Noob Cave

The opposite of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the Noob Cave is the first place where players actually begin Dungeon Crawling.

Will always have the easiest enemies to fight (that is, if there are any), with the toughest thing being a King Mook, itself being more comparable to a lesser knight, anyways. Chances are it's the Warmup Boss. Some games have you start out unarmed, and expect you to find a weapon while exploring the Noob Cave. Keep an eye out for tutorials. If you didn't get any before going in, you'll find one here.

Frequently, particularly in MMORPGs, the Noob Cave will either force you to leave or not let you return. The idea is to prevent a single advanced player from rapidly killing all the Mooks before the newbies can get to them... or getting owned by other players, although PvP is normally off if any player can get to this area. Alternatively, the game may simply make it not worth staying in the area through better drops and/or monsters that don't give experience after a certain point.

It may surprise players by being involved in the Infinity +1 Sword quest or being the entrance to the Bonus Dungeon. The designers obviously thought it clever to put the hardest challenge here, Where It All Began.

In some games, it may come in the form of a Mini-Dungeon. See also Green Hill Zone, another setting usually found at the beginning of a game.

This trope should not be confused with Noob Bridge (which is about beating a portion of a game in a specific way to test player ingenuity, which itself is prone for subverting Stock Control Settings and player expectations).

Beware: when you want to go home, home may not be there.

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Examples:

Action-Adventure

• ANNO: Mutationem: Dr. Doyle's lab simulator is where Ann does practices on combat skills and use of items before battling the Training Boss.
• The Legend of Zelda games begin the adventure proper in a sort of Noob Cave. Sometimes it's an actual cave, other times it's a forest or a building, or even a tree.
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: The cave leading to Parapa Desert, where the first main dungeon (Parapa Palace) awaits, serves this role. Without the Candle, which is obtained in the aforementioned palace, visibility will be reduced as the cave is naturally dark. Luckily for Link, the threat level is minimal.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has Hyrule Castle, crawling with guards, simple puzzles, and a ball-and-chain-wielding mini-boss. You get your sword as soon as you enter, and you can find the boomerang on your way out.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: The first dungeon, Tail Cave, is a basic, no-frills dungeon, meant to help players get used to the game's mechanics. The boss is also taken from A Link to the Past, being based on that game's version of Moldorm, instead of being a new enemy.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has the Kokiri training grounds where you get your first sword. Helpful signs show you how to pick up rocks, climb through small holes, control the camera, and avoid rolling boulders.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask starts out with Link underground and stuck in the form of a Deku Scrub. Your new fairy, Tatl, teaches you the basics by bossing you around (fairies are too small to open doors on their own). Later you get to navigate the canals to the observatory, which is a more formal and dangerous starter dungeon.
  • The Oracle Games have the ridiculously easy "Hero's Cave" where you find the sword. In Oracle of Ages, the Maku Path serves this purpose two times in a row. In the present, it's a straight line with a few press-switch-to-open-door puzzles. When you go to the past, you're introduced to the slightly more complicated collect-a-key-to-open-a-door-in-another-room puzzles. Should you be playing a Linked Game, both areas will become a Brutal Bonus Level added on top of them.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: The Forest of Fairies, and some time later the shockingly difficult navigation around the Forsaken Fortress without your weapon until the end where you fight a Boblokin as a Warmup Boss. Your journey here when you have the Master Sword is actually much easier.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: The first Lantern Cavern, located on the way to the Forest Temple. Followed by the sewers underneath the castle, though the latter has more dangerous enemies that are capable of damaging Wolf Link in the water, where he cannot fight back.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: There is a cave in Mercay Island that precedes the entrance to the Temple of the Ocean King. The first floor of the temple itself counts as well.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: The cave preceding the Tower of Spirits, and to an extent the first visit to the tower itself. In these areas, Link learns the ropes of basic gameplay, and in the latter part Zelda also learns about spirit possession and how the Tears of Light can enable it.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: The waterfall cave in Skyloft, which you have to traverse to free your Loftwing.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: The secret back-entrance to the Sanctuary. Finding the way into it from the graveyard is also your first puzzle.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The entire Great Plateau is designed to serve in this capacity. The first four shrines teach you how to use your magic runes, while the actual plateau teaches you all the methods you have to traverse the game world, heal yourself, and fight enemies. It also teaches you that you can and will walk into random enemies that can One-Hit KO you. Just to drive the point home, you also literally start the game in a cave; it has no enemies, but escaping the cave requires you to learn the basic concepts of climbing walls (not a typical element of Zelda games) and activating ancient consoles with your Sheikah Slate. Lampshaded with the Japanese name, Hajimari no Daichi (The Beginning Plateau).
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: The Great Sky Island is the starting area after a brief introduction below Hyrule Castle. It serves as a successor to the Great Plataeu from Breath of the Wild, an enclosed area that teaches the first four Zonai abilities and is largely populated by basic enemies. It both re-teaches mechanics from the prior game to new players and introduces new ones to all players, such as caves and crafting vehicles.
• The First Cave in Cave Story is where you go after You Wake Up in a Room to find your first weapon. If you hold on to it, you can go back there to get the best weapon in the game.
• Ōkami: The River of Heavens is a mystical location accessed within Konohana (the guardian tree of Kamiki Village), and is devoid of enemies. It is here where Amaterasu re-learns the first Brush technique, Rejuvenation.
• Parodied in Ittle Dew 2 with a dungeon where everything is covered with pillows and the enemies, "Safety Jennies", wear pillows as armor and weakly wave a rubbery baton at Dew if she gets too close.
• Hollow Knight starts you out in King's Pass, a small area with some basic platforming hazards and only the weakest enemies. It does hold a few secrets, but is completely devoid of bosses.

