Also called the main characters' special graveyard.note
"Where there's ruins, there's riches! And booby-traps we can steal ideas from!"
An ancient temple or city, usually buried deep within the jungle or in the middle of the desert. The temple is often full of ancient yet sophisticated machines and Booby Traps that still work to lethal effect even after thousands of years without maintenance.
The Temple of Doom is almost always inhabited, often by the same Mooks and monsters found in the surrounding environment — oddly, they know how to avoid every single trap in the Death Course with well-timed steps — but you can also expect things like ghosts, skeletons, living statues and other ancient guardians. And naturally, whatever treasure you go in there to find will be found in the very spot the Giant Space Flea from Nowhere has decided to make its home.
Occasionally, the Temple of Doom will be co-opted by the Big Bad to use as his base, which would explain why the traps still work. In which case, you can also expect his Mooks and a few high-tech surprises as well.
Trope Namer is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which serves as an obvious inspiration for these levels.
May contain valuable artifacts. Logical location for Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair, if the work is philosophically inclined.
May be part of an Advanced Ancient Acropolis, and imply a Mayincatec religion, culture or whatever.
Compare Ruins for Ruins' Sake, Dungeon Crawling, and Landmark of Lore.
If you’re an author: See Write a Jungle Opera
Examples:
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Action
- Bujingai: Downplayed. The temple itself is full of light and looks quite normal, if it weren't for some traps and the demons all around.
- Double Dragon II: Missions 6 through 9 in the NES version are set in the so-called "Mansion of Terror", and various traps and contraptions have to be overcome in addition to the high-tier enemies and bosses present.
- EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist: Blackberry's pyramid is functionally this. The ancient pyramid of Diamond Mine which she calls home is a labyrinthian tomb populated by the phantoms of those bound to the pyramid, fire-breathing statues, various traps, treasure secrets, and a supernatural guardian. At least her inner sanctum is cozy, with a robust library for magical research and a table for guests.
- Frogger's Adventures: Temple of the Frog:
- The second world is the Ancient Ruins, an old temple out in the jungle full of all kinds of dangers, such as rolling boulders, cannons, snakes, and floodwaters.
- The Temple of the Frog itself is the final stage, and is also filled with all kinds of hazards, like moving platforms, crushing walls, ghosts, and guardians.
- Strider (2014): The Buried Temple, an area within the Underground section, is an ancient temple-like building of unknown origin or purpose. The stone walls are filled with strange markings and symbols, with one half flooded with water and the other with lava. There are no ancient traps, however, as Meio's Army has taken over the place and fitted it with Light Troopers and modern weapons.
Action-Adventure
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla: The Tombs of the Fallen has Eivor going through several ancient tombs which were touched up after the fact by a Roman architect with all manner of puzzles and lethal booby-traps (with a justification that apparently Emperor Nero felt he had to forbid people going there, but was also forbidden to directly kill anyone. So just leave a lot of sharp spikes around, and if anyone who just stumbles onto it gets killed, problem solved!)
- Ecco the Dolphin has an underwater version as part of the Atlantis area of the game. Lots of mazes, occasional bricks that can squish you if you screw up your timing, and various angry sea creatures await. Plus, you have to search constantly for underwater air pockets to avoid drowning.
- The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning: The Tall Plains are a labyrinthine set of jungle-covered temple ruins swarming with armadillos, animated stone constructs, and apes in Mayincatec costumes, where Spyro must solve ancient stone-based puzzles to progress and navigate around rows of sharpened bamboo stakes, traps that spit volleys of sharp darts through the air, and swinging pendulum-like logs.
- The Legend of Zelda has featured a large number of these as dungeons. Most games feature at least a few other things such as dungeons inside a suitably enormous creature, inside of a colossal tree, within a complex systems of mines or natural caves, and occasionally in a building still inhabited by its original builders ranging from a thieves' hideout to Hyrule Castle itself, but most dungeons take place inside enormous ruined complexes — usually some mixture of temples, royal palaces, and structures apparently built specifically to keep delicate Plot Coupons away from sticky fingers until the right time, other times the ruins of ancient cities or palaces Typically, these places are home to a motley mixture of restless undead, hostile guardian constructs, and monstrous vermin that has taken residence here in their ages of neglect. Some examples stand out from the rest:
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: Not only are all seven dungeons Temple of Doom-type, the monsters within them are ostensibly not on the same side as the ones on the Overworld Not to Scale.
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: The Face Shrine, a confusing palace area found in the second half of the game. It doesn't have many traps, but it presents a greater difficulty with tougher puzzles, several bombable walls, and some strange looping rooms.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: After the initial set of three dungeons in the Child Link period —the belly of a tree, a volcanic cave, and the belly of a whale— Adult Link's part focuses on the elemental Temples where the new set of Plot Coupons is held, each with an elemental theme — the mazelike and puzzle-filled Forest Temple, the scorching Fire Temple, the flooded Water Temple where Link needs to repeatedly raise and lower the water level to proceed, the Shadow Temple filled with invisible walls and the walking dead, and the Spirit Temple with its armored minibosses and Light and Mirrors Puzzles.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: The Tower of the Gods is a tall stone spire that rises out of the sea when the three Goddess Pearls are brought together. It's explicitly meant to serve as a testing gauntlet for would-be heroes, and in ascending it Link needs to complete a variety of stone puzzles while contending with animated guardian statues, laser turrets, and giant birds, culminating in a boss fight against the giant living statue Gohdan, placed there as a final test of might. The adventure then proceeds to two hidden elemental temples: the Earth Temple with its light-and-darkness puzzles and undead guardians, and the highly vertical Wind Temple navigated using the wind blowing from its central turbine.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: The Palace of Winds combines this trope with Level in the Clouds by way of being set inside a floating palace high in Hyrule's skies. It centers around Bottomless Pits over traps, and is home to a mixture of undead enemies and flying creatures.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
- The Arbiter's Grounds is the ruin of an ancient prison complex deep in the Hyrulean desert. The enemies here lean strongly towards the undead in the form of specters, skeletons and mummies implicitly formed from the remains of long-dead inmates, alongside spectral rats, swarms of poisonous betles, and assorted spiky traps.
- The Temple of Time is found in ruins, its shattered hulk overtaken by the wilderness — entering the dungeon proper requires inserting the Master Sword in its pedestal to be taken back in time to its glory days. Once there... or, er, then, Link is faced with complex, multi-storey temple complex filled with animated stone constructs, laser-firing statues, blade traps, and hordes of giant spiders, leading up to a colossal spider final boss. The main gameplay gimmick here revolves around taking control of dungeon statues to use against enemies or obstacles.
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: The Ancient Cistern is a cross between this and a water level, being the core of ancient aqueduct system, with navigation involved a complex of flooded rooms, floating lily pad platforms, geysers used to ascend to higher levels, and switches to raise and lower the water level. The boss here is Koloktos, a huge clockwork metal statue.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom:
- The Fire Temple is set inside the ruins of the ancient city of Gorondia, and mainly themed around navigating a complex set of rails above streams of lava.
- The Lightning Temple is a huge pyramid buried in the sands of the Gerudo Desert. Even after being raised to the surface, its enclosed volume and narrow passages serve to confine Link and reduce the ability of his climbing mechanics to trivialize navigation puzzles as he works a set of Light and Mirrors Puzzles across hallways filled with hostile constructs and mummy-like gibdos on his way to fight the huge, insectoid Gibdo Queen.
