List of Fictional Assimilating Races - in Computer and Video Games

In Computer and Video Games

• The Scurge of Scurge: Hive are a cellular assimilation organism that rapidly infect biological, mechanical, and even energy based systems. Anything thus absorbed has its intelligence (if there is any) transferred back to the Source, which is the spawner and collective hive mind of the Scurge virus. This allows the Source to reach sentience.
• Aparoids, a race of bio-technological organisms that were the central antagonist of Star Fox: Assault that sought evolution through assimilation (referred to in the game as "Aparoideation"). They are capable of assimilating both machines and living organisms. This continues the Star Fox series' tradition of referencing other science fiction works.
• The Omar are a race of cyborgs in the computer game Deus Ex: Invisible War. They assimilate humans into the Omar (though this is usually voluntary). The Omar are supposed to have a merged collective consciousness, though many Omar will refer to themselves as "I" instead of "We." This seems to show that the Omar still retain some individuality.
• The Zerg from the game StarCraft are an insectoid race that assimilate (usually referred to in-game as "infesting") or destroy every race that they come into contact with. Their attempt to overpower and assimilate the Protoss forms a major part of the storyline of the game.
• The Undead Scourge in the Warcraft universe is a massive army of living dead creatures residing on the continents of Lordaeron and the Eastern Kingdoms. They spread a plague of undeath that turns all it infects into Undead. They are under the absolute control of the leader of the scourge, the Lich King. They seek to destroy all life.
• The Flood from the Halo: Combat Evolved line of video games is a parasitic life form consisting of an Infection Form that burrows into a life form's skin and takes control of their neural pathways, transforming them into a Flood Combat Form. The host is eventually made into a Carrier Form, to create more Infection forms. The Flood are capable of destroying all life and have only been stopped by the Halos.
• In Half-Life 2 the Combine assimilate humans to Combine soldiers for their military, or workers called stalkers. The Combine's final goal is to assimilate all of Earth's population, drain their natural resources, and move on. Also appearing in Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are Headcrabs, a parasite resembling a large crab or tick. Headcrabs attach to the head of prey, mutating the subject and taking control of the subject's body, resulting in a Zombie-like entity called headcrab zombies. Headcrabs have been seen attached to humans and Combine.
• The Tyranids in Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 setting absorb all organic life and material on a planet, absorbing the DNA and using it to improve their biological design and battle prowess.
• Metroid Prime from Metroid Prime assimilated numerous Space Pirate weapons, making them an integral part of its body.
• The Ing from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, who merge with animals, sentients or technology and transform them into lethal "darklings".
• The X from Metroid Fusion, who possess organic life and matter and clones them.
• The Strogg from Quake 2 and Quake 4, who violently assimilate organic creatures to make them lethal monsters.
• The Many from System Shock 2
• In Resistance: Fall of Man, the Chimera, the game's main antagonists, are a race of unknown origin who perpetuate their species by assimilating humans. The Chimera infect humans with a transformative virus, which induces coma on human victims. Infected humans are then taken to "conversion centers", where they are transformed into different types of Chimeran creatures. The bigger Chimeran creatures are actually composed of multiple human bodies, making humans no more than "modelling clay" for the creation of new creatures.
• The Beast from the game Homeworld: Cataclysm is a viral entity that infects starships and adds them to its hive-mind. The infection, spread via a "charged particle beam" or by simple physical contact, converts the ship's crew into a form of bio-circuitry which melds with the ship's system and is used to control it. This bio-circuitry is often visible on the outside of the ship's hull, lending the craft a ghoulish "zombified" appearance.
• The Brains from the arcade game Robotron 2084 turn humanoids into Progs, fast-moving agents of destruction that mercilessly home in on the player.
• In Mass Effect, the Reapers are a race of synthetic life who convert the dead bodies of organic life into mechanical husks, though these husks are only used for psychological warfare against the organic species and the technology to do this is not their own.
• The hobbes from Fable and Fable II
• The Fold from Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 who are a nanite-based collective mind made up of numerous individuals including super-heroes and super-villains.
• in mechquest the shadowscythe are an extraterrestrial race trying to assimilate the galaxy
• The Necromorphs from Dead Space (video game)