Adventure

• Ace Attorney:
  • Phoenix Wright's very first case can be considered a noob cave. There's only one witness, you have only four pieces of evidence to use(the autopsy report, the statue, the blackout report and the passport, the latter of which only becomes relevant at the end), and the witness has so many obvious contradictions that pressing him is not even needed, with the mechanic only being explained in the second case.
  • The first cases of the later games also tend to be simpler than those that follow; since there's no investigation phase and the basic mechanics of the court system are explained in-game just in case someone's jumping into the series for the first time. That said, the first cases of part II, part III and especially part IV are much, much, much harder than the first case of the first game.
  • Miles Edgeworth's game, Ace Attorney Investigations, also follows the trope. In the first case you play, there's only two rooms to examine, there's only one person to cross examine, and most of the contradictions are easy to spot.
  • Averted in the second Investigations game. The creator stated he wanted it to have the feel of a final case, and it shows. Despite being short, it contains several witnesses, two Logic Chess segments (though the first is an easy tutorial), numerous Red Herrings, more than a few plot twists and a Disc-One Final Boss.
  • Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney has Phoenix's introductory chapter, "The English Turnabout," in which he defends Espella in an English court of law. The trial is fairly simple for a first case, with only two witnesses and relatively obvious contradictions. It also lacks this game's unique mechanics for the Witch Trials, such as having multiple witnesses take the stand, and has no magic-related evidence whatsoever.
• In the Danganronpa series, the first trial is this. The trial has a fairly gentle learning curve, especially considering that in some of the early Nonstop Debates, there's only one weak point that can be targeted, and only a few pieces of evidence to choose from.
• World's End Club: The underwater park is the first starting area, with relatively simple objectives and info on controls.

Beat Em Ups

• Inverted with Mortal Kombat. Noob's Dorfen in Mortal Kombat 3 is literally a Noob Cave, in that it's a cave like area, where you fight a character called Noob Saibot. But it's a hidden area where the requirements to get to it are difficult. And despite the implications of the name, Noob himself actually has a very tough AI, in which you would have probably needed to mildly mastered the game already before being able to defeat him.