- Little Big Adventure: The "Temple of Bù" contains traps, skeletons and stuff, and is located underground in the middle of the desert. In the second game, it got turned into a Theme Park and the aliens' secret base.
- Star Fox Adventures, being an action-adventure game instead of a shooter like the other Star Fox games, has various examples: Volcano Force Point, Ocean Force Point, Walled City, and Krazoa Palace. The former two are where the Spellstones have to be taken back, and rely more on puzzles than traps or obstacles. Walled City is a more open-ended location, as its design is based to put into test whoever wants to claim the Spellstone and later a Krazoa Spirit (though, due to the wrongdoings of General Scales, it will also be necessary to defeat the RedEye Tribe for the former Plot Coupon). Krazoa Palace is where all Krazoa Spirits have to be deposited, and it's there where Krystal remains imprisoned due to Andross, who plans to return to physical life.
- Tomb Raider: Oddly enough, sealed-up tombs with no apparent exits to the outside world apart from the door Lara Croft has just opened still contain live animals, burning fires, etc. There are some bits of bone or shredded clothing that indicated a... sticky end for some explorers in some levels.
- Uncharted. Since it's Tomb Raider without the mummeries, it has all the same temples and nearly as much doom.
Adventure
- Enchanted Scepters: The Mayan pyramid temple is a Death Course, complete with Spikes of Doom, a Boulder of Doom, and an Advancing Wall of Doom.
- Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell: The final area is an ancient, sunken temple, containing statues, gemstones, and a handful of traps. Freddi and Luther get trapped inside after Luther tries to swipe a jewel from a pedestal, and Freddi needs to find a way to get him out of the cage he gets stuck inside so they can put the jewel back and chase after the thief.
- Quest for Glory:
- Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire features a temple deep in the desert, where Iblis is trapped. The main villain's Evil Plan is to find a hero who can get past the traps in the tomb so that he can unleash Iblis.
- Quest for Glory III: Wages of War features such a temple as the base of the demons looking to do a divide and conquer on the different peoples of Tarna.
- Waxworks (1992): The Egyptian waxwork takes the player to an Egyptian pyramid filled with traps.
Fighting Games
- Garou: Mark of the Wolves: You'll find Grant at his training grounds, which are massive underground temple decorated with huge columns, a skull statue, and several pyres. If you taunt, the flames will flare up for brief moment.
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl has a Ruins level in the Subspace Emissary, featuring many enemies (including those part of the Subspace Army) and traps like falling spikes and fire jets. This is here where Pokémon Trainer captures Ivysaur and Charizard (his starter is Squirtle). In the Ruined Hall, one of the bosses (Galleom) is fought.
Metroidvanias
- La-Mulana: The ruins are basically one giant Temple of Doom, with the various stages being different parts of it.
- Metroid:
- The series has some, though the temples are mostly futuristic (the biggest being "Temple of Doom meets Eternal Engine" Sanctuary Fortress from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes), and the most dangerous aren't contraptions, but post-abandonment inhabitants (or in the case of the Sanctuary Fortress, old inhabitants, the haywire-security robots).
- Super Metroid: Ridley and company inhabit what appear to be ruins of Chozo civilization, deep within Zebes.
- Metroid Dread has Ferenia, a stony complex described as once being used by the Mawkin tribe for various rituals.
- Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom: The Lost Temples are a temple complex filled with deadly traps, rotating chambers, and other magical mechanisms. The main temple even has an Indy Escape sequence where you need to run from a boulder.
- Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: The Lost Catacombs, an ancient ruin found under the deserts of Tan Line Island. Shantae will need to contend with the Scorpion People and giant mantises currently inhabiting it, as well as various spike and descending ceiling traps.
MMORPGs
- Elsword: Hamel's secret dungeon Temple of Trials takes place in a temple full with traps.
- Kingdom of Loathing:
- The Hidden Temple, which is loaded with all kinds of traps involving arrows, poison gas, boulders, swinging blades, and an homage to the Indiana Jones puzzle that used stone tiles engraved with letters. Although a few of the puzzles are necessary to locate the Hidden City during the level 11 quest, most of the incentive for visiting the Hidden Temple lies in the traps themselves, which provide quick stat gains if you can keep your HP above zero, with the caveat that you'll gain no items, currency, or familiar experience like you would from adventuring somewhere with monsters to fight.
- The Ancient Buried Pyramid is another Temple of Doom, this time filled with monsters that impede your progress in solving the puzzle in the lower chambers. It's worth noting that these two examples are located in a jungle and a desert, respectively.
- World of Warcraft:
- The Sunken Temple is a large temple to the serpent god Hakkar, sunk beneath the waters of a lake, hence the name. It's infested with dragons and zombie trolls.
- The Black Temple was once a holy place of the Draenei. It has since been defiled and is home to demons, crazy orcs, a big bad and an eldritch abomination.
- The larger troll ruins such as Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman tend to pull double duty as cities and temples.
- Zul'Drak is a leveling zone that is a Temple of Doom. There is a more classic enclosed Temple of Doom at the far end of it.
- The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj is a massive temple that houses the body of the Old God C'thun, tended to by his insectoid servants.
- The Tomb of Sargeras was originally a massive temple dedicated to Elune, patron deity of the Night Elves and is even built upon a Titan facility, doubling the holiness. Then Aegwynn sealed Sargeras's corpse inside, where it proceeded to corrupt the building and its inhabitants.
Party Games
- Fall Guys: Lost Temple, the final round introduced in Season 5, is a sprawling maze temple, with each room having randomly-generated obstacles. Players must traverse through the obstacles and break through the temple doors (and avoid fake ones) in order to reach the crown at the end of the temple.
- Super Mario Party: Whomp's Domino Ruins and its Partner Party counterpart, Domino Ruins Treasure Hunt, are the first board in their respective modes. The boards take place in an old temple out in the jungle, with images of Whomps engraved into them. The northernmost area of the board has some traps that the players can activate that can send rolling boulders their ways, and Whomps appear at certain points to block their progress unless they can pay coins.
Platformers
- Banjo-Tooie: Mayahem Temple is the first world in the game, and in it Banjo and Kazooie can venture through a pyramidal maze overrun by tiger-like enemies (Moggies). Collecting 10 statues along the way will open a chamber with a Jiggy, while collecting 20 will open a second chamber that is identical to the first and has a Jiggy as well, but it's guarded by the deity Targitzan (the world's boss).
- Crash Bandicoot: A large number of levels in the franchise, such as Sunset Vista in the first, Road to Ruin in the second, and Sphynxinator in the third. Hazards include walls that move back and forth (and can push Crash onto a pit), rotating platforms, totems that swing between sides, bat swarms, spear traps, and tarry floors. These levels are usually long as well.
- Crash Bandicoot (1996): Temple Ruins and Jaws of Darkness are dark, spooky temples overrun by bats and filled with dangerous traps such as spears, torches and falling columns.
- Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped: The Sphynxinator is an Egyptian complex of hallways filled with bottomless pits, dart traps, pit traps, falling slab traps, slamming stone doors, Lab Assistants in pharaoh and mummy getups, cobras, and monkeys that hide in pots.
