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  • Ladies and gentlemen, we have a powerful, unpredictable magic known as Chaos in AdventureQuest Worlds. Chaos is a virus-like magical energy that can chaorrupt (short for chaos corrupt) objects and beings, and can also control their minds, making them Brainwashed and Crazy. This viral magic is controlled by the Big Bad, Drakath, and his Co-Dragons, the 13 Lords of Chaos.
    • Ledgermayne, the seventh Lord of Chaos, is chaos magic personified. To be fair, it was just a mass of mana floating in the Para-Elemental Plane of Magic when Drakath's chaotic influence gave it self-awareness. So much that Ledgermayne was uncontrollable, even by its own Truly Single Parent.
    • There's also the Chaos Shaper class, which players can buy after having had 15 months of membership in total. It lets them use the power of Chaos to land unpredictable effects on either themselves or their targets.
    • Within the wider Artix Entertainment Multiverse, there is the Shadowscythe: a vast and loosely organized group of pure Darkness elementals who see the other seven elements, particularly Light, as a taint or pollution, and so want to restore the perfect darkness that came before by "cleansing" the various iterations of Lore. One part of this agenda includes binding themselves to weapons or machinery and making Faustian bargains with sentient beings in order to enslave or manipulate them into acting as their agents.
  • In Ancient Domains of Mystery, the Big Bad are the forces of Chaos, very similar to Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, including the corruption. There are several sources of corruption, including background chaos radiation which grows stronger as you approach the source (The Chaos Gate). Corrupted monsters may turn into writhing masses of primal chaos. A corrupted player will gain additional powers and be a writhing mass of Body Horror. Corruption-removal methods are the most sought-after thing in the whole game, because getting the full set of corruptions means you're close to an unavoidable Non-Standard Game Over. And because some of the corruption side effects are really, really bad for your character. For instance, you can be drastically slowed down, instantly drain every magic wand you touch, poison everything you handle (including your own food and potions), and worst of all is the "unholy aura" one; everyone you meet, including powerful NPCs, will become hostile at the mere sight of you. However, some corruptions grant you useful powers, and for several of the special endings, you need to be corrupted almost to the point of dissolution.
  • In the Microsoft Excel-based Arena.Xlsm, this role is fulfilled by the literal Evil. After The Emperor dies and his death frees The Ultimate Evil, most of the enemies from there and to the end are the much stronger "Evil" versions of the earlier enemies.
  • Rot in Armello, a disease usually contracted by being defeated by Banes. It causes the character to slowly go mad, and sometimes gain bonus dice against less corrupted characters. Notably, the king has a bad case of the Rot that increases each round and lowers his health until he dies, and the resulting madness is why the players are all trying to kill him.
  • Ashes 2063: Some areas of the old world contain a phenomenon described by New Guard messages as "background despair". It's intimately tied to paranormal occurrences and Haunts, and is only observed in untouched locations with corpses present, in circumstances where it's implied they died alone and in despair, such as a sitting body with a revolver beside it. Concentrations bad enough make the locations inhospitable and can even make people disappear with no explanation.
  • The Gohma in Asura's Wrath are stated as being corrupt impure beings that take the form of rocky and lava-like animals. The strongest of them all are planet sized and can easily destroy planets casually, and nearly destroyed mankind. It took the combined power of Asura and the other deities to defeat them the first time around, but are hinted at making a comeback. It does, and the only way it is stopped is by Asura once again, who crushes the very essence of its core.
  • The world in The Banner Saga is being consumed by this. In The Banner Saga 3, half of the narrative is spent controlling a group going through the afflicted lands, where they have to fight Warped versions of the normal enemies.
  • BlazBlue:
    • Seithr, a toxic substance spread over the world by the Black Beast when it attacked the world 100 years ago, renders most of the surface inimical to most life. Humans were forced to live in cities built at high altitudes to avoid succumbing to seithr poisoning. It's the Corruption since seithr is also the source of the setting's magic. The Ars Magus and Nox Nyctores used by most of the characters absorb seithr from their surroundings in order to use their abilities. The Kaka clan, including Taokaka, are able to tap into the seithr naturally with no apparent ill effects.
    • And then there's the Azure Grimoire, the most prominent Artifact of Doom in the series. Like the Nox, it also runs on seithr to function, unlike them however, it is a remnant of the aforementioned Black Beast and using it will slowly corrode the user's soul into another beast, and injuries through supernatural means are retained across timelines.
  • In BloodNet, your hero is a vampire who has an instant-kill bite attack, but each use of it decreases his humanity a little and brings him closer to the Nonstandard Game Over (in addition to the normal decrease of his humanity with time).
  • Before the beginning of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Nupraptor inflicted an insidious mental and spiritual "disease" on the entire Circle of Nine. This corruption tainted the Pillars of Nosgoth, and to restore them, the Circle had to be purged.
  • Django gaining the ability to turn into a vampire in Boktai 2, at least storywise, has him completely lose control of himself and operate on instinct whenever he uses it, and has him at constant risk of losing himself to it permanently. Using the ability too many times will land you with a worse ending.
