In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Hazama has Makoto assigned to Ikaruga to keep her from interfering with his plan to mindrape Noel and Tsubaki. The fallout of this plot is still in the air, but unlike all his other gambits, pulling off his work with those two is all the good he's getting out of this one. The negative fallout starts from one simple fact — she's alive and reunited with Noel!More In Slight Hope, Makoto visits the Wheel of Fortune timeline and witnesses some of its events, including a battle with Hazama himself, before Rachel sends her back to the active timeline. The rest of the fallout is likely to be explored in the next game.
BlazBlue: Chronophantasma shows the results. Makoto was a mole for Sector Seven and this reassignment allowed her to pass tons of information to her employers that they wouldn't have otherwise had access to. This, and her shenanigans in Wheel of Fortune (keeping in mind Hazama remembers alternate timelines) means she's on a very short and prestigious list of people that Terumi will not risk toying with — if he can't had her over to Relius immediately, he'll just try to off her.
The backstory for Doom says that the main character was reassigned to Mars for assaulting his superior after the man ordered him to open fire on civilians. The manual makes it clear that Phobos is considered by space marines to be the dullest assignment imaginable, "With no action for fifty million miles, your day consisted of suckin' dust and watchin' restricted flicks in the rec room." Obviously, things didn't go so well.
In The Darkside Detective, the Darkside Division is the least respected and most poorly funded branch of Twin Lakes Police Department, with only two officers. The junior officer, Dooley, is mentioned to have been assigned to the DSD after his ditziness caused one disaster too many. (According to supporting materials, the senior officer volunteered to serve in the DSD, but only because he misunderstood what "DSD" stood for.)
Trebonius Artorius, the incompetent Archmage of the Mages Guild in Vvardenfell, is said to have gotten that title as a combination of this trope and Kicked Upstairs. He is indeed a powerful Battlemage, which helped him to rise in the ranks initially, but his mainland superiors got tired of his incompetence in managing Guild affairs, so they made him the Archmage in the most backwater district in the Empire to get him out of their hair. He now spends his time letting in badly disguised spies, giving his underlings (who view him as a Pointy-Haired Boss) Impossible Tasks, and just generally being petty and immature to those who offend him. If you want his title, you'll need to beat him in a duel to the death... maybe. There is a peaceful path to becoming Arch-Mage of Vvardenfell, but it is a bit ambiguous if it leaves you joint Guild Masters or just lets him keep the title of Arch-Mage as an honorary one. Need we remind you that he is indeed a powerful Battlemage, his flaws aside?
In the Bloodmoon expansion, most or all of the soldiers stationed at Fort Frostmoth are there because of punishment. It's a freezing island filled with werewolves, naked barbarians, tree-women, and undead warriors. One of the first quests in the Bloodmoon main quest reveals the Imperial Cult priest Antonius Nuncius has this attitude to his assignment, and has cooked up a scheme to inflame tensions in the fort in a bid to get reassigned. If you inform on this, Fort Frostmoth's commander remarks that if the schemer had simply asked he'd have been happy to recommend a reassignment, but now he's going to recommend that Antonius Nuncius' assignment to Frostmoth is extended indefinitely...
Several of the Mages' Guild Hall leaders are implied to have been assigned as such so that they aren't around the Arcane University. Of particular note is Jeanne Frasoric, the young leader of the Bruma Mages' Guild who is outright called incompetent by her colleagues, and is even noted by Traven himself to be very annoying. Made even funnier by the fact that Bruma is actually situated in the coldest region of Cyrodiil. Then it becomes kind of sobering when you realize that her incompetence contributed to her entire guild hall getting slaughtered.
In the Thieves Guild storyline, the Player CharacterInvokes this to get a zealous guard captain reassigned from the capital to the distant city of Anvil, where he can't interfere with the Guild. Downplayed despite said captain's fury at the assignment, since it puts him in charge of the local Countess' personal guard, a position selected by the Countess' estranged husband, who knew that the captain could be trusted to keep her safe.
Genshin Impact: The reason for Charlotte's presence in "Duel! The Summoners' Summit!" event. As the second act of the event reveals, one of Charlotte's previous articles contained a bit too much truth for the interested parties' liking, which led to her being sent away on an international reporting trip.
In Half-Life 2, Combine soldiers are threatened with "permanent offworld assignment" if they fail to stop Gordon Freeman. It is worth noting that at this point, they trap you in a cell block, and suicidally rush you only to get gunned down. It can be assumed that death was a preferable alternative.
The Hex: As punishment for helping Chandrelle and Dark Lord Vallamir destroy the Secrets of Legendaria game, Lazarus Bleeze is reassigned by Irving to become a Space Marine in the Vicious Galaxy series, which Lazarus has heard bad things about.