- Donald Duck: Goin' Qu@ckers: Merlock's Temple is the final world of the game, with molten lava and traps galore.
- Donkey Kong:
- Donkey Kong Country has a "Millstone Mayhem" stage as the last non-boss stage in Monkey Mines, as well as a "Temple Tempest" level near the end of Vine Valley. In them, Donkey and Diddy have to venture through temples overrun by dangerous mooks, as well has large stone wheels that roll back and forth.
- Donkey Kong 64: Angry Aztec, which is predominantly a Shifting Sand Land world with a Mayincatec flavor, has temples that take inspiration from the ruins and temples seen in the first Country game. One such building has features like a frozen pond that has to be melted with sunlight, two chambers that ambush intruders with a wave of enemies, and some indented platforms shaped like monkey tongues that have to be used to climb upward (while another one stretches so it's crossed like a bridge) before time runs out. Another temple has boiling water that has to be cooled down with a llama's saliva, a pit of lava that has to be sorted by lifting platforms, and a Memory Match Mini-Game. Yet another temple has multiple entrances, each having a series of corridors that appear to be a non-issue aside from having some enemies within, except they're also guarded by an offscreen sniper who will shoot at intruders upon grabbing a Golden Banana.
- Donkey Kong Barrel Blast: Cranky's Temple and Temple Heights are this combined with Ominous Floating Castle.
- Donkey Kong Country Returns has a world centered on this, and features many samples of Bamboo Technology that has to be interacted with in order to progress. Also, every world has a hidden temple that serves as a Brutal Bonus Level; beating each one unlocks another temple, which is actually Level Ate aside from the immediate entrance.
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze has the Rodent Ruckus stage, but instead of a rock the Kongs are rolling away from a big wheel of cheese. The hidden temples make a return, and the complex gizmos within make them the most formidable levels in the game challenge-wise.
- Environmental Station Alpha: The Temple Sector, complete with saw blades, lasers, crushers, and other lovely traps. A crew member's journal lampshades this. The Temple was apparently on the asteroid before they built the station there.
- Golem (2018) is set inside a huge ruined tower in the desert, where the protagonist needs to navigate a complex maze of half-standing passageways and obscure chambers, using various ancient and mostly functional mechanisms to open passages forward and close gaps alongside a glowing golem that she unearths when she first enters it.
- Jak II: Renegade: Mar's Tomb features lots of poisonous spiders, a giant spider, spiked platforms, pools of dark eco, and platforms that fall into bottomless pits if you step on them in the wrong order. In-universe, its deathtrap nature is because it was designed as a test for the heir of Mar.
- Jumping Flash!: Stages 2 and 3 of World/Extra 2 in JF!1 take place inside a pyramid that Robbit needs to navigate, with the third stage being a boss fight against a giant scorpion in its shrine.
- Kirby:
- Kirby & The Amazing Mirror: Radish Ruins, the eighth area of the Mirror World, is a vast complex of ruins in the middle of a jungle that Kirby explores at dusk.
- Kirby: Triple Deluxe: After an initial Jungle Japes section, the later parts of Wild World take place in golden temples filled with traps, treasure chests, and giant snake idols. One of them is revived by Taranza to become the level's boss, Coily Rattler.
- Kirby's Halloween Adventure: Stage 3 of Terror Tower shows an active pyramid temple on the tower's upper floors, with respawning homing Mumbies ready to ambush any careless players.
- Looney Tunes: Speedy and Bugs' stages both take place in ancient temples filled with enemies and traps.
- Mega Man (Classic):
- Mega Man 4: Pharaoh Man's stage is a pyramid surrounded by desert, with mummy and bat robots along the underground path leading to the boss arena.
- Mega Man 8: Sword Man's stage is a Cambodian temple-like arena featuring lava cavern.
- Monster Party: Round 4 is set in an Egyptian tomb, filled with scorpions, sculptures of Anubis, hieroglyphs, etc. What it doesn't have are the game's two Egyptian-themed bosses, who appear in other levels.
- Monsters, Inc.: Scream Team: The Tomb level's interior can only be unlocked after Mike or Sulley places the three moon-marked blocks into their corresponding luminous sports near the entrance. Once inside, they have to climb tall walls, jump across ancient seesaws and pass through periodically-lit torches.
- Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame: Levels 10-13 are set in a temple, which actually contains most of the Mooks in the game. Levels 6-9 are in a the ruins of a palace, now inhabited by snakes and flying heads.
- ''Something series:
- Oldschool Temple. The graphics come from the Pyramid Levels in Super Mario Bros. 2 and the Labyrinth Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 1. The music is a remix of Marble Garden Zone Act 1 from Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The level is filled with Rexes, Charging Chucks, and large pits in the first half and Thwomps and spikes in the second half.
- Puzzle Itemple in Something Else. To complete this optional level, Luigi has to solve the puzzles, which requires proper use of the springboards and P-Switches.
- Snowy Fuzzy Temple in Something Else. It's in the brutal bonus world because Luigi has to deal with ice physics, the obstacles, enemies and the giant FOE.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic the Hedgehog 1:
- Marble Zone is set inside a large underground dungeon filled with Lava Pits and beds of spikes.
- Labyrinth Zone and Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 are partly underwater mazes set in what appears to be an ancient ruin. It's yellowish-gold with green vines and blue water in the main Labyrinth, but Scrap Brain turns the water and vines purple and the scenery white.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Aquatic Ruin Zone is an ancient ruin which is also half-buried in water, making it part Under the Sea as well.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble 16-Bit: Early into Meta Junglira Act 2, Fang drops Sonic and Tails into a large temple filled with robotic snakes, arrow traps, and flipping platforms.
- Sonic 3D in 2D: Rusty Ruins Zone is an abandoned ancient ruin with green vines and grass taking over. Its traps are still perfectly functional, though.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 1:
- Super Kiwi 64: The fifth and sixth levels are set within ancient ruins filled with traps and obstacles like green boulders, swinging axes, purple-colored flames, and pools of toxic liquid. And in the sixth level, some of the gems are encased within sarcophagi that have to be opened by pressing switches.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario 64: At the center of Shifting Sand Land is a pyramid holding an obstacle course of mummy-wrapped Thwomps, bottomless pits, and rolling stone cylinders. The area boss is Eyerok, a giant pair of animated stone hands who don't take kindly to intruders.
- Super Mario Galaxy 2: The Clockwork Ruins Galaxy consists of giant stone blocks forming its planets, decorated with carvings and dotted with a variety of traps such as blocks of stone that try to push Mario into the void and rolling millstones that must be carefully navigated to progress.
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder: North of the Sunbaked Desert is an enormous palatial city which features levels themed around regal, ancient buildings. One of them is Color Switch Dungeon, where Mario and his friends have to deal with puzzles and hazards built upon toggleable contraptions like blocks and conveyor belts, and its Wonder Flower's effect summons an Evil Counterpart of the leading character. There's also the levels Secrets of the Shova Mansion (also located in the aforementioned palace), where the characters have to move large crates to enter (or even rebuild) doors.
- Super Mario Fusion Revival: In World 2-S3: Parthenon Peril, the Rebel Army has taken control of the Parthenon and its underground labyrinthine maze. Rumor has it a beast named "Tryclydius Maximus" was seen somewhere in the catacombs...
