Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War has beleaguered Ustio hire mercenaries to bolster their forces. You, Cipher, are one of them. Admittedly, though, no organizations are outright named.
In Ace Combat: Joint Assault, player character Antares is a newcomer to Martinez Security, another one of these.
Ace Combat Infinity's campaign starts the player out as a new arrival to a company called "Arrows Air Defense and Security", flying as the new number four for their Bone Arrow squadron.
Act of War: In the High Treason expansion pack for Act of War: Direct Action, powerful mercenaries can be purchased for a limited time with "insurance" money, if the mercenaries survive half of the money is given back to you, if not you don't see a return on your deposit. The mercenaries are tiered as "Official" (Heavy Infantry and Medics), "Unofficial" (AA-Guns and Tanks), and "Illegal" (Fighter Jets and Low Yield Nukes). They also play a minor role in the storyline. When Richter is forced to go rogue and flees the USA, he ends up having to rely on mercenaries for a few missions. The missions contain some debating regarding the morality of using mercenaries during which it is mentioned that a good chunk of the mercenaries were trained by the US even though Richter remains ethically opposed to their use.
In Age of Empires II, the Italians get the Condottiero as a second unique unit, a melee infantryman that gets a combat bonus against gunpowder troops. What makes them true to the trope is that the Italians' allies also can recruit this unit at their own Barracks.
Air Rivals: Players start as mercenaries under FreeSKA and only decide which of the two sides to join at level 11.
In Aliens vs. Predator 2, the General Rykov's Iron Bears are mercenaries being employed by the science team on LV1201, involved in morally dubious operations. After the arrival of the Colonial Marines, they attempt to strand them deep within the Alien hive while Rykov and the Predator stalk each other.
Alpha Protocol has the Veteran Combat Initiative. They can end up as your allies or your enemies — or one and later the other — depending on your choices. They're mostly evil though, being comprised of dishonorably discharged veterans and being led by Conrad Marburg.
Black Element debuts in the ARMA: Queen's GambitExpansion Pack and return as ION, Inc. in the ARMA 2: Private Military CompanyDLC, by which time the Blackwater resemblance was much more overt, complete with the renaming, international condemnation for involvement in the deaths of civilians, military/intel connections,note Mark Reynolds is former CIA, and quite a few of the team in PMC are former servicemen a case of additional motives besides the contract,note the big reveal of Private Military Company disavowed operators,note the player character and his team after and due to the events of Queen's Gambit being the self-proclaimed "North America's largest private service contractor"...
ION, Inc. and its parent company Vrana Industries would reappear in Take On Helicoptersnote first as clients, then as the primary antagonists and once more in ARMA 3, suggesting that business hadn't been lacking in the twenty-plus year gap between Take On Helicopters and ARMA 3... if in a less stereotypical direction for a PMC and its parent corporation (as corporate sponsors for the in-universe host/provider of ARMA 3's small arms challenge mode).
The big reveal in Private Military Company is that a certain unspecified government contacted ION, Inc., directly or through Vrana, and wanted Chinese involvement in Takistan's nuclear program covered up, and whether or not he himself or ION/Vrana were paid off, field leader Mark Reynolds is onboard with that even if it means squelching out on the protection contract with the UN weapons inspection team. The player can choose to fight their way through pro-Reynolds ION contractors to gun down Reynolds and expose the nuclear program and the attempted cover-up, but the canonical ending was that the player and Henry Asano joined Reynolds in killing off the UN weapons inspectors — along with any ION contractors not already in on the plan — and successfully covered up the whole thing, with the player character getting a hefty bonus and moving up to ION Head of Operations by the time of Take On Helicopters.
Armored Core seems to have moved away from an official PMC as of Armored Core 4, making the player more of a private mercenary for hire. There's still an organization of some sort backing the player, but it's only alluded to, never really discussed in detail. Collared is pretty much just the Lynx's hangout, as its members are already sold to specific corporations or are freelancers. The organization is pretty much tradition by this point.
Army of Two: The player characters work for a PMC.
The final mission of the game is an assault on the very same (corrupt) PMC headquarters that the player characters have been working for most of the game, and at the end, they decide to found their own PMC that won't plot attacks on American forces in order to build a case for privatizing the U.S. military.
In the sequel, The 40th Day, most of the 40th Day initiative are stated to be various mercenaries working for PMCs, with enough collective strength to take over and occupy the city of Shanghai.
In Assassin's Creed II, Ezio can hire squads of condottieri troops to assist him in battle. They can't parkour around on rooftops, but they are very tough and carry heavy weapons, making them superior to most of the city guard. In addition, they allow Ezio to make flanking moves and attack enemy troops from behind, which are one-hit-kills.
The majority of the enemies in both Assassin's Creed II and Brotherhood are also condotierri working for the Borgia family. There's also a distinct visual difference between the Borgia mercenaries and the condotierri working for Mario Auditore and Bartolomeo (and, by extension, the Assassins).
In Assassin's Creed III, the player can run into Hessians, who are considered elite mooks. The player themselves is stated to be a privateer working for the Colonials during the naval missions.
The Batman: Arkham Series features two different private armies of amoral mercenaries, that are hired by the villains to cause trouble in Gotham City, and also to try and fight Batman as well:
TYGER Security from Batman: Arkham City, which seem to be a mixture of this trope and Law Enforcement, Inc.. After Mayor Quincy Sharp buys out a large portion of Gotham City and converts it into a massive prison complex called Arkham City, he grants TYGER official jurisdiction over the area as a quasi-police force (instead of the GCPD). Acting under direct orders from Sharp's accomplice Dr. Hugo Strange, they are responsible for preventing all inmates from escaping (and using lethal force to do so); and despite being there to supposedly maintain law and order inside Arkham City, they instead allow all the violent convicts and lunatics to fight each other to death over control of food and territory. TYGER personnel also kidnap innocent people around Gotham and then throw them into Arkham City without any due process, leaving them at the mercy of the aforementioned convicts and lunatics. And at the climax of the game, they start initiating "Protocol 10"; which is Dr. Strange's (and Ra's al Ghul's) secret evil plan to massacre the entire population of Arkham City, including both guilty and innocent prisoners alike, until Batman himself has to stop this deadly project.