First-Person Shooter

• The tutorial mission of Deep Rock Galactic takes you into the Shallow Grotto, a literal noob cave, as it is a cave biome only seen in the tutorial mission. All new players go through this tutorial on first starting the game. It contains no crafting materials unlike caves in other biomes, and the layout is rather simple and short compared to the caves in real missions.
• Metroid Prime Trilogy:
  • Metroid Prime starts in a derelict spaceship before moving on to the planet Tallon IV. Thanks to your array of advanced equipment (which you lose on your way out), it's the easiest level in the game.
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has the caves encountered early in the game, which are full of simple puzzles and harmless enemies in the form of Worker Splinters. Well, until the Dark Troopers attack, and even they are easy to beat. Then most of your equipment is stolen.
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption starts in the GFS Olympus, which has no enemies, some story elements, and a basic tutorial until the Space Pirates come in.
• Almost all the first levels in each campaign in Left 4 Dead. Tanks usually don't appear in the first levels and witches are never there either, allowing new players to get a feel for the game. And they better learn quickly since the second level will start ramping up the challenges.
• Doom-engine games usually have a very simple first level, with a name that evokes feelings of having just arrived: Doom E1M1 is 'Hangar', Doom II MAP01 is 'Entryway', Heretic E1M1 is 'The Docks'.
• Blacklight Retribution has the Proving Grounds servers for player level 10 and under to play in. Good for playing against other noobs learning the game as well, rather than straight into the high-level shark tank.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II introduces the Bootcamp playlist, restricted to players levels 1-10. It's a good way to unlock Create-a-Class without getting murdered in the public playlists.
• E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy starts you off waking up in a cave, with maybe ten enemies between you and the exit. On the way you're forced to take advantage of your various abilities, you're taught how to hack and you're automatically guaranteed to level up at least once. And if you know where the secret exit is, you can skip all but one of the enemies. Although doing so also skips the levelup. If you got all the Gate abilities, you can enter the final area that leads to the hidden ending from this cave.
• Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi: The small crypts around the Courtyard provide enough items to start you off and easy practice in killing enemies (although they can still kill you if you're not careful).
• PAYDAY 3 has No Rest For The Wicked, a small-scale bank robbery and the first heist canonically. Design-wise, its small size and lack of gimmicks make it an easy heist for beginners, much like the Bank Heist from PAYDAY 2.

Grand Strategy

• In a somewhat bizarre "real-world" example from Crusader Kings II, Ireland has this reputation. It's rather isolated and unlikely (due to the game mechanics) to be bothered by the outside world for a while, giving beginning players a chance to learn the mechanics. Also, the starting situation lends itself to a sequential conquest for players, starting as either a duke or a count, and unifying the Kingdom of Ireland makes a good end point for the "tutorial". Mind you, this only applies to the island in the later start dates; before the conversion of Scandinavia, you might just have some trouble from certain neighbors.
• In Europa Universalis games, Portugal is always this, and Castile is often this. Both countries start in a relatively isolated peninsula. Portugal has friendly relationships with Castile and no contested cores, meaning that players must actively try to start a war, while Aragorn is distant, Navarra is too small to pose a treat, and Granada is easily conquered; a good starting fleet to keep any possible outside competitor (such as Morocco or even France) at bay; and a privileged position to engage in the colonization of the Americas, the conquest of Africa, or the discovery of the spice routes in the East. Portugal is therefore a common choice for new players who want to learn mechanics in peace during the early game. Castile shares all of these traits in the first three installments of the series, plus scripted or semi-scripted events that grant a free personal union with Aragon, Naples, even Burgundy, although the latter will catapult the player in the mess that are central Europe conflicts before mid-game. However, in Europa Universalis IV updates, Castile has become more frequently struck by negative events in the early game, including a historical civil war; its starting ruler and heir are terrible; and the rivalry mechanic means that war with France is more likely (although the Pyrenees are not hard to defend, unless Aragorn allies with France, in which case you are going to have some bad times).