- Wario Land:
- Wario Land 4 has the entirety of the Golden Pyramid. It acts more as a level hub than a true location in itself — 16 of the 18 levels are accessed via portals leading out of the place — but the entry and golden passage levels are still within.
- Wario: Master of Disguise has the fifth and sixth chapters. The former is set in a pyramid where Wario is looking for one of the Wishstones, and has to tackle assets like invisible platforms (which can be seen with the Genius powerup) and torches that open doors and activate ladders; when Wario defeats the boss, the latter confesses that the Wishstone isn't there but in the Ancient Waterworks (Chapter 6), a temple in ruins located in a waterlogged jungle.
- Yo! Noid 2: Enter the Void: The Domino Dungeon is filled with archaic architecture, desert-level-inspired music, Lock and Key Puzzles, and devious traps.
- Zapper: Canopy Heightst is an outdoor, vaguely Mayincatec ruin with crumbling pillars and rotting wood as platforms and pressure plate tiles rigged to fire giant darts.
Racing Games
- Mario Kart:
- Mario Kart 7: DK Jungle features a brief trip through the Golden Temple from Donkey Kong Country Returns. 8 takes the track a bit further, as the track inside the Golden Temple is sloped, bordered by torches, and turned into an anti-gravity section.
- Mario Kart 8: Thwomp Ruins takes place within a winding set of ancient ruins populated by giant stone Thwomps that try to crush anyone who passes underneath them.
- Mario Kart:
Roguelikes
- Sunless Sea: The Vault of the First Emperor was built by monkeys who attempted to imitate this trope as seen in human culture, and as such is something of a Deconstructive Parody of this sort of level:
- The Adventurer Archaeologist who accompanies you is a selfish Glory Seeker suffering from Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
- The Snake Pit was built with no means of ensuring that the snakes would be fed.
- The Towers of Hanoi lock on one door is immediately remarked upon as an overused and easy to solve Stock Puzzle... were it not for the fact that it uses fifteen discs, requiring 32,767 moves to solve. And if you actually manage to click 32,767 times (either by save-editing or manually, including an option to reset the puzzle when you're about seven thousand clicks in to thwart autoclickers), the mechanism makes a noise, resets... and the door stays closed.
Role-Playing Games
- AereA: One of the stages, the Temple Ruins, crawling with serpentine monsters and hostile kobolds. You'll need to search through it's maze-like interior for one of the Primordial Instruments.
- Albion has the Drinno, the abandoned section of the Druid School. There's also Khamulon that is built on this theme, but it's actually a city.
- Avowed: Each region has at least one set of Godless Ruins where major events (and some sidequests) take place. While they've been studied by scholars dating back to the Living Lands becoming accessible, many parts of them only opened up when the Envoy arrived and caused Sapadal to awaken in their prison.
- Barony: The Jungle Temple. If the multiple deadly traps don't get you, the goblins will do their best to. If you reach the end, you'll be rewarded with the Green Orb.
- Block Tales: The Ancient Tomb and the Temple of the Red Sun from Chapter 4 are full of traps, puzzles, and hieroglyphs that depict possible events from their respective civilizations' stories.
- Bug Fables: The Ancient Castle, a giant sandcastle in the Lost Sands, is an ancient structure left behind by the bygone Roach civilization that the main characters need to traverse to find one of the ancient artefacts that serve as the game's Plot Coupons. Its local enemies consist of a number of robotic constructs left behind to guard the complex, alongside some desert scorpions, and the area culminates in a boss fight against an undead guardian watching over the artefact.
- Curse of the Dead Gods features not one, but three of them: Ty'atanwic, the Jaguar Temple, dedicated to the Jaguar God T'amok', Hucawic, the Eagle Temple, the abode of Yaatz the Eagle Goddess, and Chucwic, the Serpent Temple, dedicated to Sich'al the Serpent Goddess. Each of them comes with their own variety of deadly traps and enemies.
- Dark Souls: Sen's Fortress, full of swinging axe blades, arrow traps, and the classic rolling rock of doom.
- Demon's Souls: The Shrine of Storms fits this trope to a T, especially the second stage. Deadly falls everywhere, explosive spheres of energy, arrow traps when you least expect them, enemies positioned in such a way that you can't see them until it is too late and invisible enemies that ambush you and are more than happy to backstab you when you are busy dealing with other enemies. Also, did we mention the place is pitch dark in some places?
- Diablo:
- The original Diablo is a series of Basements of Doom beneath the Tristram Cathedral.
- Diablo II has lots of them, naturally. There's the various Tombs of Tal Rasha; the temples under the Flayer Jungle, large parts of Kurast...
- Diablo III continues the tradition of trap and monster-filled desert and jungle tombs.
- The first story arc of Act I takes place in the same Cathedral as the first game and later in the act the player visits a sacred Nephalem temple.
- In Adventure Mode the player can visit the Temple of the Firstborn, where angels and demons first birthed the Nephalem. It's been overrun by an evil cult led by the demonic Lord of Envy.
- Dragon Age: Origins has a few, one being a stronghold built to protect the Urn of Sacred Ashes, and one being a not-fully-explained Tevinter ruin in the depths of the Brecilian Forest that changed hands a few times long before the players arrived. Both share the same tileset, but have very different arrays of enemies inside.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: Vvardenfell's plentiful Daedric ruins primarily fill this role. Once upon a time, they were used by the ancient Daedric-worshipping Chimer. However, after the Tribunal Temple formed and banned Daedra worship, they became prime real estate for cultists, bandits, necromancers, and any other hostile outlaws.
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Ayleid ruins manifest as a combination of this trope and Advanced Ancient Acropolis.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: The Dragonborn can explore various ancient Nord barrows, filled with booby traps and mummified tomb guardians. The Dwemer ruins also have a temple-like design, complete with several contraptions and setups that have to be dealt with during exploration.
- Etrian Odyssey:
- Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight: Ginnungagap is an ancient temple located not too far from High Lagaard, and is visited by the player's character party in order to help Arianna perform a centennial ritual. Due to a grave incident that occured 100 years ago during the then-last ritual, now remembered as the Anomaly, it has been abandoned by humans, and turned into a perfect habitat for dangerous monsters, including powerful bosses like Basilisk and Demi-Fafnir.
- Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City has the fourth stratum, Abyssal Shrine. It's a dark, mysterious labyrinth that was originally part of the city of Armoroad, but has since been sunken in the ocean. As the player's characters venture through it, they'll find doors that will be open for access; but if they're crossed through in the direction they're facing, they will close and it won't be possible to turn back. The stratum is home of a sapient, yet hostile species known as the Deep Ones.