In the adventure game KGB (also known as Conspiracy), this can be your ending if you annoy your higher-ups in the KGB. And this is the most lenient Non-Standard Game Over, mind you.
Luminous Arc: It takes a bit of figuring out, but this is apparently what Kingston did to Heath when the latter started to get too suspicious, creating a program to raise war-orphans as child soldiers to get him out of the way for almost a decade. Naturally, he shot himself in the foot by doing this.
Marathon 2: Lh'owon, the abandoned homeworld of S'pht, has since become a Pfhor dumping ground for poor officers and brilliant but belligerent ones. This makes the initial invasion of it extremely easy for the player, until he causes so much damage that the Pfhor Empire sends their best fleet, Battle Group Seven, to deal with him.
It is implied in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker that Coldman, the CIA Director prior to the aftermath of Operation Snake Eater, being made the CIA Station Chief of Central America was a result of this trope, Exile, and Kicked Upstairs due to his involvement in creating the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: Skull Face was one of Cipher/The Patriots' best cleaners and assassins until he grew resentful of Big Boss hogging all the credit. He led an unsanctioned mission to strike at Big Boss, and Zero reassigned him to an ethnic cleansing bioweapons laboratory in Africa as punishment, which caused the ethnicity-conscious hitman to snap, starting the plot.
Happens to Cole Phelps in L.A. Noire after his affair with a German singer is brought to the attention of the public. Of course, being the protagonist, it turns into a Reassignment Backfire of epic proportions.
A Silph Co. Scientist mentions that he got transferred to the Tiksi Branch in Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, and the remakes, and implies that this is the reason why he was defecting to Team Rocket during their takeover.
During the Villain Protagonist campaign of Star Wars Battlefront II, this happens to the narrator when the prisoners on the Death Star escape and wreak havoc. This seriously pisses off Vader, who consequently then drags the 501st across the galaxy (to a variety of pretty dire planets) to hunt for the missing Death Star plans.This, however, eventually turns out to be their "salvation", when the Death Star is destroyed shortly after they leave.
In Radiant Historia Viola was reassigned to the Sand Fortress for being to popular. Unusually for the trope, the Sand Fortress is of genuine strategic importance and sending a decorated general there makes perfect sense. Sure her popularity didn't help, but she was also close to uncovering Hugo's El Cid Ploy. Her popularity meant he couldn't just make her disappear, so he used his command authority to kick her back to the front lines. Whether by enemy forces or stalling out her Incurable Cough of Death, the problem would take care of itself.
Christopher Blair gets demoted and Reassigned to Antarctica between the first and second games when nobody believes his claim that Kilrathi stealth fighters destroyed the Tiger's Claw. He's proven right by the end of the second game.
In a bad ending after failing at a specific mission, Blair can find himself reassigned there *again* and can only sit in despair as news comes in that the Concordia has been destroyed. The Concordia is destroyed anyway at the beginning of Wing Commander III, meaning that it's doomed either way, if that makes you feel better...
Suikoden III: It's made clear to Thomas that the Zexen Confederacy has sent him to oversee the struggling Budehuc Castle just to get him out of the way. In his case, the only thing he's really done to warrant this treatment is exist, given that he's the illegitimate son of a Zexen council member.
Although no one is threatened with reassignment there, Camp Golf is meant to be treated this way in Fallout: New Vegas, as Boone mentions that it's "The only resort in New Vegas that no one wants to get sent to."
Mass Effect: General Williams was the commanding officer who led the Marine Garrison on the colony of Shanxi during the First Contact war. Infamously, he was forced to surrender to the Turian invaders due to low supplies for both his troops and civilians, no immediate aid or reinforcements, and turian ships bombing the planet form orbit. Despite the justified reasoning for his decision, General Williams was turned into a scapegoat by the Alliance military and made into a pariah in Alliance society as "The only human ever to surrender to aliens". As a result, the entire Williams family was essentially blacklisted from the Alliance. While members of the family were still allowed to enlist, both Ashley and her father were unfairly maligned for being part of the Williams family. Both were given terrible postings, inconsequential assignments, and were constantly being passed over for promotion.
In the opening cutscene, the Normandy is scouting a remote space sector for signs of Geth activity — a task that, as Joker comments, was only given to them to keep Shepard's crew and their knowledge of the impending Reaper invasion away from the still-ignorant majority. The geth were never the source of the first game's conflict and Shepard's superiors know that — but they want to keep it under wraps.
A bit later, due to Shepard's newfound ties to Cerberus and because of their repeated claims about the Reapers, the Citadel Council agree to reinstate Shepard's Spectre status, under the provision that they limit their movements and jurisdiction only to the Terminus Systems. Luckily for Shepard, this is exactly where they need to be to stop the Collectors from attacking human colonies.
