separate from the other types of spirits. Instead, they're constructs created by unusual powers. For example, the Prismriver sisters, were created to resemble the sisters of their creator, a girl named Layla. None of the four sisters are alive in the present day, but the poltergeists persist.
  • Phantoms are the true nature of animal and planet spirits. They can naturally come into existence or can be produced by magic or the deceased. They lack physical bodies and generally have inspecific forms, but are able to convert what they experience into thoughts, producing identity, and can passively influence the emotions of living people. The following are all subtypes of phantoms.
    • Ghosts are the souls of the dead who don't realize that they are dead, are strong enough to be unwilling to accept their deaths, or have some other significant attachment to the world of the living, and do not go to be judged. Only humans can become ghosts. Normally a white tear-like blob of floating spectral matter, strong ghosts can maintain human-like forms and participate in human-like activities. They possess enough physical composition to be able to manipulate things and just enough to make it hard for them to pass through physical substance freely. They must remain protective of their physical remains as it is their primary weak spot. The most notable ghost in the series is the carefree and whimsical Yuyuko Saigyouji who resides in Hakugyokurou (generally translated as the Netherworld).
    • Youmu Konpaku is a half-ghost, or half-phantom. She is followed around by her own ghost manifested externally, separate from her living body. In other words, she's literally half dead. It's not clear how this originally happened, but there was at least one other half-ghost before her and it's implied she was born that way.
    • Vengeful spirits are ghosts that had committed sins while they were alive. Certain kinds of youkai can also create vengeful spirits if they steal a human's body before their spirit properly moves on.
    • Mima is apparently a vengeful spirit, but it's spelled differently - akuryou instead of onryou. It may be a result of Early-Installment Weirdness, and unless a miracle happens it's probably never going to be explained.
• Ultima Underworld II has various kinds of ghosts. Normal ghosts are white, with red haunts and black shades as more powerful variants. A few of the ghosts in the game are still rational and are important characters, though most seem to be mindless.
• Undertale:
  • Ghosts seem to be just another type of monster, rather than restless souls. They still need to eat (thought they eat "ghost food" that's intangible to non-ghosts), can become invisible and intangible, and they're immune to physical attacks. They can possess inanimate objects and manipulate them to interact with the physical world more easily, but binding too strongly to their body makes them vulnerable to physical attack (as seen with Mettaton and, in the No Mercy route, Mad Dummy).
  • If you want scary ghosts, forget the ghost and skeleton monsters, try the actual undead in this setting. They are soulless entities possessing other living things that may or may not have a SOUL themselves, are animated through determination, and will ultimately be molded in the image of their host. If powerful enough they will start entering Eldritch Abomination territory. The game has two: Asriel who would later become known as Flowey and The Fallen Child.
• Warcraft has multiple kinds of ghosts, like wraiths, banshees, shades, and wisps.
• The World Ends with You They're called Players, can eat, exist on a separate plane, are invisible, and are fighting to get Back from the Dead.

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