- Etrian Odyssey Nexus: There are four Shrines built in the floating islands of Lemuria, surrounding this land's Yggdrasil. They were built to keep the monster Jörmungandr sealed, as it would bring doomsday to the world if it were released. The Eastern Shrine merely introduces the temple archetype to the game, as it has only one floor and has no gimmicks or even F.O.E. on its own, serving as a Noob Cave. But each subsequent Shrine, on top of having five floors, adds a new concept: climbable walls in the Southern Shrine, boulder-like F.O.E. that can be pushed (up to twice, as a third push would awaken the monster and chase the player's party) for puzzle solving in the Western Shrine, and floating rafts that can take explorers from one spot to the other in the Northern Shrine. They're also overrun by all sorts of F.O.E. and deadly enemies, becoming even more dangerous as a result. It is revealed by the game's Big Bad, that in their efforts to conquer these strata, the player's characters have contributed to the seal's weakening. Completing all four Shrines unlocks the final dungeon, the Yggdrasil Labyrinth itself; this dungeon features hovering rafts like those of Northern Shrine, but these drag two wagons attached to them and which make their management trickier (as they impede someone from backtracking directly to their previous spot); there are also pressure plates that raise or lower each time they're stepped on. Lastly, the Abyssal Shrine (not to be confused with the one from The Drowned City) serves as the Bonus Dungeon, and not only brings back the boulder concept from Western Shrine (though with a stronger version of the F.O.E.) but is also there where the True Final Boss awaits.
- Expeditions: Conquistador has "the Temple of Death" in the Mexico part of the game, which is filled with Indiana Jones style deathtraps, such as a Fed to the Beast scenario, a Snake Pit, and the classical Raiders of the Lost Ark room with retracting tiles on the floor and poisonous darts, which can end up doing do a really nasty number on the expedition party, but the player will get richly rewarded if they can make it through.
- Fallout 2 begins with a Temple of Doom called the "Temple of Trials". There's no justification for it in game or real world history, but it's so Doomy that surviving instantly makes you The Chosen One, even though one of your tribesmen are waiting for you inside. Fans hate it as it forces you to run around in a temple killing overgrown ants with a spear at best and heal with medicine that makes it harder to hit and then fight a fellow tribesman with only your fists, all the while using a character who will most likely not built for such a dungeon. You can talk him out of a fight if your speech is good enough (~30-40% should be good enough) but if not well...
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy VII: The Temple of the Ancients. In Final Fantasy VII Rebirth it's even more of a death trap than its original incarnation due to the various mechanisms, labyrinth guardians, and violent Lifestream currents impeding the party's path. The Shinra troops fare much worse there with many of them losing their lives to either the player or the temple's hazardous environment.
- Final Fantasy VIII has Centra Ruins and Tomb of the Unknown King, the latter being less spooky, but a frustrating deadly maze.
- Final Fantasy IX: Ipsen's Castle is never directly referred to as a "temple", but it serves similar purposes and has traps galore.
- Final Fantasy X has three lost temples, each with a sidequest that unlocks an Aeon.
- Final Fantasy XII: While conspicuously light on the booby-traps, there's the Tomb of Raithwall, complete with That One Boss, an Optional Boss, and lots upon lots of undead things crawling around. Also the Stilshrine of Miriam, an abandoned temple loaded with deadly enemies, puzzles, and traps. And Giruvegan. And the Pharos at Ridorana. And the Sochen Cave Palace. It makes you wonder why modern civilization bothered to build anything, since there's probably enough hidden temples and lost cities to house a nation.
- Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade: Most of the legendary weapons used during the Scouring are kept in secluded temples or ruins, rigged with booby traps or natural hazards. After obtaining Apocalypse, Roy suspects that there is a hidden meaning behind these traps beyond gating them off from the unworthy.
- Durandal is held in an active volcano cave and features lava geysers that erupt underneath those unfortunate to stop on them.
- The cave containing Armads has cavities that spew poisonous gas. Treasure chests are strategically placed in the way of these cavities to harm those trying to open them.
- Forblaze is hidden in a water temple complex beneath Arcadia. Platforms raise or lower on an interval basis, causing non-fliers and pirates to be stranded until they're rescued, or they can wait the platforms to resurface in a few turns.
- Aureola is located at the top of the Tower of the Saint. Heavenly arrows may descend and strike those dare to scale the tower.
- Mulagir averts this as the bow is hidden in the ruins on the vast green plains of Sacae, with the only "traps" being greeted by ambush parties for seizing the wrong hut.
- The shrine containing Maltet is protected by multiple layers of walls, but is otherwise harmless aside from the presence of enemy troops. How Bern soldiers managed to get trapped inside these walls are left unexplained.
- The basement of the Shrine of Seals is where the Apocalypse tome is stashed, and it features spear traps, mine traps, and dragons hiding in treasure chests.
- Forum Fantasy: The Deadly Pyramid features a few traps and the blood diamond you need to access Castle Krazier and is guarded by a Thread Necrolord at the top floor.
- Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer: The simply named 'Abandoned Temple' is this to a Snote , Mayincatec style included. Apparently once built by a gone serpentine race, they created snakemen servants and traps that could be activated in case of danger, lost control over the snakemen, activated the traps and found that somehow the correct sequence to getting through unscathed had been altered.
- Minecraft Dungeons: The Desert Temple is a sandy ruin left behind by an "ancient, nameless kingdom", filled with all kinds of traps and undead mobs, culminating in a boss fight against a skeletal necromancer.
- Mother:
- EarthBound Beginnings: The ruins in the Yucca Desert. They're guarded by an enormous robot that can only be defeated using a tank. The ruins were first built about one thousand years before the game's events, and were destroyed for unknown reasons.
- EarthBound (1994): The Pyramid in the Scaraba Desert, where the characters go to pilfer the Hawk Eye gem, is a small network of staircases and burial chambers with secret passages accessed through pressure chamber puzzles. It's full of spiders, animated hieroglyphs, mummies, and living statues who, of course, will attack any interloper in their resting place.
- Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire: The Engwithan temple on Poko Kahara, actually an Engwithan waystation for souls on their way back to the Wheel — three levels of traps, tombs, and treasure populated by undead monsters, ancient constructs, and giant bugs. The Temples of Decline and Revelation in The Beast of Winter and The Forgotten Sanctum respectively would also count, although they're not quite as intricately trapped.
- Pokémon: Ancient ruins and buried temples are a common location in the games, and are typically used as places where the player is set to come across ancient setting lore. Early games tend to have only smaller chambers used to deliver exposition and provide a rare Pokémon encounter or two, but later entries use larger and more complex ruins. As a general rule, these areas tend to be home to Ghost-types, Pokémon based on living artifacts, and Unown, bizarre Psychic-types based on living alphabet glyphs, and are often associated with sealed or slumbering Legendary or otherwise unique Pokémon.
- Pokémon Gold and Silver: The Ruins of Alph are a small set of buried chambers that contain puzzles which you can solve, but, once you do, the floor drops out from under you and Unown attack you with mystical power. The remakes have that, plus the Sinjoh Ruins, that you access from the Ruins of Alph by having Arceus as your lead Pokemon. No traps or danger there, though, just a big Mind Screw event.
- Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire: Ruin areas in these games count the Mirage Tower, a small area in Emerald that holds the region's fossils; the Sky Pillar, a tall ruined tower teeming with bats, ghosts, and animated statues that the player climbs to find the legendary sky dragon Rayquaza; and the hidden chambers which house Regirock, Regice, and Registeel.
- Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen: The Tanoby Ruins on Seven Island function, again, only to give you encounters with Unown after completing a puzzle.
- Pokémon Diamond and Pearl:
- Solaceon Ruins is an almost exact duplicate of the Ruins of Alph, lacking only the sliding panel puzzles.