The Militia from Batman: Arkham Knight, which is a very large mercenary army that is commanded by the eponymous Arkham Knight (a.k.a. Jason Todd) and Deathstroke (Slade Wilson). They have been hired by the Scarecrow (Jonathan Crane) to invade Gotham City on the night of Halloween, in order to help assist with Scarecrow's plans to gas the whole city with his fear toxin, and attempt to finally defeat Batman once and for all. The Militia are comprised mostly of former (U.S.) military veterans who have experienced combat in war zones around the world. Unlike Gotham's homegrown criminal organizations, they behave like an occupying paramilitary force and have established outposts all over the city; with their soldiers patrolling the streets both on foot and riding in armored cars, while also controlling a very large arsenal of unmanned tanks and helicopters to try and counter Batman's heavily upgraded Batmobile.
Battle Brothers has the player running a mercenary company in a Low Fantasy medieval setting. The player can seek out and negotiate contracts including acting as animal control for villages, fighting the undead and other monsters, hunting bandits, or augmenting military forces in conventional warfare.
Markham's Marauders are the Player Character's mercenary company. They're presented as a small-time, company-sized outfit that mostly do jobs in the Periphery, and one out of many merc companies in the Inner Sphere. The Marauders (canonically) served the Aurigan Restoration during the Aurigan Civil War and provided employment and training for several MechWarriors-in-exile that would later go on to serve in the royal guard of the Aurigan Coalition.
The Grey Death Legion also makes an appearance during a Flashpoint and as part of a recurring event where they'll headhunt one of your MechWarriors.
In another Flashpoint, you can also get caught up in a Mexican Standoff with the Black Widow Company of Wolf's Dragoons and the Bounty Hunter himself. Both sides will definitely field more/better equipment than you so you will have to pick your battles.
There are generic 'hostile merc' factions which serve as nameless opponents, usually in the employ of pirates or local governments.
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War has the player as an up-and-coming mercenary working for the English and the French in the eponymous war. Although there's no official group or organization monitoring the mercenaries, there are a lot of them working in sort of a loose-knit coalition, such that even facing off against a mercenary on the battlefield doesn't mean you can't be friends. Kicking the snot out of the English or French King, on the other hand...
Bombshell's protagonist is ex-military and working for a mercenary outfit. Her departure from the military was nominally an honorable discharge, but she had a big cloud hanging over her due to a particularly prominent failure that cost her an arm and her team. She considers the mercenary outfit (and the new arm they gave her) to be her second chance.
The Crimson Lance was this to the Atlas Corporation, actively seeking the Eridian technology in Pandora. In Borderlands 2, Hyperion is powerful enough to not only have a huge robot army, but a private army consisting of soldiers that can deploy turrets, snipers with ridiculous accuracy, and Infiltrators that can cloak and attack you with their shotguns. In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, Dahl is revealed to have a Space Marine private army, and a Legion is big enough to take control of an entire space station, complete with ten-foot-tall mechs, turrets, and jet fighters.
All eight corporations are implied to have their own private army. Aside from Hyperion, Atlas, and Dahl, we only get to see Torgue's biker army in a DLC.
The Vault Hunters themselves could be considered a heroic example — they don't work for any of the corporations but for themselves and their friends, and will do anything for money, from delivering messages to crashing a wake. Wilhelm in particularly is explicitly stated to have been the best merc in the galaxy before he botched a job that tarnished his reputation. The Vault Hunters have also worked for actual corporations, such as Hyperion in The Pre-Sequel and Atlas in 3.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare: The backstory states that after a massive terrorist uprising, the world's use of PMC forces rose sharply as the government-fielded militaries had proven ineffective. The largest of these is the Atlas Corporation, who by the time of the game is the single largest standing army in the world, governmental or otherwise.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Menendez's troops are explicitly PMCs. Unlike Shadow Company and many other examples, they are not Americans, but former Cuban special forces operators who went mercenary. Which makes sense in context, really, given both Menendez's hatred of America and his own Latin American heritage. However, although they are clearly Cuban mercs being led by Menendez in the campaign, in the multiplayer they are led by a presumably American CO with a gruff voice, and the soldier chatter is all done with a distinctly Australian accent. That in and of itself may have something to do with DeFalco, Menendez's Dragon who has a British accent.
Modern Warfare: General Shepherd's Shadow Company in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has most of the trappings of PMCs, though the SOCOM emblems they wear make their true nature somewhat difficult to discern. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 likewise has the Russian Loyalist faction assisting you for half of the game treated as one of these; in multiplayer, they're just called "PMC", where they're matched up against African Militiamen.
Call of Juarez: The Cartel: Peacekeepers International, an Expy of Blackwater. Their CEO, Michael Duke is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who started selling high-end firearms to the Mendoza cartel after PI went bankrupt following an incident where they bombed a children's hospital in Iraq.
In Civilization III, the Carthaginians and Dutch have Numidian and Swiss mercenaries as their respective special units.
In Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Tanya is this to the Allies, as shown in the opening cutscene for her first mission, when one of the officers gets angry at having a civilian present in their war room. Tanya quickly lets him know that even if she's a civilian, she's trusted enough to have top-level clearance. This seems to be no longer the case in the two sequels, however, where Tanya seems to work directly for the Allied military.