  • The Breach has the Yellow, claimed to be another dimension of sorts, although the exact details aren't clear. What is clear is that all people that are afflicted with it firstly die and become traditional zombies, then mutate further into all manner of creatures.
  • Ryu's "Dragon Mode" in Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. The corruption accumulates slowly over the course of the game. If it reaches 100%, your game ends. Which you'll have to do for the final battle, anyway, ironically.
  • Clive Barker's Undying: The undying curse. Not to mention just being near the Scythe of the Celt can cause someone to descend into bloodlust and madness.
  • In Corpse Party, we have have the "darkening," in which the souls of anyone who completely loses hope of surviving in Heavenly Host Elementary are corrupted. Anyone afflicted with it essentially becomes an empty husk, rendering them beyond saving.
  • In Dark Earth, your character Arkhan is poisoned by a face full of liquid evil while on his very first day on his new job as a Guardian of the Flame, and starts to mutate into a creature of the Dark. You must help him find a cure before the transformation is complete. While one side-effect of the mutation is a Level of Badass, the more you use it, the more the mutation takes hold. When the mutation reaches 100%, you get a Non-standard Game Over.
  • The Technocyte virus in darkSector. The only reason that the protagonist has not gone insane is that because of a pre-existing condition, he cannot feel the pain that drives all other infected mad.
  • Darksiders II features Corruption, a force that can infect not only the living, but even the automatons of the Makers. The Corruption is ultimately destroyed throughout the universe when Death kills Absalom, the source of all Corruption and formerly the leader of the Nephilim that Death and the other Horsemen betrayed long ago to stop their universal genocide, resurrected by his undying hatred for all Creation and especially his brother Death.
  • Dark Souls has the Abyss. Most people who enter it simply die, but those who survive are driven violently insane and beyond reason, and often come out barely looking human anymore. Which is ironic, considering the Abyss was spawned from concentrated Humanity. Whether this is an inevitable consequence of Human power growing too great or if this is simply what happens when you can't control it properly is left ambiguous. The final DLC of the Dark Souls III, "The Ringed City", reveals the truth. The Abyss was originally a source of power that Humanity could tap into via the Dark Soul with no ill effects. The Pygmy Lords who led Humanity were masters of the Dark Soul who aided the gods of Anor Londo in their war against the Everlasting Dragons. But the paranoid Gwyn feared the Dark Soul so much he trapped the Pygmies in the eponymous Ringed City and placed a seal of fire on Humanity to prevent them from tapping into the Abyss. This seal weakened over time and became the Dark Sign. Bereft of the Pygmies' knowledge and hampered by the Dark Sign, Humanity could no longer tap into the Abyss properly, leading many to be deprived of their Humanity (becoming Hollow) and others to become mutated monstrosities as the Abyss flooded and consumed them. This had detrimental effects not just on Humanity but on the rest of the world as well since the Dark Sign was empowered by the First Flame that provided light and life to the world. This caused the First Flame to flicker and eventually permanently go out.
  • Death end re;Quest's corruption builds up as you collect bugs (or curses, as they are called in the second game)and taking damage, and is signified by a percentage. Reaching 80% will cause the character to enter glitch mode, but reaching 100% will kill them and riddle them with debuffs if revived, so it becomes a rather delicate balancing act. Enemies also have corruption percentages, but higher levels just flatly make them more dangerous with no drawbacks to them.
  • Dragon Age has the Taint, a disease/curse spread by Darkspawn blood. There's also the Blight, a physical manifestation of the taint upon the land, which spreads whenever they come up to the surface. It twists and corrupts all living organisms, mutating creatures into abominations such as blight wolves and ghouls (assuming the creatures manage to survive the initial phase of the infection in the first place). With each passing day, a blight grows, the earth itself withers and dies; the land is leeched of moisture, turning everything dry and brown. The sky fills with rolling, black clouds that block out the sun, making it easier for the darkspawn to surface. As this wasteland spreads, the corruption of the blight spreads with it, diseasing all in its path. And by "all" we mean "all"; as in, the corpses won't rot properly because even the bacteria responsible for decomposition are killed off. What makes it the Corruption is that Grey Wardens give in to it by drinking Darkspawn blood. This lets them sense Darkspawn, kill Archdemons permanently and avoid Ghoul-dom, at the cost of killing them a few decades later.
    • The Brood Mothers take this a step further: Human, elf, dwarf and qunari women are captured by the Darkspawn and force-fed Darkspawn blood. In order to survive they have to give in to the urge to eat the others which drives them mad and turns them into Brood Mothers
    • In the Warden's Keep DLC of Dragon Age: Origins, an old human mage does the most ingenious thing: he weaponizes the taint, creating an elixir which can give the player tainted blood-based powers. It's not pretty, ethical (or sane for that matter), but they are incredibly useful.
    • It got worse in the Dragon Age II DLC "Legacy" with The Reveal that Wardens don't die, but simply turn into ghouls when they hear the Calling. There is no avoiding ghoul-dom once the Taint enters a person's body and the Warden's unique version of the Taint simply delays the effects from becoming apparent by a few decades, hence why the Senior Wardens prefer to go out in a blaze of glory against the Horde before this happens. Larius, a former Commander of the Grey, was unlucky enough to survive long enough to turn and is now basically ignored by the Darkspawn.