- Snowpoint Temple is a post-game area consisting of a set of frozen underground ruins in Sinnoh's north, which require the player to solve a number of sliding-block puzzles to navigate. Reaching the end reveals the legendary Pokémon Regigigas, a huge construct-like being that has slumbered in the ruins for time out of mind.
- Pokémon Black and White:
- Relic Castle is the ruins of the ancient city of the kings of Unova, now buried beneath the region's central desert. It's a labyrinthine set of chambers and passages filled with quicksand patches that can suck the player deeper in, with deeper parts becoming accessible as the game progresses due to Team Plasma's excavations. It's home to a combination of desert animals, the restless spirits of its ancient builders, and animated clay statues; Volcarona, a fiery mothlike creature once worshipped as a solar deity, also lurks at its very bottom. By the time of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, most of it has become filled with sand once more; the lowest area can only be accessed by taking a detour using a different underground passage.
- Dragonspiral Tower is a tall ruined spire rising from a lake deep in Unova's northern forests. Its interior is a maze of spiral staircases, platforms, and fallen pillars home to the haunted golems Golett and Golurk and to the gargoyle-like dragon Druddigon, while its lake is home to the water dragons Dratini and Dragonair. At its top, the player encounters the legendary dragon Reshiram or Zekrom, depending on the game version, which was sealed there in the ancient past.
- Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia: Hippowdon Temple is home to a variety of traps and tribulations: cannons that shoot mud balls, spring-loaded leaves that propel you over walls, disappearing and reappearing platforms, and arrow panels that force you along a certain path when you step on them — among other things.
- Pokémon fan games and ROM hacks:
- Pokémon Crystal Legacy: The Ruins of Alph. Completing the sliding puzzles drops the floor out from under the player and they fall into a strange room full of only the mysterious Unown, which appears in 26 different forms. Crystal Legacy expanded on this area by adding extra treasure in the form of the three Kanto fossils and the GS Ball to summon Celebi after the 7th gym after completing each of the puzzles.
- Pokémon Unbound: The Tomb of Borrius. It is said that the ruins are the final resting place of King Borrius III. However, only the entrance is accessible before the end of the main story. During the postgame, the player can plumb its depths, where they can encounter the legendary clockwork creature Magearna at its deepest point. It is also where the player can obtain Relic items, and should they collect all of them within the tomb they can complete a mission with an egg containing a Larvesta as a reward.
- Ravensword: Shadowlands: The Citadel of Ror-Dan is a snake-themed temple in the middle of a monster-infested jungle, filled with hostile skeletons and various traps, some of which can only be circumvented with the use of the Rune of Winds.
- Shining the Holy Ark has three. South Shrine which is part Shifting Sand Land with weird corridors that turn you upside-down. West Shrine which is one big puzzle to get a door to open and East Shrine; which is overgrown with giant ancient trees.
- Suikoden V: The Ceras Lake Ruins. Ask not "why give a sluice control for a dam a complex three-layered lock that can only be unlocked by three buttons on the far sides of a labyrinth, a door controlled by a one-of-a-kind magic rune and fill it with Magitek robot guardians?", because the game certainly isn't going to tell you.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: Belome Temple is a large underground complex beneath the desert of Land's End, seemingly built to honor the monster Belome, and inhabited by mercenary Shamans and giant lizards.
- Paper Mario:
- Paper Mario 64: Dry Dry Ruins, the ruined former capital of the Dry Dry Kingdom, lie buried beneath the Dry Dry Desert. Mario and his team enter them in Chapter 2, where they need to solve a number of obstacles and puzzles to progress — first opening a series of locked doors using hidden keys, then aligning rotating stone stairways, and finally finding three colored stones and placing them on correct pedestals; Goombario notes how these mechanisms are both surprisingly advanced and well-preserved. Enemies here are bats, mummified Pokeys that jump out of sarcophagi, and cracked stone Chain Chomps that attack when Mario takes treasures from the ruins; the boss battle at the end of the whole process is against Tutankoopa, a Magikoopa in pharaoh garb styling himself as the "remorseless king of the desert".
- Super Paper Mario: The Yold Ruins are a vast, ancient ruined complex deep within the Yold Desert. They're filled with obstacles and traps, including quicksand pits, rotating bars of fire, and rolling balls of spiked stone.
- Paper Mario: The Origami King: The Vellumentals' temples and the Sea Tower are a series of mazelike dungeons that Mario must navigate to find and battle the elemental spirit resting at its deepest point, and will hamper his progress with complex puzzles, pits filled with sharp spikes or burning lava, and a variety of ancient but perfectly functional stone deathtraps — including, of course, the classic giant rolling ball. The Temple of Shrooms is a pyramidial temple buried in the sands of the Scorching Sandpaper Desert; it lacks much in the way of traps, and instead a mazelike complex filled with skeletons, ghosts, and giant spiders.
- Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga: The Guffawha Ruins are a deserted structure at the foot of Hoohoo Mountain, where Luigi heads to find a cure for Mario's fever. Inside he needs to fight spear-wielding tribal Shy Guys, navigate a variety of puzzles, and play a fireball-dodging minigame against an angry living moai.
- Tales of Symphonia has eight Temples Of Doom, one for each element, where you find the summon spirits.
- Wild ARMs: The games are full of these, often just lying around inexplicably, often with fiendish traps that just happen to be able to be bypassed using one of the tools the party has picked up along the way.
Sandboxes
- Don't Starve: The adventure-styled Hamlet DLC features ancient pig ruins buried in the jungle, which can be looted for gems, gold, and ancient relics but which are also inhabited by scorpions, venomous snakes, and monstrous bats.
- Dwarf Fortress: The 2012 update added elaborate burial tombs where sentient creatures born and died during world generation will be interred, which can be explored by the player in Adventure Mode. These consist of networks of tunnels and rooms leading to a treasure room and central chamber where the figure that the tomb was built for is interred, with weapon traps hidden in the floors. Successfully navigating these can reward tomb robbers with finely crafted grave goods of various sorts, but excessive disturbances can see the deceased notable rising as a vengeful mummy.
- Enshrouded: The Sun Temples in the Kindlewastes are like this, forcing the player to navigate puzzles and booby traps if they want to get to the treasure at the end.
- Minecraft has three types of doom temples.
- Desert temples are pyramids in desert regions with hidden basements containing treasure chests. The treasure room is hidden under a conspicuously colored block positioned directly over the trigger for a TNT trap.
- Jungle temples contain treasures hidden behind a puzzle system. There are no TNT traps; instead, the hallways have tripwires connected to arrow dispensers, which will shoot anyone who doesn't disarm them first.
- Ocean temples are massive complexes only found in deep ocean regions. Their treasure rooms contain several blocks of gold and there are no traps. Instead, the danger comes from the Guardians and from drowning in the completely flooded buildings.
- Terraria:
- The Dungeon is a huge, labyrinthine underground palace haunted by undead warriors, necromancers, and warlocks, an evil cult, and an assortment of deadly traps such as beds of spikes, fallaway floors, swinging balls-and-chains, and spinning wheels of fire.
- The Jungle Temple is a large brick structure buried in the lower areas of the Underground Jungle, populated by a tribe of hostile Lizard Men, flying snakes, and a giant Mayincatec Golem boss.