In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising, it turns out that the war-weary Allies are now relying heavily on the PMC/weapons developer Futuretech, who were able to hire large numbers of veteran disenfranchised soldiers following the end of the war, to provide a great deal of their security.
Contract Wars and its more realistic tactical shooter sister game Escape from Tarkov feature two PMCs duking it out within the fictional Novorinsk special economic region; BEAR (Battle Encounter Assault Regiment), a Russian-based PMC covertly working under the arm of the Russian government and USEC (United Security), a western-based PMC working for TerraGroup.
Crusader Kings has a lot of mercenary companies, many of them based on historical examples as seen under Real Life, that can be hired, very expensively, if you need extra troops or galleys. Under certain circumstances, they can be landed, and a few can be vassalized. But, once you run out of gold they'll send a message regretfully informing you that they have to cancel their contract.
Crysis: In the second game, C.E.L.L. is portrayed as both incompetent and unprofessional compared to the Marine forces. They fail to effectively fight the Alien Invasion (granted, they were originally hired to quell riots and fend off the occasional alien raiding force while the marines fought the real invasion), attempt to kill the protagonist simply because of a grudge their commander has on the guy he thinks he is, and blatantly refuse to follow orders to stand down from their corporate CEO, just to get their vengeance on the protagonist. That said, we still see them gain some small victories against the much more advanced aliens when forced to fight, and they're very dangerous on a tactical level against even the superpowered protagonist. At the start of the third act, the Marines disarm and arrest most of them. In the third game, they control the world's energy supply with technology looted from the aliens.
Cyber Nations uses this as the source of soldiers; they don't come from your population, which tends to be convenient at times.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc has one in the background called Fenrir. The mysterious 16th Student, Mukuro Ikusaba, was once a member of Fenrir before returning to Japan and being scouted by Hope's Peak as the Ultimate Soldier. Not much is known about them aside from being an elite unit and requiring their soldiers to get a distinctive tattoo, which Mukuro had on the back of her hand.
PMCs are ubiquitous in the year 2027 and play a significant role in the plot of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The one that plays the largest role in the game is Belltower Associates, a British PMC that has taken over as the police of Hengsha, a Chinese two-tiered city, and serves as security for Tai Yong Medical, who pretty much own the city as well. Both the leadership of Belltower and TYM are members of the Illuminati, too, and the Spec Ops troops are part of a covert Belltower unit. Amusingly, Belltower is also contracted out to the Australian government to fight in their civil war against separatists who are backed by China, which causes a lot of tension between Belltower's executives and the Chinese government. Incidentally, while Belltower comes across as an Expy of Blackwater, background material indicates that the company was founded as a result of Blackwater's breakup.
The comparison between Belltower and Blackwater becomes even stronger in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, when, hit by the one-two punch of both the Aug Incident and Jensen helping expose their illegal detention camp in the DLC, Belltower is forced to downsize and rename themselves "Tarvos Security Services" to escape its bad press, much like how Blackwater re-branded itself as XE Services and, later, Academi.
Dirty Bomb: All of the playable characters are mercenaries being hired either by the criminal syndicate Jackal, or the Central Disaster Authority. None of them have any allegiance, except to the side that offers them most.
Disco Elysium: Krenel's mercenaries are a squad hired by the Wild Pines group to protect their representative Joyce Messier while the negotiations with the Dockworker's Union are underway and to prove (military) support should the situation goes out of control.It's later revealed that The Hanged Man, the victim whose murder you are investigating, was their leading officer. With his death, the squad went rogue and now are laying low planning their revenge. Most of the Krenel men we encounter are horribly racist sociopathic soldiers fond of reminiscing of the war atrocities they committed in third world countries for cheap laughs.
The Last Man Battalion was a Private Military Company operating in New York City to keep order following the outbreak of Green Poison, but went rogue when their extreme methods of peacekeeping caused rifts between them and government forces, resulting in LMB turning a considerable chunk of east Midtown Manhattan into their own little fiefdom.
The same goes for the Black Tusk in its sequel, except they occupy the entirety of Washington D.C once all three main game factions have been subdued. Both the LMB and Black Tusk serve as the primary endgame enemies in their respective games.
Dragon Age: Inquisition has (potentially) two groups of mercenaries run by main characters: Bull's Chargers, run by the Iron Bull, and the Valo-Kas Mercenary Company, run by a Vashoth Inquisitor (who were hired for security for what turned out to be the game's inciting incident). Both groups are examples of 'good' mercenaries; they screen their clients, scrupulously operate within the law, and adhere to codes of conduct regarding fair treatment of prisoners and fellow mercenaries. The Chargers have taken jobs from nobles to wipe out rival nobles, but hey, that's nobility for you. A Vashoth Inquisitor and Iron Bull can occasionally talk shop about the mercenary life, and the Valo-Kas mercenaries can be hired to infiltrate or to fight demons in war table missions.
In DUST 514, an FPS tie-in to EVE Online, the player characters are immortal clone soldiers turned mercenary. EVE players were able to hire them to defend or seize planetary assets while the game was active.
The Fighters Guild, an organization of "warriors-for-hire" who operate throughout most of Tamriel. The Guild is chartered by Empire of Tamriel to provide training and employment to citizens of the martial persuasion. The Guild got its start during the reign of the AkaviriPotentate Versidue-Shaie, who dissolved and outlawed the private armies of nobles throughout the Empire. Given that the citizens of Tamriel still had a need for protective services beyond what the Imperial Legions could provide and that there was a need to prevent thousands of unemployed soldiers from straying into brigandry, Versidue-Shaie ordered the formation of the Syffim (the Tsaesci word for "soldier"), the group that would eventually become the Fighters Guild. Fighters Guild Halls can accept contracts from any citizen of the empire, as long as it does not violate any laws or customs. These most often involve dealing with dangerous wild animals, collecting bounties on criminals, protection and bodyguard services, and, at the highest levels, dealing with supernatural threats including vampires, necromancers, and Daedra worshipers.