Hack and Slash

• Diablo:
  • Diablo II's very first mission is the Den of Evil, which has you clearing out a cave full of low-level zombies and fallen, that can be one-shotted with ease and the weaksauce wannabe-giants that get killed with one hit once you reach level three.
  • Diablo III's Noob Cave, meanwhile, is the old Tristram Cathedral, the main dungeon from the very first game, which you take two trips through — one to rescue Diablo regular Deckard Cain, and the other to find and destroy the Skeleton King, which has been resurrected by the power of the Fallen Star that fell on said cathedral, and which you have been tasked with getting to the bottom of.
• Dynasty Warriors usually has the Yellow Turbans Rebellion (a catch-all stage representing the year-long conflict) be the first battle that the players take on; very few starting officers fight a different army for the first battle (if it's not them, it's usually Dong Zhuo, who has Lu Bu). One notable exception is the Jin kingdom in 7, as their story starts over fifty years after the Yellow Turbans Rebellion.
• Minecraft Dungeons' Squid Coast features easy enemies, a simple path with few side areas, and gives the player a bundle of arrows before putting them up against their first Skeleton. After a short ambush which pits the player against a few slightly tougher Illagers, the Squid Coast ends with the player setting up camp.
• Path of Exile has the Twilight Strand, a desolate stretch of beach where the player character first washes ashore on Wraeclast. It's populated by sluggish zombies and little gravel-spitting crabs, while the boss is little more than a really beefy zombie. Once you've cleared the area and arrived in the first town it's impossible to go back.

Interactive Fiction

• The Beginner's Cave in the Apple ][ Eamon computer games. The game checked your abilities: if they were above the standard starting level it denied you entrance, so effectively you could only go through once.