Mass Effect 3: Listening Post X-19 can be found near what was once the Rachni homeworld and is described as this due to the fact there has been no sentient life in the star cluster for over 2000 years.
Detective Adachi of Persona 4 was reassigned to Yasoinaba after an unspecified incident. By his account it was a minor slip-up, though considering his actions in-game one can assume that the actual reason was much more serious. His social link in the Updated Re-release reveals more: it was something minor, or rather, a lot of minor things. Apparently he's always had the motivation issues he demonstrates in Inaba, including slacking on his paperwork and not treating his superiors with due respect. It turns out acting like The Millstone to a busy metropolitan police force is a fantastic way to get reassigned to the boonies without anyone going to the trouble of firing you.
In Jade Empire, Minister Sheng gets "promoted" to govern Tien's Landing, a small, middle of nowhere, and unimportant town. Sheng claims this is because his superior wanted him out of the way so Sheng couldn't take their job, but it's just as likely to be because he's a whiny Wangst douche. If you like, you get him out of his slump to the Imperial City and a possible promotion or drop him in it with a powerful judge to advance your own plans.
In Skies of Arcadia, Alfonso gets removed from his patrol detail of the bustling Mid-Ocean trade routes and reassigned to a station in the economically-important but extremely isolated Ixa'taka. While Ixa'taka is home to a vibrant society with its own rich history and culture, the Valuan Empire sees it as little more than uncivilized savages living in trees, so it's definitely this trope.
This is heavily implied to be the reason for the titular Space Station 13's existence.
After failing three missions in a row in Wings, the player gets demoted to a lowly trooper in the trenches. Even considering the high casualty rate among fighter pilots, this sounds like a death sentence and definitely is one of few bad endings.
In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, it's very heavily implied that Prince LaCroix was sent to 're-take' Los Angeles for the Camarilla as a way of punishing him. Los Angeles has not been Camarilla territory, even nominally, for nearly a century, and is the centre of a low-intensity war between the Anarchs of the California Anarch Free State and the Sabbat who are pushing up through Mexico. LaCroix was also rather pointedly not given the troops or the financial backing to make any headway. As it is, he's stuck with a hollow title, subordinates who openly disrespect him, and a sphere of influence that all but stops on the doorstep of his office building.
In Rising Angels, Natalie starts the game having just returned from a long solitary posting to a listening post in a swamp. She didn't like it at all, and is very glad to be back doing "real" work on a refreshingly solid, metallic ship. She considers it an injustice that she got sent there when "inferior" classmates got better assignments (and often failed at them). It's not stated, but it's not impossible that she got sent there for just such an attitude.
Resident Evil 6: Helena was kicked out of the CIA and assigned to the Secret Service because she shot her sister's abusive boyfriend in the leg. If you think it's stupid that Helena was given the most elite and prestigious security detail in US law enforcement as punishment... you're onto something. Simmons assigned Helena as a weak link in the President's security detail so that he could kidnap her sister and blackmail her into helping assassinate the President.
Rebel Assault II has a cutscene in which an Imperial officer threatens an inattentive stormtrooper with transfer to "a refuse barge, where you'll stay for the next 20 years," for any further lapses in concentration. Amusingly, neither notices until far too late that Rebel agents are stealing one of the top secret Imperial fighters they're guarding.
Total War: Warhammer II has several Legendary Lords start their campaigns far from their nominal holdings. While the Doylist reason is to give them all growing room, Creative Assembly often uses this trope to justify it:
Morathi starts the game to the south of the Druchii holdings, far from her jealously-controlled fortress of Ghrond. Her opening narration states that she let Malekith banish her there after a spat since she wanted to establish a foothold anyway.
Malus Darkblade starts both campaigns in Lustria, pretty much exactly at the opposite corner of the map from the one territory he holds, which is in Dark Elf territory where it belongs. He actually gets the choice of staying in Lustria to fight a nomad campaign from his Black Arc funded by selling off his native holdings, or disbanding the expedition for a traditional Dark Elf campaign by bribing his superiors to let him return back to said Dark Elf territory.
Nakai the Wanderer starts Mortal Empires far to the north, in Norscan territory, generally a place Lizardmen have no business being. The explanation is the Slann teleported him where he was needed mostMore realistically The more traditional Lizardman lands (such as Lustria) were already densely-populated and more map space wouldn't be added until a later patch. Nakai's mechanics also ignore habitability and encourage him to spread his faction's settlements wide, making him the only Lizardman Lord who could have a playable campaign anywhere else..
Repanse de Lyonesse starts her campaigns in the middle of an errantry war in the Khemrian desert, half a map away from Brettonia proper, with the province of Lyonesse under the control of a vassal. Of course this is the point of an errantry war, but the breathtakingly elitist Brettonian nobility have been known to uses excuses like this to get rid of peasants who "rise above their station" to become a knight — such as Repanse. Repanse herself has dialogue indicating she'd rather be literally anywhere else, showing that she's totally aware of this.