    • There's also Red Lyrium, a variant of Lyrium that can infect people and turn them into horrific monstrosities, with similar effects on their sanity. It is revealed in Dragon Age: Inquisition that Red Lyrium is actually Lyrium that has been infected by the Blight. The person who discovers this points out that the Blight can only infect organic materials, so the very existence of Red Lyrium proves that Lyrium as a whole is alive.
    • The Wardens use of the Taint backfires horribly in Inquisition when an unbelievably ancient and powerful Darkspawn binds most of them to his will through it.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • The Corprus Disease in Morrowind, developed using the divine power of the still-beating heart of a dead god by deranged Physical God Big Bad Dagoth Ur, kills plants, turns animals homicidal before slowly killing them, and mutates people into horrible, cancerous monstrosities. He can communicate with those it has infected via subliminal messages in their dreams, turning them into his Mooks. It also comes with some positive qualities, such as no longer aging and being immune to all other diseases, but those infected are typically too deranged and mutated to enjoy them. Naturally, the Player Character is infected during the main quest, but takes an experimental "cure" for the disease. It is explained by the cure-giver that the PC still has the disease, but the negative effects have been cured, leaving only the positive effects.
    • Online:
      • Lurchers are Spriggans (tree-like Plant People with a Gaia's Vengeance tilt) who have been corrupted by "dark magics." The Spriggan's tortured spirit remains trapped inside the corrupted creature until it is slain.
      • Daedric Titans are corrupted dragons created by Molag Bal, the Daedric Prince of Domination and Corruption. Titans possess similar anatomical features and abilities as dragons, but were created in mockery of true dragons (who are Aedric in nature) and serve the Daedric Princes.
      • Grievous Twilights are Winged Twilights which have been corrupted by Molag Bal. They are much more bestial looking and use Teleport Spam when attacking.
  • The genetic code of the monsters in Evolve serves as this. Kala injected herself with a small amount, only for it to mutate her arm and face, while influencing her mind. Even with an artificial immune system booster the monster portions are spreading, with Caira giving her 14 days before she is overwhelmed. In the meantime she is susceptible to the monsters mental influence, causing her to scream out their thoughts when downed and mutter in her sleep.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has the Shadowbringers expansion, which shows a world corrupted by purest Light. It also has some of the purest Body Horror moments in the entire game, even in a game where one of the earlier dungeons involved a boss which was the severed, mutated head of a madwoman's dead fiance.
  • Imulsion in Gears of War infects anything organic that it touches, and gradually mutates it into a "lambent" form.
  • In the first few .hack R1 Games, the ones where Kite was the protagonist, Kite has an ability called Data Drain (which causes the enemy to be weakened to a point where they are pretty easily killable) but using it causes Kite to risk infection from a computer virus, the very same virus that created Data Drain no less. If the infection reaches 100% then it's game over (the Data Drain is necessary to kill certain bosses in the main quest, but no infection is received from those bosses. It's also required to get "cores" which unlock story levels). In fact, as the % goes up, there's always a slight (increasing) chance of getting a game over. Not using it reduces the number.
  • In Iconoclasts, clumps of strange blue eyes appear soon after leaving The Tower. They are harmless...until they sense a sufficiently weakened target, and latch on to it to control it. The first such encounter is with Possessed Thunk, where a clump of these had colonized One Concern's Kerthunk mech, and controlled the Silver Watchman, with an eye going over his face, and strings connecting it with the rest of the colony.
    • Afterwards, they latch onto Agent Black at the end of her fight with Robin and Royal, she was being torn apart by the Isi seeds blooming inside her. Their effects allowed her to be "reborn" as an enormous screaming creature with the body made of Ivory trees, forcing Robin to kill her again... and again, as the "core" of that Ivory Beast separates and desperately tries to scale the rocket for one last time.
    • Lastly, these blue eyes have taken over all the creatures in the Star Worm's Impact Zone, turning them invulnerable to damage until Robin can get them off. Their origin is never explained outright, but it seems that they are something produced by the bird species Star Worm's pilot belonged to, whether naturally or technologically. They were the means through which both the Omega Controller and the Star Worm itself were commanded, and when the eye was destroyed, the Star Worm ultimately killed the pilot on its own, rather than that being a simple failure of the controls.
  • Dark Eco in the world of Jak and Daxter.
    • Jak fights against his own corruption in Jak II: Renegade after being pumped full of it by the Baron.
      Oracle: I sense there is a dark rage burning within you, and in time, it will destroy you with its madness. Only the last power of the Precursors can save you.
    • The Dark Makers in Jak 3 were once Precursors, but they were twisted by their exposure to it.
  • In the Kingdom Hearts series, the power of darkness is a dangerous, corrupting influence on anyone who channels it. It draws out the worst in a person, like rage or envy, and drives them to more selfish actions. Drawing too much on darkness or being carless with its power can also overwhelm a person and turn them into The Heartless.