MMORPGs

• City of Heroes:
  • The tutorial level, Outbreak, where the Player Character is taught how to use their powers and fights drug-crazed thugs and help find a cure for them.
  • The City of Villains tutorial, on the other hand, is Breakout, where the evil organization is breaking you out of prison.
  • Later on, all players get access to a mission to return to their tutorial- at the original level they were when playing through it, via Time Travel. This is especially handy for getting an otherwise permanently missable badge.
• DC Universe Online has the Brainiac Ship. Somewhat annoying since it is unskippable, you have to do it for every character, hero or villain, and the only variation is heroes and villains get a different Voice with an Internet Connection and at the end you're greeted by either Superman or Lex Luthor.
• Dungeons & Dragons Online: The Korthos Island instances have you battling evil sahuagin and their Devourer cult. In particular is the first dungeon and the area before it, where you meet up with a group of adventurers that give you items and buffs, including one that prevents you from dying. Of note is that these NPCs don't suffer from Artificial Stupidity and can actually defend you while you learn the controls.
• EverQuest features an optional tutorial dungeon called The Mines of Gloomingdeep, where you receive tutorials-as-missions, a chance to earn some decent newbie armor, and a buffbot that makes dealing with your screwups easier. However, you're currently encouraged to use Crescent Reach as your starting location.
• EverQuest II: At the launch of the game, new characters would get rescued out at sea and taken to the Isle of Refuge. This would serve as a basic tutorial for the game's mechanics, allowing them to choose one of the four archetypes that would later progress into their chosen classes as they leveled up. Players could learn the basics for harvesting, obtaining collections, questing, and the general mechanics for combat. Players were only allowed to advance to level 6, and were required to group up to defeat an Orc boss found inside a cave in order to prove that they were worthy of choosing their starting city of Qeynos or Freeport. As the game progressed, the cities of Kelethin, Neriak, Gorowyn, and New Halas would allow players to just start in the newbie areas around those cities if they chose, but players who still want to start in Qeynos or Freeport can start at the Queen's Colony or Overlord's Outpost respectively for a similar version of the original Isle of Refuge.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy XI has the areas immediately outside the three starting cities as well as Zeruhn Mines in Bastok and some sections of the Horutoto Ruins near Windurst. Low level enemies with lower stats than usual that are also a bit slower to make it easy to run away.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has, for general roaming, the areas immediately surrounding the three starter cities: Very weak monsters, lots of invincible NPC sentries in case things somehow get out of hand. The first dungeon, Sastasha, is also very easy, to the point that runs of it by more experienced gamers done in nothing but swimsuit gear have been done.
• Guild Wars: Pre-Searing Ascalon is mostly a tutorial level, and not an actual cave. The Catacombs are the first actual dungeon most players explore. Factions and Nightfall also feature similar areas.
• Guild Wars 2: The Catacombs go on to become the first dungeon, albeit with the difficulty ramped a little higher.
• Kingdom of Loathing:
  • The Trope Namer is Noob Cave, found on Mt. Noob. Once it contained only noncombats which could not damage you, but has since been revamped and now contains only combats... the only enemy being a crate, which also can't damage you.
    The crate sits motionless, much as you'd expect.
  • It's immediately followed by another, slightly more dangerous area called The Dire Warren, which is filled with fluffy bunnies, whose only harm comes from the character getting distracted by them and accidentally hurting himself. You can lose a fight here, but only if you're either really bad at the game, or trying really hard (which would take a lot of skill and knowledge of the game).
• La Tale has the Forest Area near Belos. The enemies there are all very weak, and have only one attack. From later seasons onwards, the enemies can even be easily killed with one attack, and you really can't die here unless you try.
• LEGO Legends of Chima Online: Following the flow of the "Prints of Thieves" quest will lead players towards an unnamed cave in the Grand Stand, which completely lacks enemies and has a large treasure chest near the entrance. The other two dungeons in the area, the Underground Passage and a Brick Mine, likewise have simplistic layouts and are sparsely populated with low-level enemy Crocodiles; the Underground Passage introduces the concept of dungeons with multiple exits being useful for reaching new areas, while the Brick Mine is the first area to emphasize gathering materials to build new equipment with.
• In The Lord of the Rings Online, for hobbits and men, the instance of Archet before its assault is the Noob Cave. The gate you would normally use to leave the area is closed. Once you get to the main game, Archet is still accessible, but it's permanently changed by the events of the Noob Cave. Thorin's Gate serves the same purpose for Elves and Dwarves, and it's similarly closed off from the rest of the world until you finish the introductory quests, but still accessible afterwards.
• Lusternia, hNewton Caverns, home to the eminently disposable Gnome and Fink races. Most things die in one hit, and people above level 21 are forcibly kicked out.
• MapleStory: Henesys Hunting Ground is where all noobs generally congregate for several levels after reaching Victoria Island, and where pros occasionally show off their skills and maximum damage in a bid for fame points from them. There's also Maple Island, the noob world that all explorers start in.
• Ragnarok Online has the Novice Training Grounds, which is the area all newly-created characters are teleported to. It's possible to skip this area altogether, though, by talking to an NPC who will give you the option to go straight to town.
• Runescape formerly had Tutorial Island, which was exactly what it sounded like, and was of the "leave and never return variety." Then, it was replaced by converting Lumbridge into a "tutorial town," which was fully integrated into the main game, but which had a variety of low-level activities. Then the "tutorial town" was moved to another town, Burthorpe, which also received a major overhaul to its quests and design. Moved once again into a new island by the name of Ashdale.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic features entire Noob Planets: Tython for the Jedi, Ord Mantell for Troopers and Smugglers, Korriban for the Sith, and Hutta for Bounty Hunters and Agents. They are characterized by low-level monsters, a complete lack of the enemy faction presence, and straightforward quests designed to quickly take you to level 10, whereupon the game's more interesting features like the Prestige Classes are unlocked.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Northshire Abbey for humans, Coldridge Valley for dwarves, Shadowglen for night elves, Valley of Trials for orcs, Red Cloud Mesa for tauren, Deathknell for undead, Ammen Vale for draenei, Sunstrider Isle for blood elves, and the Scarlet Enclave for death knights of all races. Other than Scarlet Enclave they can be revisited at higher levels (you can revisit the Enclave too, but the place has an advancing plotline and will be stuck in finished state with nothing else to do). Cataclysm expansion added starting zones for goblins and worgen and both of them will use the same plotline mechanism as the Enclave for their quests.
  • As of Cataclysm, gnomes start in a low-level, secured section of Gnomeregan, and trolls start off on the Echo Isles.
  • The Deadmines and Ragefire Chasm, often being the first instanced dungeons players encounter, are probably more literal Noob Caves. Ragefire Chasm is even placed right in the middle of orc's capital city for easy access (humans get a slightly higher-level dungeon in their capital).
  • Most of the starter zones mentioned above also have some sort of actual cave used for 1-2 quests (Forsaken have a mine, Dwarves/gnomes have a troll lair, for example. In a slight literality inversion blood elves get a tower and draenei a mountain valley.)

