Going Native / Video Games

• In the Borderlands series, Vaughn is introduced as a low-level Hyperion accountant who travels to Pandora to make a big money deal after a Bad Boss screws his best friend out of a promotion. He becomes increasingly comfortable with Pandora's violence, and by the time of Borderlands 3 he's become a bandit leader.
• The whole shtick of the Harmony affinity in Civilization: Beyond Earth. They eventually get the ability to breathe and heal in the formerly-poisonous air and tame the local creatures, and their victory condition is to integrate themselves into the mind of the (sentient) planet.
• When a free colonist unit visits an Indian village in Colonization, they can ordered to stay with the natives for a turn to learn useful skills, like tobacco planting.
• Dragon Age:
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, according to some of the writers, after his lengthy debriefing by his Qunari superiors, Sten will likely have to go for re-education by the Ben-Hassrath to iron out all of the bad habits he's picked up during his time in Ferelden. Sten seems aware of this if he and the Dog are the ones chosen to rescue the Warden from Fort Drakon.
    Sten: And now I am talking to an animal. I have been in this country too long!
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition: Like Sten before him, The Iron Bull is sent by his Qunari superiors to learn about the goings-on in Andrastian society, and picks up many of their habits and worldviews. It gets to the point that he isn't sure if he's still a Qunari spy pretending to be a mercenary, or a Tal-Vashoth (deserter) pretending to still be part of the Qun. Unlike Sten, the PC can tip the balance by encouraging him to either become full Tal-Vashoth, or strengthen his loyalty to the Qun.
• In Dragon Quest VII, Kiefer abandons your party to join the Deja tribe of the past. It is strongly hinted that Aira of the Deja tribe of the present (who joins your party) is a descendant of Kiefer.
• In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the Player Character is encouraged to do this as part of his/her cover story. Joining a Great House — even the most Imperialized House, Hlaalu, is still at core a Dunmer house based on Dunmer traditions — and just looking out for the interests of Morrowind's people first, prominently mentioned when Caius Cosades is recalled, leaving you the highest ranking Blade in the area. It's entirely possible to go full-blown, avoid all the non-Blade Imperial factions, and join just a Great House and the Temple (unless you go native in the Telvanni — their traditions discourage giving more than the absolute minimum of tolerance to the Tribunal).
• In Far Cry 3, Jason Brody's growing adaptation to the native Rakyat culture and his own latent Blood Knight tendencies drive a significant portion of the plot. Towards the end of the game, he decides to stay with the Rakyat rather than leave with his friends. The player's choice to either have Jason reject their culture or accept it and stay (and murder his friends in the process) decides the ending of the game.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • The majority of the core members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn are scholars of Sharlayan who grew fed up with its Head-in-the-Sand Management and followed Louisoix to Eorzea to help solve the problems that plague the entire world. By the present, the Scions identify as Eorzeans for the most part and fight to defend the land against the many things that prevent lasting peace.
  • The Warrior of Light is a traveler from outside of Eorzea who came to make their fortune as an adventurer. Their various escapades soon have them standing with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and the Eorzean Alliance against the greatest threats the world has ever known, essentially making them an Eorzean in all but birth. They also never correct anyone when they're referred to as an Eorzean, showing that they've adopted the land as their own.
  • The Heavensward expansion has the reveal for Lucia. She was originally a Garlean spy sent in to infiltrate Ishgard and see if they had any means of accessing Azys Lla. Lucia became Aymeric's 2nd in command to the Temple Knights and played her part well, but once she saw how much of a good person Aymeric was and what Ishgard went through with the dragons, she grew fond of him and the nation and she willingly revealed herself as a spy. Aymeric didn't care that Lucia was a spy and was glad that not only she revealed the truth, but was also glad that she wanted to fight for Ishgard's cause.
• The Another World Team from The King of Fighters were originally from different time periods and dimensions (Nakoruru is an Ainu priestess from 18th century Japan, Mui Mui is a kungfu fighter from Ancient China and Love Heart the Sky Pirate is from another dimension where magic airships and floating islands exist) before suddenly appearing in modern day Earth. As a result, they find many things on the modern era strange like television. By the time of SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, which takes place after the team's first debut, Another World team has gotten use to living on Earth, including wearing modern clothes and using smartphones.