Oblivion takes a rather unsubtle swipe at this trope with the Blackwoods Company, an Evil Counterpart to the Fighters Guild. They are a group of mercenaries who are undercutting the Fighters Guild by taking their contracts for cheaper and then cheating on them for profit. They are also much more ruthless in fulfilling their contracts, not above using hallucinogens to make the Guild massacre an innocent village.
The Companions in Skyrim are a regional variant that operates only within Skyrim. (Due to their presence, the Fighters Guild stays out of Skyrim.) The Companions trace their organization back to the original 500 Companions of Ysgramor, who slaughtered Skyrim's native Falmer (Snow Elves) and claimed Skyrim for the Atmorans (ancestors of the Nords). They fulfill many of the duties that the Fighters Guild performs in other territories.
EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: The SPICA mercenary company is a PMC tasked with studying and eradicating the Bem at the start of the game. Werner's command capabilities and resourceful contacts in high places make them an essential support in fighting off the Alien Invasion.
EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist: Has the Barracuda mercenary organization, led by Mr Barrack. Less scrupulous than SPICA, they consist of armed goons and are simple muscle for whoever pays them enough. Fighter Wolf is a more individual example, supported by his girlfriend and his monkey, dog, and bird helpers but otherwise operating solo. At the end of his route, he negotiates a comfortable gig as the bodyguard of Mars Corp's CEO.
Fallout 3 has the Talon Company Mercs, who pop up occasionally in the Capital Wasteland, usually fighting other factions such as super mutants or scavenging in pre-war tech buildings. If you play a good karma-aligned character and finish the "Power of the Atom" quest in favor of Megaton, Mr. Burke will send them after you as well.
Fallout 4 features the Gunners, a group of semi-professional mercenaries with good equipment, disciplined ranks, and exactly zero morals; stand in their way, and you will go down. If you have enough money to pay their price, they'll do anything, from raiding old pharmaceutical companies for experimental drugs to stealing eggs from a Deathclaw nest. One potential companion, MacCready, is a former Gunner who joined for the money but grew so disgusted with their kill-happy ways he leaves them to strike out on his own. They are not happy with his choice.
Evolve has numerous groups employed by the gigacorps such as Hightower and Orion Secure Solutions. The group seen in-game is Ebonstar Tactical Solutions, the hired guns of Nordita. Several of the maps (Armory, Barracks, King's Fort, Wraith Trap) are Ebonstar facilities and you can make use of some of their equipment in the Evacuation campaign.
In Far Cry 2, the main enemies of the game are members of two PMCs, augmenting the local forces of each faction. The APR hired American PMC MacGrudder-Powell, while the UFLL hired Bastion UK.
Far Cry 3: Hoyt Volker'sPrivateers. As his personal merc army, they maintain a "military occupation" style stranglehold on Rook Island's southern island for him, while safeguarding his human trafficking/drug manufacturing organization. They certainly look the part, and their equipment and tactics are a cut above that of both your native allies and the pirates you've been fighting for most of the game.
Far Cry 4's Royal Guard, the Elite Mooks in charge of northern Kyrat, are implicitly stated to be foreign mercenaries, mostly of Chinese origin.
Final Fantasy VIII: Most of the playable characters, including the hero Squall Leonhart, are part of the PMC organization called SeeD. It was originally founded for more noble purposes, but turned to hiring out its soldiers in order to bring in enough capital to keep operating, and soon lost track of its intended purpose.
In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud is ostensibly a mercenary for the first hour or so. We find out later in the story that this is meant to be taken almost literally.
Final Fantasy VII's SOLDIER is itself technically a PMC, as it is run by the Shinra Electric Power Company, a megacorp that has largely assumed government of Midgar.
Notable are the Greil Mercenaries in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, of which main character Ike is a member. They fall under the "mercenary company" heading, working for the side they think is right even when working for the other side would mean greater profits.
In a few games, entire countries hire out their military forces, because their land is unsuitable for farming and mercenary work keeps the country afloat. Starting with Thracia's Dragon Rider army, they're usually flying units, and even their royalty are mercenaries.
In Fire Emblem: Three Houses you and your fater Jeralt start the game as mercenaries, Jeralt himself being a household name among mercenaries and you hearing about his exploits constantly before he left the gang to raise you. Leonie, a student of the Golden Deers, idolizes him and intends on following his footsteps. Most of Leonie's endings involve starting her own group of mercenaries, and depending on who which house you align with and whom your spouse is you can also carry your father's torch, either indendantly or after forming your own group.
First Encounter Assault Recon: The Armacham Technology Corporation intends to market its Replica soldiers as a PMC. Armacham also keeps a small army of heavily-armed mercenaries as part of both their Security division and their Black Operations division; the former protects Armacham assets while the latter eliminates threats and cleans up evidence of their extensive misdeeds. Senator David Hoyle gets his own in F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate to help him do a little ATC shoplifting. They call themselves the Nightcrawlers. Apparently, they're a free-standing army.
Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online: Merryweather. It's essentially a Blackwater expy, and Trevor mentions that it's been cleared some time before the event of the game to operate on American soil and as it turns out, for the purpose of providing guard duty for a nuke. In a subversion, they're not immediately hostile to the protagonists, nor are they specifically hired against them until the final mission with option C "Deathwish". Trevor simply demolishes their operations on three separate and increasingly spectacular occasions, and afterward they switch to It's Personal, crashing an already-complicated Mexican Standoff / Blast Out involving Michael (and Trevor promptly joins after it begins), then go after the protagonists in the final heist (in part because Lester created a Batman Gambit, in hopes of luring Merryweather out to ensure they wouldn't interfere any longer, and in hopes of also being able to get their hands on one of Merryweather's main stockholders who'd been making their lives miserable for part of the game). Thanks to the events of the main story and Online, Merryweather eventually begins losing it's reputation with many people refusing to hire them as a result. By 2023 in Online, this ends up finally causing the American Government to remove their ability to operate on American soil legally, but they can still be found in the game as enemies afterwards.
H.A.W.X.: You play as a former Air Force pilot working for a PMC fighting an alliance of anti-American South American states known as Las Trinidad who defects back to the Air Force once the PMC betrays the U.S. because Las Trinidad made them a better offer. To be fair, the immediate flip-flopping of the PMC for the better offer is mentioned as being against the Reykjavik Accords that legitimized PMCs in the first place, and at the end of the game, in addition to repealing the Accords, the US carries out a private and probably illegal operation to assassinate the CEO of the PMC after an international manhunt fails to find him.
Haze: Mantel is described as a Private Military Company, though in the game itself it's acting on its own and hasn't been hired. It's a particularly ludicrous example of this trope since it's stated to have all but replaced all national armed forces. And Mantel is not just a PMC, but a super-corporation that has, apparently, taken over most of North America.
Horizon Zero Dawn: Most of the Oseram you meet in the game are Freebooters, mercenaries who fight for pay. Erend admits that makes them sound a lot less loyal than they really are. The only Freebooters you meet are those serving directly under the Sun-King Avad. He hired them to help overthrow his mad father, and they've been serving him proudly ever since.
Ikari Warriors: The titular warriors are this, though they're also portrayed in a more sympathetic light compared to the other examples on this page, particularly with their boss Heidern who lost his family and eye to crime lord and SNK Boss extraordinaire, Rugal.
Imperium Nova: Houses that operate in the Military sphere can hire out their military units as mercenaries, and they can specify which House can hire them if they don't want them used against them, or want to use a weaker House as a proxy. They don't take time to train and use the tech level of their founding House, but they cost anywhere from 10 to 250% more than training the units yourself.
inFAMOUS 2 features Vermaak 88, a South African PMC; by the time the game starts, news reports mention they're the largest and most lucrative private army in the world. Joseph Bertrand hires out an entire unit of Vermaak 88 mercenaries to come work in New Marais, but this is actually a front to use these men as guinea pigs for a lab experiment — he uses a power transfer machine on Lucy Kuo (a kidnapped Conduit) to grant Kuo's ice powers to the Vermaak soldiers. Bertrand then intends to sell the now completely insaneSuperpowered Mooks as weapons of war to various dictators and warlords around the world, ultimately hoping to inspire fear and hatred of Conduits on a global scale.
You hire mercenaries from the Association of International Mercenaries (A.I.M.) to complete your missions. A.I.M. seems to work as more of a mercenary union/guild rather than a PMC, as members are hired on an individual basis and bring just themselves plus their starting equipment if you chose to pay for it, leaving you to provide any other equipment, further training, and transportation within the area of operations.
Jagged Alliance 2 introduces the More Economic Recruiting Center (M.E.R.C.) as an alternate provider with its own membership. The locals who can be recruited for dirt-cheap salaries (with stats to match) and the rebels (who are seconded to your force without pay) are not mercenaries, however.
That A.I.M has very strict standards, they won't even think about hiring or lending mercs to people with criminal backgrounds or Child Soldiers. The events of the first two games in the series seemed to have lent them a strong degree of international legitimacy as well, so they don't seem to be willing to hire their mercenaries out to morally unscrupulous individuals. When the legendary ex-A.I.M. merc Mike shows up partway through Jagged Alliance 2, the other A.I.M. mercs respond to him by calling him a "traitor" for working with someone as out-and-out evil as Deidrianna.
In-game, many of the antagonists you end up fighting are also mercenaries. Lucas' red shirt-wearing goons in the first game are all mercenaries he's hired to wrest control of the fallow trees, and Deidrianna's troops in the third are an even mixture of fanatically loyal soldiers, conscripts, and mercenaries. As the game progresses, Deidrianna begins to rely more and more on professional mercenaries to make up for the fact that many of her people are rebelling and her poorly-trained and poorly-armed conscripts have been regularly slaughtered by your own mercs.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: The Warsworn are a faction of honorable mercenaries that make up a good chunk of the forces fighting against the Tuatha. The Warsworn were originally formed to hunt down the Niskaru, but they were forced to become hired swords to make ends meet.
Library of Ruina and other Project Moon works set in the same universe have Fixers, who are essentially mercenaries (although they can also work as bodyguards, detective and bankers), and a pretty common profession in the setting. Fixers need to have a licence, and can either join one of the twelve Associations, each with its own specialty; or they can form their own Office.
MAG focuses on an all-out war between three mega-PMCs (each of which have replaced government armies — they've been downgraded to little more than a glorified National Guard). In a decidedly odd subversion of the "not allowed to make war" deal, the PMCs are specifically fighting each other to prove that their group is more capable of defending the objective...from other PMCs (technically, the concern is terrorists, but the PMCs are the most frequent attackers). In other words, the PMCs are fighting and causing damage to the very things they're being hired to protect so that they can be hired to protect it.
Mass Effect depicts various mercenary groups, such as the Blue Suns, Eclipse, and Blood Pack. These groups make up a significant portion of the second game's enemies, as it takes place in a region of space outside of Citadel jurisdiction.
Wrex in the first game was a mercenary and bounty hunter for centuries before he teamed up with Shepard.
Zaeed Massani is a mercenary, the co-founder of the Blue Suns, and one of the toughest characters in your party.