Platform Game

• Conker's Bad Fur Day: The underside area Conker wakes up in the prologue is where learns the use of the Context-Sensitive Pad and jumping platforms to get him used to double jumps.
• Planets Veldin, Aranos, Veldin again, and Kerwan in Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank 2, Ratchet & Clank 3, and Ratchet & Clank Future respectively (and more in the sequels). The latter three all have bits that could be tricky for a first-time player, but apart from that, they fit the trope perfectly. You return to some of these places later in the game and they are much harder. Veldin in Ratchet & Clank (2002) was home to the game's final boss.
• Level 1 of Prince of Persia is somewhat like this, in that you can just run and jump to get the sword so you can fight off the average Mook that stands between you and the level exit (though Sequence Breaking makes even that one fight unnecessary). The most difficult part about the first level is to not fall into spiked pits, but playing cautiously can prevent that.
• Sly Cooper: Each game has a starting level acting as the tutorial. The first game has the Paris police station, Sly 2 begins at a museum in Cairo, Sly 3's prologue opens at Dr. M's island, and Thieves in Time starts with the gang at Le Paradox's museum.
• Tomb Raider I's first level is "Caves". It has mostly weak enemies (bats and snipe-able wolves) and easy puzzles. It's not exactly a walk in the park, of course, but it's a lot easier than the first levels of the next three Tomb Raider games.
• Plok starts off with the relatively easy (and thanks to Warp Zones, mostly skippable) Cotton Island levels, which take place before the fleas take over Plok's island.
• The first sector of Jumper is a series of rooms that teach the player the basics of jumping. Finishing this sector with 0 deaths isn't much challenge.
• Wario Land 4 has the Hall of Hieroglyphs that explains the basic controls of the game through hieroglyphs in the background.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Knuckles Chaotix has a training world called Isolated Island where you can basically do whatever you want to get used to the controls.
  • On a related note, Sonic Heroes also has a training world (Sea Gate), which has the same purpose.
• In Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, Ariel's world is the easiest and is recommended for new players.
• Jak and Daxter:
  • Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy starts with Geyser Rock, which introduces all the gameplay mechanics in a basic fashion and features stuffed dummies in lieu of actual enemies.
  • Jak II: Renegade features two in the Fortress Prison and Dead Town (and arguably the Pumping Station). They feature KG who doesn't shoot their guns and wildlife with weak melee attacks, respectively.
  • Jak 3: Wastelander averts this trope with the arena level, featuring tons of enemies and can catch even experienced players if they aren't paying attention.
• The first level of de Blob 2 is Paradise Island, a level where there's only one possible path to get to the end, and the only obstacles are very easily avoidable pools of ink. Later levels will see you facing a lot more difficult enemies, and navigating maze-like city districts.
• Super Mario Bros.: Some of the games, such as the original Super Mario Bros. and all the New Super Mario Bros. installments, often feature an Underground Level as the game's first second level following a peaceful and idyllic Green Hill Zone type 1-1 level to get you used to the game's mechanics. 1-2 of this game is the Trope Maker of the platform version of this. You meet new enemies here (some will later be found in castles and further underground levels) and you'll encounter a few of your first real hazards. Usually the level following this is another Green Hill Zone level which serves to introduce game-specific mechanics and items.
• Pizza Tower: The first level after the tutorial is John Gutter, a simple stage with no gimmicks that acts as a place to actually put the skills learned during the tutorial to test.