Tales of Berseria: It's not like Titania offered much opportunity for career advancement to begin with, but after failing to stop Velvet escaping at the start of the game, Oscar Dragonia isn't heard from for over half the game — talking to certain Non Player Characters reveals he'd been disciplined by being assigned milk runs in the boonies. When you do see him again, he's being handed a dead-quiet governor position on Yseult, a far-flung island chain (allegedly) better known as a honeymoon destination than for strategic importance. When the player party screw that up for him, he gets reassigned to a barely-inhabited marshy shithole in the middle of nowhere, armed with a prototype device that he's more or less told will kill him when activated.
Incidentally, his post at Yseult was originally held by his half-sister Teresa Linares, who was also sent there as a punishment following her fight with Velvet's crew at her original post, Hellawes.
In Hitman, the target in the mission "The Chameleon" is a Master of Disguise currently impersonating a general to gain access to an air force base. At one point he can be heard threatening a guard that if he doesn't become more co-operative he'll find himself shoveling penguin guano at McMurdo.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Between the captain of the local guard not knowing what color an emerald is (though otherwise he's at least competent at daily duties and takes his job of hunting down criminals seriously), and the corrupt consul hardly being the brightest bulb, it's pretty clear that Mor Ardain has been using Gormott as a dumping ground for people they don't want at home. Though over the course of the game this changes, due to Mor Ardain itself slowly becoming uninhabitable, which is why they took over Gormott in the first place. At least one NPC got himself reassigned on purpose, reasoning that doing so was probably safer and easier than being posted in an actual war zone.
Sunless Skies: If you join up with the Ministries and make too many cockups, you'll get reassigned to the head of the Department of Well Exploration. Sounds bad enough, but in this universe Wells are Unrealistic Black Holes that imprison nightmarish things even the stars could not get rid of and that, to be quite honest, only you are bold and insane enough to even approach, let alone dive in, in the first place. They get you very, very far out of the way on that one.
Mega Man X: This was Chill Penguin's reason for joining up with Sigma's original revolt; he was sick and tired of his dead-end assignment "piddling around on the South Pole with nothing to do" and wanted something more exciting, making this a literal example. Of course, it's unclear if his assignment was due to poor behavior beforehand or just stereotyping (he is, after all, a penguin Reploid with ice powers, which all but screams "Antarctica assignment" since he was practically made for the post).
Clancy from Deep Fear got demoted to the Big Table for "one little mistake": firing a missile from a submarine and sinking a passenger ship in disputed waters before a war. Naturally, he thinks he shouldn’t have been assigned there, and it (among other factors) leads directly to his Villainous Breakdown near the end of the game.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: Aurelia Le Guin and Randy Orlando received "offers" to join Thors Military Academy's branch campus as staff, so that the government could continue to make use of their skills while also keeping an eye on them and separating them from their closest comrades. Le Guin describes the branch campus as a whole as a "trash bin" where the government can place people with "problematic" backgrounds, as even most of the students there were prevented from attending the main campus, where the crown prince would be attending.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous gives us Daeran, an amoral hedonist and a Count related to the Queen who accompanies you as you try to save your city from a demonic invasion for sport. He has life-saving healing powers, but only accompanies you on a lark. His own staff and guests are killed by demons in front of him, and he's not moved by anger or sadness or compassion for them; he just decides fighting demons would be fun for a bit. After that, he has no plans other than feast, have sex with anyone, and run off to the next revel as soon as he's bored with the adventure. He's present when mysterious forces imbue you with extreme powers and gets similar gifts, but sets off to squander them with three elven prostitutes while the rest of the country fights an existential war against a literal demonic invasion. Rather than let his new, awesome, life-saving powers go to waste, Lady of War and Four-Star Badass Queen Galfrey drops this on him, and the laws and mores of his kingdom do not let him say no:
Queen Galfrey: "No matter. I trust you will forgive your sovereign for the rather brusque summons. Especially when you learn what prompted it." The queen makes a stately gesture in your direction. "As you are aware, (Player Character) has recently been appointed my Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade. I spent a long while pondering who to appoint to the highly sensitive post of Commander's Field Attaché and Advisor Plenipotentiary Without Portfolio. Congratulations, Count."
Yakuza: Like a Dragon: The first party member Ichiban gains is Koichi Adachi, a former detective who's currently a pencil pusher at the DMV. He explains later that he was attempting to draw light to a wrongful conviction on his last case, but his former boss Horinouchi covered up the evidence and busted Adachi down to the DMV because exposing the information would have threatened Horinouchi's promotion to Tokyo PD Commissioner.
Branch in Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, and the remakes, and implies that this is the reason why he was defecting to Team Rocket during their takeover.