Each of the three main companies has their own distinct style. Eclipse, for example, makes heavy use of asari Vanguards, salarian Engineers, and mechs. The Blue Suns use elite squads of heavily armed human, turian, and batarian soldiers. The Blood Pack use regenerating vorcha and krogan troops, and a hefty amount of flamethrowers.
It's worth noting that in addition to standard PMC jobs, the majority of the mercenary organizations in the setting also run large-scale criminal enterprises as well. As a result, a lot of the mercenary groups are also effectively heavily armed, militarized versions of The Mafia. In one neighborhood this is made explicit when a recording notes the Blue Suns regularly collected protection money. One notable subversion is the Talon mercenary unit from Mass Effect 3: Omega. They were originally a small-time outfit on the eponymous station that was just as terrible as all the rest (but not as numerous). Then Cerberus invaded and Nyreen Kandros seized on them as the core of La Résistance. By the time Shepard and Aria show up, the Talons are more selfless and disciplined than some of the setting's actual standing armies.
Mass Effect 3: Citadel also has the CAT6 mercenaries, named after the Alliance's "Category 6" discharges (dishonorable discharges due to either substance abuse or mental stress). They're frighteningly well-equipped with customized Cerberus equipment, and are even stronger than the already-formidable soldiers they ape (because there are millions of Cerberus mooks, and only a few hundred of them).
Various minor groups are present in the background. One group consisting of a couple dozen armed thugs, the Grim Skulls, are wiped out by Saren Arterius in the prequel novel Mass Effect: Revelation. Another, the Grim Angels, was one of the many groups that Zaeed Massani ran with... they all died. Small groups like this act as the antagonists of several side missions in Mass Effect and Mass Effect: Andromeda, usually being so irrelevant that they don't even get names.
Technically all of the multiplayer characters in Mass Effect 3 are paid by the job. In some cases, they're serving members of an allied government (humans, turians, asari, salarians, geth, quarians) and paying them just simplifies the supply lines a little. In others, such as the batarians, vorcha, and volus, they're more motivated by money than anything else.
Both MechWarrior 2 and 4 games have an Expansion Pack that casts the Player Character as the commanding officer of a small mercenary organization. The expansion packs add a layer of openness to the traditionally linear games, allowing the player to take sides in conflicts (such as the Steiner vs. Davion civil war in MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries) and betray (or be betrayed by) their clients. Both of the spinoff games, MechCommander and MechAssault, cast the player as a mercenary.
MechWarrior 4 additionally gives the player the choice of being sponsored by one of four canonical mercenary units, with each granting the player a different set of starting mechs and a different perk.
MechWarrior 5 continues the trend, casting the player character as commander of a shattered mercenary company, attempting to rebuild its strength while hunting for the unknown enemies who decimated the unit and murdered the player's father.
In the first game, the player is a member of the PMC Executive Operations (ExOps, see Real Life Examples for why this name was chosen). In the sequel, the player presumably still works for ExOps, though after the tutorial level and the refusal of the Corrupt Corporate Executive to sign the damn check, he goes into business for himself to bring him down, while Fiona and the rest of the support staff tag along for opportunities for fun, profit, and lulz.
Also, there's the massive oil super-conglomerate known as Universal Petroleum, which contracts out a "low-rent" PMC known as Tactical Solutions to do security work. Of course, in this case, "security work" includes deploying a battalion of tanks, a virtual air wing of helicopters, and over a thousand-foot infantry, complete with military-grade air support. The scary part is that some real-life PMCs (i.e. Blackwater and Executive Outcomes) could match what UP's mercenaries do in-game.
Mercenary organizations play a big role in some of the Metal Gear games:
The PMCs are used as a callback to the original Metal Gear, where Big Boss builds Outer Heaven as a refuge where disillusioned and disavowed soldiers can go, effectively becoming mercenaries or a sort-of proto-PMC. His goal of creating a world where soldiers are always needed is essentially fulfilled by the War Economy (which is probably one of the reasons why he renounces his original beliefs at the end, it's clearly not a good thing), and the parent company that owns the five major PMCs is actually named "Outer Heaven".
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: The first two outfits encountered have their members portrayed as mercenaries in that they're performing offensive operations, while those of the third are identically dressed and equipped like the first (since the second was in South America) but are performing security... and executing curfew violators in an effort to root out "resistance members". All three are operating for the governments of the countries where they're found, although in the South American location the rebels have hired a local PMC of their own, and the militia have local PMCs assisting in the Middle East. Of note is Werewolf, which seems to field only unmanned units for recon and security.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: The origins of Outer Heaven are explored, starting out as the Militaires Sans Frontieres. Unlike most examples, however, the Militaires Sans Frontieres were portrayed in a positive light. Another Private Military Contractor in the game is the Peace Sentinels, but they are portrayed as genuine bad guys. It's strongly implied that the Peace Sentinels are rogue CIA operators.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: In addition to Venom Snake's Diamond Dogs, a revival of Militaires Sans Frontieres, there are three other PMCs (called "Private Forces" or PFs in the game) operating in Angola, mostly made up of ex-SADF or former Rhodesian SAS. They are often seen working with UNITA rebels and the largest of them is a front for Cipher, with the other two implied to be as well.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: A similar theme seems to exist. Raiden is a member of Maverick Security Consulting, Inc., which similar to the Militaires Sans Frontieres, are overall portrayed in a more positive lightnote it's also mentioned that, thanks in part to the legacy of the War Economy, Maverick prefers to call themselves "private security providers". Likewise, Desperado Enforcement LLC, similar to the Peace Sentinels, are portrayed as genuine bad guys. Raiden later learns that many of the Desperado mooks are Punch Clock Villains; it's only their heads, the Winds of Destruction, who are outright villainous.
In Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation 2, players are part of the P.M.U., or Private Military Union, a private military organization that's part of the Universal Century era.
Pandora: First Contact: The Imperium — formerly Empire Management — is a PMC that has risen to MegaCorp levels thanks to its partnership with the Noxium Corporation, known as the Ceres Cartel. After Noxium develops interstellar colony ships, Admiral Heid, the leader of Imperium, dissolves the partnership and absconds with the first ship, intent on getting to the newly-discovered habitable world in order to keep Imperium involved in all of humanity's conflicts, wherever they may be. They are the Expy of the Spartan Federation from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: strong military with poor economy and science.
PAYDAY: The Heist: The Murkywater mercenaries, inspired by the real-life counterpart Blackwater, show up as enemies in one level. They're no more resilient than a SWAT unit, but they have better reaction time and accuracy. They become more prominent in PAYDAY 2, featuring as enemies in more heists, including "Shadow Raid" where they're shown (or at least mentioned by Bain) to have a hand in a lot of dirty business — up to and including funding terrorists with drug money, and "Meltdown", where they have access to, of all things, nuclear warheads.
Perfect Dark has an excessively large security division of the dataDyne hyper-corporation, which is contracted to an alien race (albeit somewhat unwillingly), as well as the protagonist's workplace, Carrington Institute. The sequel and extended universe add the contractable security sectors of another two hypercorps; Zentek and Core-Mantis Omniglobal.
The New Conglomerate from PlanetSide 2 is a collection of MegaCorps, libertarians, mercenaries, and pirates. The Terran Republic at one point had mercenaries until they were all executed for treason.
The main protagonists of Project Wingman are a mercenary company called Sicario. They’re noted to have their own Special Ops forces, armored divisions, transport craft, and even their own AWACS. The last of which is something that not even some countries are able to operate. The game begins with Sicario finishing their contract in one country before flying to Cascadia to assist in their war for independence from the Federation.
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando features the "Thugs-4-Less" organization. One of their slogans pretty much says it all: "You bring the cash, we'll bring the thrash."
In Red Faction, once the player character and his comrades have killed most of the Ultor security guards, Ultor brings in "mercenaries" for backup. It's mostly an excuse for the Mooks to get tougher, and to start dropping cooler guns when you kill them.
Among other things, the Umbrella Corporation's "Security" seems to have the military strength of a small country. Specifically, the UBCS (Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service) is explicitly staffed with mercenaries.
Following the bankruptcy of Umbrella after the Raccoon City Incident, the American branch refounded itself as one of these four years later in order to atone for Umbrella's crimes by ridding the world of the threat of B.O.W.s, even retaining Umbrella's name as a Mark of Shame. As they switched out the red in Umbrella's logo with blue, they are informally called "Blue Umbrella", with the Baker House Incident being their first field operation.
Romancing SaGa 2: Mercenaries are among the game's many character classes. Re;Universe describes them as more loyal to crown than coin, as such they're likely to leave if a new emperor ascends to the throne.
Saints Row (2022) has Marshall Defense Industries, a mercenary corporation with cutting-edge weaponry headquartered in Santo Ileso. The protagonist initially works for them, but once they get fired and create the 3rd Street Saints, Marshall becomes the third faction that the Saints regularly battle (in addition to Los Panteros and The Idols).
Samurai Warriors: Magoichi Saika's group (their Japanese name Saika-shu literally means "Saika group"). They're most prominently shown in the second game — in Magoichi's story, the "Saika Mercenaries" first fight alongside Oda Nobunaga at Anegawa at the behest of Magoichi's friend, then against Nobunaga at the next battle. Once he's on the other end of their guns, Nobunaga does not take this well.
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey: Jack's Squad falls neatly in the corporate mercenary mold. They are a platoon of guns-for-hire sent by an unknown third party to investigate the Schwarzwelt with an "eye for development" (read: "profit and wealth"). Worth noting that their cross-dimensional mobile base, the ''Lightning'', is far more powerful than the other ships of the U.N. Schwarzwelt Investigational Team, being able to create a Pocket Dimension where the squad's HQ is located. The game explicitly compares it to a fully customized and tuned-out vehicle whereas the other ships are cars straight from the assembly line. Pretty much all the members except for Captain Jack are incredibly rude and greedy trigger-happy psychos who readily admit to your face that they are looking for excuses to fill you with lead.
Sly 2: Band of Thieves: A small army of primate PMCs is hired by Constable Neyla in the second Prague episode. Said PMCs return for Honor Among Thieves, this time working for Carmelita Fox.
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: One of the villains, El Jefe, is the leader of a private army that specializes in taking over countries for the highest bidder.
Spider-Man (PS4) features the private security company Sable International, which seem to be a mixture of this trope and Law Enforcement, Inc.. Led by the mercenary commander Silver Sable, they are hired by Mayor Norman Osborn to work as a quasi-police force in New York City, patrolling the streets alongside the NYPD in the aftermath of a massacre committed by the Inner Demons. However, Sable soon starts behaving like an occupying paramilitary force imposing Mayor Osborn's increasingly authoritarian policies on NYC, such as by violently harassing civilians at checkpoints and cracking down on peaceful protests. Despite being well-equipped with a variety of high-tech gear and weaponry, Sable personnel constantly fail to stop the Demons and other various criminal groups from causing mayhem around the city.
Splinter Cell has a few: Armed Guardian Services (ARGUS), Shetland's Displace International, and Conviction adds the Black Arrow company. There's also a more heroic example in Paladin Nine Security, the PMC run by Sam's friend Victor Coste, who assists Sam throughout Conviction.