Shooters
- AMID EVIL has the Sacred Path, an abandoned pilgrim's path through another ruin on the same world as the Gateway of the Ancients. It's full of hostile statuary, plant monsters, and floors covered in burning coals. The secret level is an obstacle course through a third ruin ending on an Easter Egg.
- Deadfall Adventures has three (of a reputed seven), each featuring several means of being chopped up, crushed, impaled or roasted. Oh, and mummies. Lots of mummies.
- Gaiares: The second half of the third stage, complete with Spike Balls of Doom, spear traps, crushing walls, fire-spitting statue heads and even guillotines. Unsurprisingly, the boss is The Grim Reaper.
- Jet Force Gemini: Mizar's Palace is a huge, complex facility whose architecture and aesthetics are inspired by those of Ancient Egypt, even having the shape of a gigantic pyramid (though Mizar's ship, also shaped like a pyramid, turns out to be a Futuristic Pyramid). It is filled to the brim with enemies like Drones and Airborne Squadrons, and features traps and hazards like a large pool of lava that only Juno can safely walk through, a labyrinth, a Blackout Basement that requires Night-Vision Goggles, a complex Down the Drain network only Vela can swim through, and a huge chasm only Lupus can cross. Interestingly, it also has a hidden area where Drones participate in a Racing Minigame (in which Juno or Vela can also participate by disguising as a Drone).
- Paladins has many temple/jungle-themed maps, such as Frog Isle, Jaguar Falls, and Serpent Beach for Siege mode, Hidden Temple for Payload mode, and Primal Court for Onslaught mode. In early development there was a large map called Temple Isle, but it was reworked and divided into Frog Isle, Jaguar Falls, and Serpent Beach.
Simulation Games
- MySims Agents: The final level is an Indiana Jones-esque jungle temple filled with booby traps and caricatured Central American architecture.
Stealth-Based Games
- Hitman 2: One such area can be found in the caves under the village, complete with a Booby Trap in the form of a tile maze where stepping on a wrong tile will unleash a flurry of arrows from the carvings on the walls. Successfully accessing the area and retrieving the ceremonial dagger at the far end will complete the "Secret Tunnel" challenge and grant the "It Belongs in a Museum" achievement on Steam.
Survival Horror
- Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem features two: an ancient temple in the Angkor Thom region of Cambodia, that is home to Mantorok (as well as all kinds of traps), and the Forbidden City, which is home to the essences of the Ancients at the start of the game (though not quite as trap-filled as the former).
- Resident Evil 5: Chapter 4 mostly takes place in a Temple of Doom. It uses an ancient African ruined city as a setting. It has a few traps, some more ridiculous than others.
Web Games
- Board Game Online: The Deadly Pyramid, should you be foolish enough to enter it, is filled with different traps and creatures trying to kill you, and making it through it all is a Luck-Based Mission. To top it all off, if you end up dying, any items or buffs that would prevent your death are disabled. At least you get a cool whip if you come back to it enough times.
Other
- Dread X Collection:
- Carthanc puts the player in the shoes of an Adventure Archaeologist traversing the ruins of a long-dead civilization, filled with indecipherable hieroglyphics, barely lit rooms and corridors, death traps, and undead monsters chasing you.
- Undiscovered follows a married pair of archaeologists who have decided to visit and record the recently discovered place of a long-dead ruler. It seems like a fairly standard ruin at first and then eyes start growing out of the walls and the skeltons of undead Spanish conquistadors start chasing them...
- WarioWare: D.I.Y.: In Mona's chapter, she ventures through a tall temple in search for treasure. The microgames you play along the way represents the obstacles and dangers she overcomes while inside the temple.
Non-Video Game Examples
Comic Books
- Classic Carl Barks stories with Donald Duck and his relatives usually featured this as a plot device. There are also two scenes which Indiana Jones copied from such stories, which both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg proudly admitted. The one is the introduction idol and boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was taken from the Seven Cities of Cibola and the other is the water bursting through the tunnel to the canyon side, near the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. This wasn't an actual trap of the temple, in the movie, but it was in the original comic, The Prize of Pizarro, which also contained some other traps used throughout the Indiana Jones films. After Barks, other writers would too feature such temples and ruins.
Fan Works
- The Land of Dragons and Dungeons: The temples of the Page of Hope are built like this as a matter of religious doctrine. The Page is the patron of adventurers, heroics, and derring-do, which means that his sacred places are mazes of winding tunnels, dead ends, and secret passages filled with elaborate and deadly traps that conceal the treasures of his church and worshippers… but these traps are also built so as to have potential, if not easy or obvious, ways to deactivate or get around them, too keep the spirit of the challenge. The whole thing is built explicitly with an eye for the future, when treasure hunters yet unborn will plumb its depths for glory and wealth.
This Temple was built in the spirit of adventure. You weren't even raised in this religion, you don't know these alien gods, but you understand. A Temple to the Page isn't complete while it's in use. It only becomes whole when it's begun to crumble.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Cynthia often explored these, even when she was as young as ten.
- With Strings Attached: The Twisted Temple, home to several dozen death-touch-dealing Brothers of Doom. Essentially impregnable by normal means, it is rendered completely innocuous by Ringo, who, from a safe distance, telekinetically removes each Brother and drops him in a giant ice box made by John.
Films — Animation
- BIONICLE: Mask of Light: Takua, the Chronicler, decides to visit the Ta-Koro volcanic shrine to inspect an ancient totem. Him picking it up activates a pressure plate that causes an earthquake.
Films — Live-Action
- Avengers: Endgame subverts the trope: When Rhodey and Nebula go to get the power stone on Morag, Nebula opens the vault where the Orb is located. As she is about to enter, Rhodey stops her, mentioning this trope and his certainty about booby traps in such place. Nebula looks at him like he's crazy and simply walk into the main room. Rhodey is surprised when nothing happens.
- Indiana Jones has the trope namer, as well as the ancient idol resting place from the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the temple of the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and the eponymous Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Played straight with the temple originally hosting the Triangle of Light, with all the six-thousand-years-old mechanisms (and traps) still in working condition, if only a bit dusty. Averted in the sequel however, where the Luna Temple is only hazardous because an aftershock from the earthquake that uncovered it hits while Lara is inside.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022): The film's resident Macguffin for the franchise the Master Emerald, is located in one of these, with plenty of booby traps. Robotnik and Knuckles are able to outrun most of the traps before the former eventually develops a safe way to navigate as well as a Dungeon Bypass. As for Sonic himself, he is also able to do the same, setting off traps too fast for them to catch him, though he does eventually does a Dungeon Bypass as well, arriving at the treasure chamber at the same time as the former two.
Gamebooks
- Fighting Fantasy: Some gamebooks featured such a place. Actually, one of the books is titled Temple of Terror.
Literature
- One holds The Bands of Mourning, hidden deep within the mountains and containing a long, trap-ridden hallway with the corpses of the last explorers piled within the first fifteen feet. The lore states that it was built by a God-King centuries ago to keep the Bands safe when he returns. Wax and Allik have a discussion on why it's set up like this; Wax wonders why the Bands are "hidden" in a large temple when a cave would be more discreet, and Allik says that's why some people think the Sovereign made the Bands as a test. Wax asks why the Sovereign would leave such spectacularly lethal traps and risk dying himself, and Allik claims that traps wouldn't affect him. The answers? The Bands aren't inside the temple at all. The whole temple is a huge decoy for the real location: the "Bands" are the spearhead on the statue at the temple's entrance. The prominent temple ensures that the Sovereign won't lose track of it, and the lethal traps won't touch him because he's not going near them. Whether it was a test or not is up in the air.