    • In Kingdom Hearts II, utilizing your Drive Form repeatedly may result in Sora turning into his Anti-Form that resembles a feral Heartless. Although the form can fight with near limitless combos with darkness based attacks means it can never be used to defeat a boss and the inability to control its appearance, lack of healing and fragility make it, for the most part, a penalty.
    • Kingdom Hearts III shows this corruption in full force when Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, uses a darkness attack against Aqua when she tries to protect Ansem the Wise from being kidnapped by him. Due to Aqua being without her Keyblade or any sort of protection from the Realm of Darkness' effects, Ansem's attack is able to finally corrupt her heart, so when Riku and King Mickey find her later, her corruption has taken full effect, with her blue eyes and hair now having taken on appearances similar to Xehanort, her clothes becoming tattered and shredded, and her voice dripping with hatred and malice. Sora has to literally Beat the Curse Out of Him to purge Aqua of her corruption and return her to normal.
  • This is what the Jamba Heart does to its victims in Kirby Star Allies. When it possesses them, it exaggerates their worst traits that they try to hold back. As such, it brings out King Dedede's old greedy ways to steal all of Dream Land's food again, unleash Meta Knight's secret vain streak, and increase Whispy Woods' supposed resentment he holds against Kirby for his many defeats. These are what led to the creation of each of their respective Parallel counterparts fought in "Heroes in Another Dimension".
  • In the Knights of the Old Republic series, Dark Side Corruption is more overtly and supernaturally corrupting than in the films, making people who draw on it too heavily appear pale and gaunt with black veins running across their skin. In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, your Evil Mentor Kreia/Darth Traya is only around 50 but looks to be in her 70s because of it and she's a mild case. Darth Sion, on the other hand, is essentially a walking corpse.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has "Malice", Ganon's malevolence, which takes the form of a a black-and-purple slime-like substance that is left behind by Calamity Ganon's influence. The Divine Beasts built to fight him have Malice inside, causing them to turn on Hyrule, along with the Guardians, the automated Magitek soldiers created by the Sheikah to aid in Hyrule's defense. The grounds around Hyrule Castle, where Ganon is contained, are infested with Malice as well. The ancient dragon Naydra is first found covered in Malice, which Link needs to destroy to free it.
    • The direct sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, introduces an even worse offshoot of Malice known as "Gloom". A direct blast of Gloom from Ganondorf is enough to cut Link's 30 hearts and 15 stamina vessels to 3 hearts and 5 stamina vessels. Anything afflicted with Gloom causes Maximum HP Reduction should it touch Link, making it worse than Malice, which only causes damage. Its influence is also able to corrode nearly every weapon in the land, thereby making Link's new ability to fuse weapons and objects together necessary to stand a chance against Ganondorf and his army.
  • The Taint of Lusternia is the effluence of an Eldritch Abomination. Those subjected to it lose their moral compunctions and become stronger, more intelligent, taller, and more demonic-looking; prolonged exposure exaggerates these characteristics further and can result in lichdom; and overdosing results in serious Body Horror. Gorgulu - the former ruler of Shallamar - is a good example of the latter.
  • Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom had The Darkness, which turns people into living tar monsters that can't be killed permanently. It also appears to warp their personalities in such a way that they serve the darkness without losing a twisted form of their own personality. Tepeu grows a tar coating from his feet up as he takes damage, though the majin can cleanse him any time they're not in combat.
  • Mari and the Black Tower: Some monsters in the tower, including mechanical ones, are infected by miasma, which causes them to inflict the miasma ailment with their normal attacks. Worse yet, those who die to miasma are turned into slaves for Morgoth.
  • Mary Skelter has something literally called "corruption". It builds up within Blood Maidens as they continuously become covered in Marchen blood and undergo mental or emotional stress, and it can be easily recognized after a certain point, as the glowing pink eyes that usually manifest from contact with Marchen blood remain even without such contact. If the corruption is allowed to go too far, the Blood Maiden will go into Blood Skelter, completely losing her mind and attacking every living creature in her vicinity. Thankfully, the fresh blood of a Blood Youth like Jack is able to purge corruption from a Blood Maiden, up to and including shutting down Blood Skelter, but it's safe to say that Blood Youths are rather rare.
  • Negative share energy is a major plot point of Megadimension Neptunia VII. It converts good feelings into pure hatred, driving them insane with hate. Kurome is corrupted by it to the point that it's her main power source rather than share energy, and she manipulates things behind the scenes in the Hyperdimension G arc by using it to drive other insane, including the Gold Third, Affimojas and Warechu. Later, in the Heartdimension H arc, Kurome kidnaps the CPUs and Mind Rapes them using negative energy to power the Dark CPUs and turn them against the rest of the heroes.
  • Using Dark Chips in Mega Man Battle Network 4 and Mega Man Battle Network 5 will permanently reduce Megaman's maximum HP by 1 for each use. Eventually after prolonged usage of Dark Chips, it results in irreversible corruption but can allow the player to use Dark Navi Chips.
    • The sequel series has "Noise". Noise, unlike other examples of this trope, isn't actively evil or even intelligent, just so chaotic that it seriously screws up any other EM waves (as well as biological systems) in high concentrations.