In the campaign in Wings of Liberty, you can hire mercenaries in the Hyperion from Graven Hill, who hangs out in the tavern drinking mai tais. Mercenary units are much tougher than their regular counterparts, can be purchased from the Merc Compound, and are created instantly, but have a limited pool per mission. Examples include everything from Hammer Securities, who are corporate professionals that provide their specially modified Marauder armor and troops to use them, to the Hel's Angels, pirate fighter pilots who do some mercenary work on the side, to the Jackson's Revenge, an old battlecruiser that some say is cursed. Some of these mercenaries used to be former Dominion and Confederate forces eking a living.
Raynor's Raiders, the player's forces, also do some mercenary work to fund their revolution against Mengsk. Mostly retrieving Xel'naga artifacts for the Moebius Foundation.
There's also a mission where you have to collect enough minerals to hire a merc before the enemy does.
In StarCrawlers, you play as a small team of individual mercenary contractors, colloquially known as "crawlers," and carry out missions for various Mega Corps. Many of the enemies you fight are also mercenary contractors working as security, soldiers, and assassins for the corporations. Several of the corporations you can work for or fight against, such as FoxKin, Dablue Yutakai, and Emer LT, specialize in private mercenary work and security.
Star Fox: The eponymous team is made up of mercenaries fighting for the Cornerian military. After the credits of Star Fox 64, the team is paid a check for how many enemies they've fragged multiplied by 64. The games also feature rival mercenary team Star Wolf, who is much less scrupulous in its dealings. Fox even turns down an offer to get his team officially inducted into the Cornerian military since they like doing things their own way.
Stellaris: Two different DLCs have their own versions:
Apocalypse: The Marauders normally raid settled empires at random, but they can be paid to raid a specific empire, and after the Midgame point, they'll hire out their fleets and leaders to player empires, allowing them to use them as their own for a limited time until the Great Khan appears, and any Marauder mercenaries abandon their contracts to join his campaign.
Overlord: Player empires can convert their fleets into mercenary enclaves based out of a space station in their territory that can hire out ships and ground forces to other empires, paying dividends to their patron in exchange for investing in upgrading their fleets.
MegaCorp: Militarist corporate empires can take the "Naval Contractors" or "Private Military Contractors" civics, but unless the player also has Overlord they're mostly for flavor, if both DLCs are installed the civics allow the empire to create more mercenary enclaves than others.
In Strike Commander, PMCs have become quite powerful, and operate their own armoured and airborne vehicles. They work for different nations to augment armies and carry out precision strikes. The player belongs to one such unit that specializes in F-16 fighter jets. The game takes you all around the world as your squad assists in other countries' wars. Stocking inventory for your squad means buying Sidewinder missiles and laser-guided bombs, among other things.
In Team Fortress 2, the world is secretly controlled by two holding companies. Each company has a branch dedicated to this trope, and both of them employ the nine playable classes to try to destroy the other company.
The "IMC" faction consists of the field operatives of Hammond Robotics, a MegaCorp out to squash the resistance on the "Frontier worlds" that they have a vested interest in. Their enemies are the Militias of the Frontier.
The 6-4 who are badass consummate professionals and have a reputation for taking contracts for less money by working for the underdog in a conflict, in this case, they are employed by The Militia.
The Apex Predators who are equally badass and substantially less nice, they work for the IMC and make up all of the bosses the protagonist fights throughout the single-player campaign.
Total War: Mercenaries can often be purchased to boost your armies. The upside is that mercenary units are typically much better than the levies you'll be using in the early game, join your forces instantly, and can include specialized units based on where you're recruiting from. The tradeoff is their high upkeep, limited availability, and of course the fact that your opponents can hire them too.
Trails Series has Jaeger Corps, who are effectively PMCs that vary between the classic mercenary companies or corporate mercenary folds and are typically dealt with as antagonists. They traditionally have an intense rivalry with the Bracer Guild due to the conflicting nature of their line of work (Bracers are independent warriors dedicated to helping and protecting civilians). While Liberl has banned jaegers from entering their country, the same can't be said for the other nations as both the Red Constellation and Zephyr, two of the largest jaeger corps, are running around at Crossbell and Erebonia respectively.
Throughout the Uncharted series, Nathan Drake and his friends frequently fight against entire private armies that have been hired by the main villains to help them search for lost cities and hidden treasures around the world.
In Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which takes place some time after A Thief's End, Shoreline troops return as late-game antagonists now led by Nadine's former lieutenant.
Vector Thrust: Several "corporates" exist — examples include APEX Solutions, a relatively small company focused mainly on logistics and aerial power, and Samson Strategic Services, one of the largest PMCs in the world offering a massive range of logistical, tactical and force application power to anybody capable of affording its services. Worth noting is that while some PMCs are depicted as the stereotypical Blood Knights itching to make a profit by any means possible, there are just as many companies concerned with their ethical and social imagery in the public eye and maintain a strict sense of justice and discipline in their employees.
In Warcraft III, Mercs can be hired from camps, and mercenary heroes, in the expansion, from taverns. Mercs can be quite useful in story missions, as when you aren't given the means to make more of your troops but are still picking up money, they can fill in gaps in your forces and in skirmishes as they can give you access to spells normally reserved for another faction.
WildStar: The Exile Free Companies are Granok mercenaries who were driven off their homeworld by their Elders for breaking "The Way of Stone" and using Dominion technology to fight off their invasion. Now they serve as the Exiles de facto standing army but will fight for anyone (except the Dominion) if the price is right.
X: While all the major corporations series operate their own warfleets, most fleets are purely for protecting their own supply chains. The only true PMC in the bunch is the Split Strong Arms.
. As his personal merc army, they maintain a "military occupation" style stranglehold on Rook Island's southern island for him, while safeguarding his human trafficking/drug manufacturing organization. They certainly look the part