- The Barbarian and the Sorceress: Barnabus and his slave Kira are living in a long lost temple to an Eldritch Abomination in the middle of a desolate wasteland.
- Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard: Common in the stories. The problem in "The Devil in Iron" kicked off when a fisherman disturbed a body of a Necromancer; "Black Colussus" opens with a thief raiding a ruined city.
- Reaper Man: Deconstructed. The temple of doom is staffed by a pair of bored priests. About the only excitement they get is listening to interlopers get killed by the deathtraps. There's even a little thermometer fundraising poster on the wall for the Temple of Doom Roof Repair Fund.
- Temple. An ancient South American temple buried in a giant pillar of rock, full of demonic cat monsters. And treasure, obviously.
- The Temple, by H. P. Lovecraft, takes place within a strange ancient temple isolated by thick jungle near the Yucatán peninsula. Another story, "The Nameless City" takes place in an abandoned city lost in time and the great deserts of the Arabian peninsula, with Lizard Folk inhabitants. Lovecraft extends this ancient lost temple/city motif to the bottom of the sea with The Call of Cthulhu; the short story which is the Trope Namers for the CthulhuMythos and the Cosmic Horror Story.
Live-Action TV
- Legends of the Hidden Temple: The Temple itself is what makes the show and it is home to scary Temple Guards and locked down with booby traps. One cannot count how many entered the Shrine of the Silver Monkey and never returned.
- Lost: The Others are mentioned as having a temple of some kind in the third season finale. In typical Lost fashion, it isn't seen until the sixth season premiere. It is guarded by a large stone wall, a tunnel system, and various other weapons, and contains a healing pool of some sort. The Temple's exact significance is unknown.
- Murdoch Mysteries: The title edifice in "Murdoch and the Temple of Death", which is a booby-trap-filled duplicate of the Hagia Sophia built in the Canadian woods to hide the Holy Grail.
Mythology and Religion
- Fittingly, Mayan Religion has one in the form of Xibalbá, an underworld city inhabited by sinister deities and protected by monsters and booby-traps.
Roleplay
- Destroy the Godmodder 2: The temples of the ancestral artifacts are straight-up examples, although the godmodder bypasses the traps by teleporting in.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: One of the traditional settings for a dungeon crawl is labyrinthine crypt or buried ruin filled with angry undead, hostile guardian constructs, deadly and elaborate traps at every turn, and lots of treasure; the other main option is a wizard's basements, dungeons, and/or tower filled with bizarre monsters and also lots of traps. Don't get old-school gamers started on the Tomb of Horrors and The Temple of Elemental Evil, both of which might as well have been called the Tomb of Doom and the The Temple of Elemental Doom. Dungeons & Dragons' frequent use of this trope is one of the main inspirations for its prevalence in video games, especially role-playing games, as the early RPG boom of the 80s and 90s was heavily inspired by D&D.
- Exalted has more than a few of these, but one stand-out example is the city of Denandsor. Buried in the jungles of the Scavenger Lands, it's full of the treasures and wonders of the First Age, as well as the means of production to make more. So why hasn't anyone claimed it yet? Well, when the Great Contagion hit, the guy in charge of the city (who didn't fully understand how it worked) turned on every defense at once in the vague hope that it'd do something. As a result, not only is it full of giant automatons that will stomp any intruders, but it's also cloaked in a field that instills horrible dread in whoever enters the city walls. If people survive getting into the city, they usually don't stay for long.
- Warhammer 40,000 has some of these. In general, they tend to contain Things Man Was Not Meant To Find. This is part of the hat of the Necrons in particular, though their architecture is a metallic version. Imperial scholars have been studying some of the surface bits of them for generations, but it is only in recent history that the Stasis Tombs have begun to "wake up", their Inter-spacial Gates opening with a Sickly Green Glow, and legions of metal skeletons animate and begin their terrible work. Considered actual temples by the Adeptus Mechanicus, who think the metallic Necrons are the servants of their god (they may be right). The result being that they open a tomb, enthusiastically start running around poking things, and are surprised when they get slaughtered by the now-awoken Necrons, who go on to attack other systems.
Theme Parks
- Disney Theme Parks:
- The Great Movie Ride: The Indiana Jones sequence is (fittingly) set inside one.
- The setting of both versions of Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. The rides have a deity — Tokyo has the crystal skull, although its bears no relation to the movie and its interior reflects the second film's in some areas. Disneyland has one similar to Kali Ma's. However, the interior and the traps reflect those of the first and third movies.
Websites
- The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Clichés: "An ancient temple full of traps" is mentioned as one of the compulsory locations in an RPG video game adventure.
Web Videos
- JourneyQuest contains the Temple of All Dooms as a storage for the Sword of Fighting. It seems to follow the trope, though it's weak to both Cutting the Knot and Dungeon Bypass.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: "The Firebending Masters": The temple, with killer spikes, a secretly-cached MacGuffin, and a room that fills full of killer glue. It also has a justification for the fact that everything's still working: the ancient civilization that built it is not actually extinct, and they follow a strict policy of isolationism to keep it that way — hence all the booby traps.
- Ben 10: The Tennysons race against the Forever Knights in retrieving an ancient sword in a Mayan temple, filled with booby traps, and guarded by a Mayan Death God.
- Codename: Kids Next Door: In search of candy and other sweet treats, Numbuh Five explores her fair share of these.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "Remy Rides Again", the final item on Timmy and Remy's scavenger hunt list is the "Treasure of the Peruvian Pyramid". Said pyramid is a typical Mayincatec-style trap-filled gauntlet, to the extent that Timmy realises Remy didn't steal the real treasure because lifting it from its pedestal didn't trigger any booby traps.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The ancient ruins Daring Do explores in "Read It and Weep" and "Daring Don't" are filled with gauntlets of deadly traps, and the former were apparently built on top of an active lava flow that can also be utilized as a trap. Justified since she's an expy of Indiana Jones.
- The Owl House: The distant island temple where King was left by his dad is heavily booby trapped—not to mention, protected by a Rock Monster.
- Star Wars Resistance: In "The Relic Raiders", Kaz, Eila and Kel discover an ancient Sith temple long-buried underground that's absolutely full of booby traps and very easy to get lost in.
- A Thousand and One... Americas: In the seventh episode, Chris, his pet dog Lon and a friendly priest enter a pyramidal temple to look for clues that might help them discover who stole the sacred Pakal mask and/or where it was taken to. Soon they discover that going within is far from safe, as one of the chambers traps them inside with no apparent way out, and when they use a secret passageway to proceed forward they have to go through a dark maze where Lon guides the two humans by using his nose to follow the right trail to the exit. Chris thinks the expedition was in vain, but the priest tells him otherwise, as he noticed something fishy that is revealed later in the episode (namely, it was the mask's thief who activated the chamber's trap, and the priest knows who did it).