    • Mega Man ZX, courtesy of another scientifically-based (of sorts, just like the other examples above) Artifact of Doom, the original Biometal Model W. Model O seems to be this as well.
    • Mega Man Battle Network 6, where you can use your Beast Form (wolf or hawk depending on game) for three turns before it ends and you go into a weakened state. The trope comes into affect both in battle, where you lose control of Megaman if you enter Beast Mode again, and in the story, where Megaman several times nearly loses control to the beast.
    • Does Megaman X series ring a bell? Zero is practically a walking virus magnet.
  • The Metroid Prime Trilogy features this as a very prominent theme, concerning a highly toxic blue substance known as Phazon capable of corrupting everything, from small animals to entire planets. Throughout the games, Phazon takes over animals, Metroids, highly advanced alien races, ghosts, machines, and entire planets, and takes sentient forms. The Chozo even refer to it as The Corruption.
    • Metroid Prime is set in the once paradisial planet Tallon IV, which was hit by a Phazon bearing meteorite known as a Leviathan around twenty years prior to the game. The resident naturalist Chozo tribe had to leave when the planet began falling apart due to Phazon corruption. The primary Metroid antagonists, the Space Pirates, discover the mutagenic properties of Phazon and begin experimenting with it to improve their forces. Throughout the story, the player comes across several creatures infected by Phazon, most notably Elite Pirates, Fission Metroids, and Metroid Prime itself.
    • In Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Samus visits a second Leviathan-struck planet. Planet Aether became unstable due to the interaction between its own physical properties and those of Phazon, resulting in a permanent state of trans-dimensional flux that connected it with another version of itself, dubbed Dark Aether. Dark Aether is a barren wasteland full of Phazon, albeit not inhospitable, being inhabited by the Ing, which also have parasitic and corrupting abilities. The Ing attacked the Luminoth, native to Light Aether, as well as Space Pirates who arrive to harvest the Phazon, and the entire planet broke into a war of three opposing sides for survival. Several Aether creatures and those brought from Tallon IV by the pirates become victims of both Phazon and Ing corruption as well. Only one Ing (the Final Boss) is willing to touch Phazon without a middleman. That should have warned people.
    • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption opens with attacks on three planets by Leviathans. Bryyo and Elysia are impacted by the meteorites, while Norion is saved in the last moment by Samus and the other hunters. In the process, all four hunters become infected with Phazon, and their bodies develop a tumor-like Phazon-producing gland that slowly corrupts them. The Galactic Federation decides to take advantage of the hunters' corruption by adapting their body suits with a "Phazon Enhancement Device" weapons system. MP3 partially averts the mook rule, as GF troopers can safely use phazon via tanks,note  while Samus is under serious threat of Terminal Corruption whenever she uses her P.E.D. for extended periods. Her fellow hunters all fall victim to it. Samus is later sent to investigate the other attacked planets as well as the corrupted Space Pirate Homeworld and Phaaze, a seemingly sentient planet entirely made of Phazon. With each main boss Samus beats, the resulting blast of Phazon energy further infects her, visualized by the tumor growing in her stomach. There are growing deformities on her face, which can be seen reflecting in her visor, as well. By the end, one eye is completely black, the other is bright "Phazon blue," and there is a Phazon vein down the middle of her face. On Phaaze, her corruption grows so great that her ship stops recognizing her, and she's forced to continually vent energy. However, she can prevent the corruption from consuming her. If at any point she becomes fully corrupted, the game ends and she becomes a new Dark Samus.
  • Monster Hunter:
    • Monster Hunter 4 introduces the Frenzy, a virus spread by the enigmatic Gore Magala that eventually drives monsters infected by it crazy, giving them a sickly purple hue, Glowing Eyes of Doom, and increased speed and strength. While most of them end up dying not long after, some of them manage to overcome its negative effects, transforming into an even deadlier state known as Apex. The player themselves also can catch the virus from an infected monster, which results in them eventually being either weakened or strengthened depending on whether or not they're able to overcome it by exerting themselves in combat enough before it can run its course. The mental health issues and risk of death are apparently exclusive to monsters.
  • Monster Hunter: World: The noxious effluvium of the Rotten Vale can infect small monsters and drives even the normally passive raphinos into blind aggression. The Black Veil Vaal Hazaak spreads spores that generate effluvium wherever it wanders, spreading the infection to other regions.
  • The Spirit Eater affliction in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. The game's storyline branches depending on how you resist it/use it leading to multiple endings. In the best you're cured, in the worst you become a god-killing abomination and Bittersweet Endings are also available.
  • Whereas in the original course of events in Mortal Kombat Raiden became Darker and Edgier because he reconstituted wrong, in the new timeline Raiden's actions in Mortal Kombat X cause him to absorb the negative energy that was pumped into the Jinsei (Earth's life force) by Shinnok. While he saved Earth and the Jinsei from Shinnok's influence, he himself succumbed to it and has become much like his hardline counterpart in the original timeline.