• Mass Effect has a rare inversion of this: The Yahg were considered too savage and violent when first encountered by the Citadel Races and it was decided to leave them confined to their wild planet until they develop space flight on their own. One of them was abducted as a slave/exotic pet, but he managed to kill his master and successfully put himself in his chair behind the main terminal that controlled his entire galactic empire of political and industrial espionage. Since the Shadow Broker never allowed any visitors to his secret base and communicated with his lieutenants and agents only through voice synthesizer programs, nobody ever found out about it.
  • Many aliens have adopted other alien cultural concepts. For example; a few Turians have converted to Zen Buddhism and Confucianism, and plenty of asari have adopted the customs, traditions and even attitudes of their non-asari mates. A few Asari, such as Matriarch Aethyta believe this is a consequence of asari biology.
  • The Geth platform known as Legion assimilates somewhat into human culture by appropriating N7 human special forces armor, using the handle "n7infiltrator" while gaming, contributes a lot of money to a human charity for victims of a Geth attack, and even recognizes a Bible chapter and verse when it is named Legion.
  • Due to being something of a xenophile, Paragon Shepard is often accused of this by their detractors. Some superior officers similarly dislike Shepard for playing friendly with the various alien races, instead of using their Spectre status to advance humanity's position in the galaxy.
    Rear-Admiral Mikhailovich: You still know what color your blood is, Shepard?
• Subverted in Reah: Face the Unknown. Several human colonists from planet Reah visited its sister version in Another Dimension, which also keeps advanced human technology from working there, forcing these colonists to blend in with the natives and conduct first-hand observation among them. But the ones you see in-game actually want to return back to Earth.
• In Splinter Cell: Double Agent, the NSA constantly worries about Sam Fisher going native and actively joining John Brown's Army. In the bad ending, that's exactly what he does. In the neutral ending, that's what everyone thinks he does.
• Many characters with Multiple Endings in the Star Ocean games whose relationship with someone from another planet gets to a certain point will choose to live on that planet with them.
• In Star Wars: The Old Republic, one of the starter zones has a slightly jerkass reporter who asks you to fetch her cameraman who went undercover with the rebels (or at least get his footage), you find him ranting and raving about how the rebellion is a righteous cause and have the option of letting him stay or knocking sense into him. If you let him stay, the reporter is ecstatic because this has happened before, and when it does he always comes back with better and more detailed footage.
  Lamalla Rann: On Tatooine, he went to live with the Jawas for three months-- Thought they were his spiritual kin.
  • There are also Joiners on Alderaan, humans (and others) who semi-voluntarily assimilate into the native Killiks. The process isn't pleasant and it's not reversible, though the ones who go through it claim to be fine with being part of their Mind Hive. One of the party members (and potential love interest) for an Imperial Agent is a diplomat who went through this in order to try and convince the Killiks to side with the Empire...and the notoriously xenophobic Empire doesn't like it a bit.
  • A Bounty Hunter is given the opportunity to do this among the Mandalorians who sponsor the Great Hunt, to the point of being legally adopted by Mandalore the Vindicated. A female Bounty Hunter can step this up even more by marrying Torian Cadera and agreeing to raise any children they may have in the culture...though, as of the Fallen Empire expansion, they still need to work on the language.
• An occasional risk when infiltrating pre-spaceflight species in Stellaris. Fortunately you can have a nearby warship take them out with a "freak meteor strike" before they do too much damage to your efforts to take over the government and assimilate them into your galactic empire.
• In an "undercover cop switches sides" example of the trope, the John Woo game Stranglehold features Jerry Ying, Tequila's partner, who has gone undercover with Wong's Dragon Claw syndicate. The more time he spends around Wong's crew, however, the more he begins to identify with them instead of the cops he's supposed to be one of. It all comes to a head when Wong orders Jerry to kill Tequila and Wong's own daughter Billie, who Tequila loves and had a daughter by. Tequila survives, but Billie is not so lucky, setting up a furious showdown between partners as Tequila seeks vengeance for Billie.
• In the backstory of Tribes, the Earth Empire sent their elite Blood Eagle knights to suppress rebellions from the Order of the Phoenix. The Blood Eagles came to like life in the lawless frontier, though, and became a Tribe, themselves.
• In the Worlds of Ultima game Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire, several recruitable party members are Expys from previous games who have gone through this trope, with amnesia to boot.

---