  • ObsCure:
    • The games have the mortifilia plant, a bizarre, photophobic plant that turns people exposed to it into monsters with powers over darkness, albeit with a fatal weakness in the form of being highly vulnerable to light (direct sunlight and flashbang grenades will kill them almost instantly, but even an old flashlight will weaken them). It was discovered around the turn of the 20th century in Darkest Africa by the Friedman brothers, a pair of Adventurer Archaeologists searching for the key to immortality. Herbert Friedman and his wife did become immortal, but his brother Leonard was mutated into a giant plant monster, causing Herbert to devote his life to researching the plant to find a cure. He established a high school to fund and cover up his experiments and provide a ready pool of test subjects to work on, many of whom also turned into monsters who eventually break out.
    • In the sequel, with Friedman defeated, the mortifilia plant starts spreading like wildfire over the ruined high school and beyond, eventually becoming a popular drug at a nearby university once the students discover its hallucinogenic properties. Before long, a second outbreak of darkness monsters erupts on campus. One character from the first game, Shannon, is also seen to have developed a symbiotic relationship with the corruption since then, capable of inhaling and harmlessly neutralizing the spores that the plant releases. Her fellow survivors weren't so lucky, though, and have to constantly take medication in order to suppress the infection. One of them, her brother Kenny, undergoes a Face–Monster Turn after snapping and refusing to take his meds.
  • Ōkami plays this trope a bit more unconventionally, in that the corrupting force doesn't affect an individual person, but rather an environment; a dark red mist spawned by Orochi as well as Ninetails, Lechku & Nechku, and ultimately Yami turns whole portions of Nippon into desolate brownish-gray landscapes where demons are allowed to run amok. These affected areas tend to feature Cursed Zones, which are so saturated in red mist that they physically harm Amaterasu, drowning her if she stays in them for too long. At one point, Ammy finds Kusa Village completely enveloped by a Cursed Zone, but because it's stretched out over a much larger area than normal, the worst it does is drain her ink without letting her recover it until she leaves or purifies the area. Additionally, during the battle against Orochi, his shadow-element head attacks by spitting out purple buds that spray out clouds of red mist, temporarily turning the battlefield into a mild Cursed Zone on-par with Kusa Village. He does it again during the battles with True Orochi 100 years in the past and on the Ark of Yamato.
  • Ori and the Will of the Wisps has the Decay, which began overtaking Niwen following the death of the Spirit Willow and the dissolution of its light. Its effects include:
  • In Pandora's Tower, your character's Love Interest is infected with a curse that slowly turns her into a monster. It can be reversed by feeding her monster meat; the fresher the better, from dried out and rotten (worst) to still moving (best). The entire point of the game is to collect enough to fully cure her.
  • Shadow Pokemon from Pokémon Colosseum have their "hearts closed", turning them into vicious, remorseless fighting machines. They get access to unique moves; Shadow Rush in Colosseum, and a variety of Shadow moves in the sequel, Pokémon XD. In the latter, Shadow moves are super-effective against all non-Shadow Pokémon. However, they will sometimes go into a berserk state where they will attack their allies and even their Trainer indiscriminately. In both games, a major goal is to "snag" these Shadow Pokémon and purify them, freeing them of their corruption through The Power of Friendship.
  • GLaDOS' chassis in Portal 2 seems to cause any AI who is installed into it to become a testing-obsessed maniac. GLaDOS is notably nicer and saner after being removed from itnote , while Wheatley turns on Chell and starts trying to kill her after being placed in it. After GLaDOS is placed back in, she instantly goes back to being crazy and spares Chell only because she thinks killing her isn't worth the effort.
  • Prince of Persia (2008): Ahriman's essence - a black tar-like substance called corruption - is a bit of a subversion. While it drains the land of life around it, it also only afflicts people who made a pact with Ahriman. So really, if you become a Corrupted, it's your own fault.
    • Making a Deal with the Devil makes you into a more Badass corrupted and lets you keep some of your original personality. Just getting conquered by Ahriman or falling into the corruption turns you into a Mook version. Elika also mentions that some people who made deals just got turned into the mindless soldier version anyway.
  • The Void in Project Spark is a malevolent force that twists and warps everything it touches into a sinister version of itself.
  • The Resident Evil series gives many examples:
    • The infamous Keeper's Diary found in Resident Evil chronicles the resident animal handler who is infected with the T-Virus and doesn't realize it. He goes from normal to itchy to rotting and insane, and still writing:
      May 21 1998: Itchy itchy Scott came ugly face so killed him. Tasty. 4 / / Itchy. Tasty.
    • The G-Virus in Resident Evil 2 works like this as seen in William Birkin, who starts out as a man with an overgrown arm and claws but ends up as an amorphous mass of teeth, claws, tentacles, and eyes. A similar fate would have befallen his daughter who he infected, but she is given a cure and walks away unmutated but with an absurdly powerful Healing Factor.
    • The Las Plagas works like this, infecting a host and slowly assuming control. Both Leon and Ashley end up infected and have to keep pounding medication until they find a cure, while the villagers weren't as lucky...
    • Uroboros typically acts too quickly to count as it devours its host in seconds, but Albert Wesker already being hopped up on a different super-virus was able to handle it long enough (albeit slowly losing himself) for one last-ditch attempt to kill Chris and Sheva.
    • The T-Abyss virus works this way, with some of its victims being corrupted so badly that they don't even realize that they've been mutated. The Comms Officer, now a horrific monster called a Scagdead, continued to radio for help and pleads "Please stop, I'm human" as it tries to kill you.
  • The Chimera in Resistance: Fall of Man utilize The Virus to transform humans into aliens and fight your side. The protagonist of the game is also infected, but although he is mutated, he manages to retain his personality.
    • Resistance 2 reveals that he is not unique, but that all members of the special squad he's assigned to must regularly use suppressors to prevent them from becoming Chimera. These suppressors have side-effects, such as prolonged periods of psychosis.
  • The Dark Glass from Rise of Legends. It made the Dark Alin, which terrorized the Alin kingdom. In-game Dark Glass units have an attack which gives a permanent HP debuff.
  • Ryzom features a substance called the Goo, which is purple goo that spouts from fissures in the ground; the Goohead tribe abuse it as a psychedelic drug, the local wildlife becomes stronger and more hostile around it, and too high of a concentration of the stuff will cause you continuous damage while you're in the area.
  • The Secret World has the Filth, extradimensional black goo that seeps into this reality and does various horrible things to those who come in contact with it. Fortunately, the player character is immune thanks to the Bee inside them.
  • Shadow Man has the Dark Souls, which can be implanted in living individuals to grant them magical powers and immortality (as long as the Soul isn't removed), but at the cost of turning them into cruel serial killers - or, in the case of the Five, even more cruel serial killers. Mike, being the titular Shadow Man and possessing powers related to the dead and souls, can absorb them and suppress their evil completely at the cost of also suppressing most of their powers: this translates into a little power-up for each Soul absorbed, with no drawbacks. On the other hand, trying to harvest the full power of many Dark Souls is a bad idea.
  • Done beautifully in Shadow of the Colossus. After every time you defeat a colossus, some weird dark tendrils come out and latch into The Wanderer. The effect is gradual enough that you don't notice how bad it's gotten until the final colossus, where (because of the wind and some camera close ups) you finally see how ragged and bad he looks, compared to the young man you started the game as.
  • Soul Series has Malfestation, a condition caused by the Soul Edge's energy that can transform both humans and animals into monsters. The transformation can very from individual to individual: some may just be driven into a maddened, berserker state, others are altered into outright inhuman forms - Raphael becomes a vampire-like being, while Cervantes is turned into a ghost pirate - and there are those that appear to not have changed at all such as Isabella "Ivy" Valentine, who was born from Cervantes while influenced by Soul Edge and her most notable traits are immortality and having Mystical White Hair and due to her cursed lineage, she refuses to have children and pass it to someone else. This condition can be cured depending on the circumstances, as seen with Siegfried being taken over by the Soul Edge and turned into Nightmare, but he was able to break free from its control. Kilik and the Edge Master also known a purification art that can cure Malfested.
  • In Space Quest V: The Next Mutation, a failed experiment in genetic engineering creates the Puckoid plague that takes over at least one colony and the Confederation's flagship. It causes the infected beings to melt into primordial goo.
  • Spirits of Anglerwood Forest: Ezra is the victim of this. As a child, he is lured deep into the forest and his spirit is captured and corrupted by something, possibly the forest itself. He becomes obsessed with luring his family into the forest along with him and eventually sets his sights on Edgar.
  • In Submerged, as you progress you are observed by the city's aquatic inhabitants. Your skin slowly starts turning grey and green and it quickly becomes obvious that you're transforming into one of them.
  • The Pox of LeChuck in Tales of Monkey Island. Whoever gets infected with this voodoo plague slowly loses their ability to reason and becomes more and more violent. It only seems to affect pirates for some reason, though.
  • Terraria has this in spades with the biome of the same name. It also has a much more sinister, Bloodier and Gorier version of that with its Crimson. They both can spread over grass, but can easily be stopped with various barriers... Until you activate Hardmode by beating the Wall of Flesh. After activating Hardmode in a world they can corrupt almost any natural terrain, and a massive V shape is corrupted from the bottom of your world to the top, half the Corruption or Crimson, and half the newly unleashed Hallow, a Sugar Bowl corruption that's actually just as dangerous and will happily turn your world crapsaccharine if you let it. Good luck with that...
  • Ever since acquiring the Book of Claws, the protagonist of They Bleed Pixels has acquired a monstrous form that she transforms into every night. But every time she transforms and fights the monsters of the dream world, the line between her humanity and the monstrous form of her dreams gets thinner and thinner. The Headmaster is encouraging this of his students in order to get himself a supply of monstrous servants. And the Book of Claws is not the only tome of its kind in the school's library.
  • Ember in Torchlight has this effect, granting magical power but at the risk of turning you evil.
    • Double-subversion; the ember itself wasn't corrupting, but the source of the Ember Blight was Ordrak, whose Heart continued to corrupt after his death. The Alchemist becomes obsessed with magical experiments on the Heart and Blighted Ember, succumbs to the corruption after donning armor made of it, and destroys Torchlight at the start of Torchlight II.
  • The first villain faced in Tron 2.0 is an former executive who was incorrectly digitized into the computer world and became a virus, his poisoning presence was even referred to as The Corruption. Infected programs who attack you have a chance of infecting one of your subroutines (weapons and equipment), making it have the opposite effect until you complete a virus scan on that subroutine. Oddly, you eventually get to use the special weapons of the Corrupted yourself without risk of self-infection.
  • In Twisted Wonderland, Magic use generates a harmful by-product known as 'blot', similar to black ink in appearance. Blot accumulates in the caster's body and naturally dissipates with sufficient rest and minimal further magic use, but builds up more quickly with stress and negative emotion. Students have pens with magic crystals which siphon off blot and prevent it from building up in their bodies directly; use of magic causes blot to accumulate in the crystal instead. When the crystal is filled with blot beyond its capacity (or when the caster is overwhelmed by negative emotion, inevitably resulting in the same outcome), the caster enters an Ax-Crazy state known as Overblot, taking on a corrupted, more monstrous form. The only way to save an Overblot victim is to wear them out before they burn through their excess magic, lest they fully become monsters like the one in Dwarf Mine.
  • The Filth in Unworthy is an archetypal example. It is literally the solid form of sin, and so there's no surprise it amplifies the humans' worst traits. Many were simply rendered hostile without getting anything special in return, but the bosses like Gaston, Heir of Ambition, and Kayen, Father of Thirst received genuine superpowers as a result.
  • Warcraft universe:
    • Demons seem to radiate fel energy and any area with large amounts of demons will become either a barren wasteland or a twisted mockery of its former self. Living beings exposed to fel energy will mutate, making them more powerful but turning them insane, and causing them to become demons after long enough exposure. In fact, most demons were mortals before they were corrupted by fel energy.
    • Also seen with the influence of the Old Gods on mortals. Their Curse of Flesh transformed the immortal stone creations of the Titans and into mortal flesh and blood beings who were more susceptible to their whispers.
    • Turned into an actual game mechanic in World of Warcraft with Cho'gall. He inflicts his enemies with "Corrupted Blood" which gradually twists and mutilates their body, causing them to eventually sprout hostile tentacles before transforming into a Faceless One.
    • The Sha from Mists of Pandaria are an Emotion Eater version of this. They are empowered by negative emotions such as fear, despair, and anger, and can corrupt and control sentient creatures as well as the environment.
    • The Nightmare is a corrupting force within the Emerald Dream that twists any being connected to it, such as druids and dryads, into hateful monsters. It finally comes to a head in Legion when Xavius uses the Nightmare to corrupt Ysera and Cenarius.
    • The Old Gods themselves a form of corruption meant to infest planets and corrupt the world spirits which can one day grow into Titans. It was after seeing what this sort of corruption can create that Sargeras decided it was better to destroy every world spirit instead.
    • Void energy is corrupting, both physically and mentally. If the user cannot resist, they are driven insane by the whispers of the Void Lords and are twisted into pale, pathetic creatures consumed by hunger.
    • The blood of the dead god Sethe only effects the Arakkoa of Draenor. Any Arakkoa who is cast into the blood is warped into a hunched, misformed mockery of their natural body. They also lose their natural affinity for Light magic, but in turn gain an innate mastery of Shadow magic.
  • Total War: Warhammer and its sequel have multiple forms of corruption:
    • The first and most obvious is Chaos, spread by its legions and a smattering of other Chaos-aligned subfactions (such as Morathi's Slaanesh-worshipping Cult of Pleasure). It causes Public order and economy penalties for most factions, but bonuses to leadership and war spoils for Chaos factions.
    • Vampiric corruption is spread by the Vampire Counts and pirates of the Vampire Coast. It causes attrition to living armies moving through it, but moving through areas without it causes undead armies to decay the same way.
    • Skaven corruption is spread by, well, Skaven. It causes public order and income penalties as the subterranean menace creeps in and steadily overpopulates an area. Uniquely, Skaven themselves suffer the exact same penalties (arguably even harsher than others, since it also affects their unique food resource) and have means to both spread and clear their own corruption, leading to a constant battle with themselves. Well, they are Skaven.
    • Untainted, the "pure" state, actually counts as well. It can be "spread" by non-corrupting factions just as corruptive ones spread theirs, and wielded to inflict penalties the same way. Most factions don't get any benefit besides lacking the penalties and denying corruptive enemies a foothold, save for a few special cases (i.e. Alarielle suffers special penalties as Chaos spreads).
  • Warframe: While the "corrupted" faction are more like techno-zombies cybernetically reanimated by the ridiculously high-tech Orokin towers, the Void does work like this. Those exposed to it gain strange powers but also go violently insane (or possibly are possessed by an eldritch entity from beyond time and space; it's unclear). Furthermore, since all existing Orokin towers are in the Void, the Corrupted faction are often heavily afflicted by the Void. The only ones known to use Void powers safely are the Tenno. They were created when their colony ship, the Zariman 10-0, was lost in the Void. The adults all went insane, but the children became nigh-immortal liminal beings with strange powers. When they were finally rescued, the Orokin crafted the warframes to channel their Void powers and fight the Sentients.

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