Racing Game

• Blur multiplayer has a race playlist that can only be joined by anyone rank 10 or less. The only problem is, you don't get kicked out once you move past rank 10, so if you never leave, you can keep playing that playlist until rank 50.

Real Time Strategy

• Pikmin:
  • Pikmin (2001): The Impact Site. There are no enemies (well, aside from the Mamuta, Goolix and the Pearly Clamclamps, but they're a safe distance away from the landing site and the former two won't start appearing anyway until long after Olimar has started exploring the subsequent areas in the game) and there are a lot of pellets nearby to grow more Pikmin.
  • Pikmin 2 has the Emergence Cave, which only has the weakest enemies, as well as no bosses or hazards. It is also where you first get Purple Pikmin and has only two floors.
  • Pikmin 3 has both the control tutorial section in Distant Tundra through which Charlie goes during the prologue (later explored in a proper way), and the Alph goes through in his first day in Tropical Wilds that teaches how to work the Pikmin and their task-solving skills. Neither has any threats beyond some Phosbats for the former, and both sequences are there to ease the player in to learning how to control Pikmin.
  • Pikmin 4: The Rescue Command Post starts as this before it becomes the Hub Level. It is the game's tutorial, with no enemies on the surface, a single linear one-floor cave that mostly explains how caves work, and a small section introducing the Pikmin and their carrying mechanics.
• Total War: Warhammer II: The High Elves start on Ulthuan, which can fairly be called a "noob island" thanks to its isolation from the other continents and to lacking native factions outside of High Elf ones and a few Dark Elf outposts. Generally you'll only have other High Elves for company — meaning it's easy to make friends and you're less likely to be attacked — and the Dark Elves don't pose a significant threat while providing a common enemy for the High Elves to fight, which will boost diplomatic relations between them. Their roster will be the most familiar to players of other Total War titles but new to the fantasy setting, consisting of a core of spearmen, archers, and heavy cavalry (unlike other factions whose idiosyncrasies may be more unusual). Their economy is similarly conventional: build up your cities to develop trade and industry to earn money. Even their aesthetic is comfortingly pleasant (traditional good guys: green fields, shining knights, white marble cities, etc.)

Rhythm Game

• Persona 4: Dancing All Night has "Specialist," the classroom theme. It's the easiest song in the game, albeit not easy per se on higher difficulties, and from a story perspective, is basically Yu doing dance practice.

Roguelike

• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon had the Tiny Woods which had only three floors, and was an extremely feature-limited version of the rest of the dungeons in the game. You were also unable to recruit new members there. The sequel had Beach Cave, which was only slightly longer at five floors and happened to be one of the best places for finding useful items such as Stun Seeds.
• In the Roguelike Dungeon Crawl, the first level of the dungeon might, in case of unlucky map generating rolls, a death trap. Causes of death have included at least orcs in a small room with only secret doors.
• In ADOM, there's a few candidates. You have the straightest example, the Village Dungeon, which is fairly short, full of easy monsters, and has a healer about halfway through. Then there's the Druid Dungeon, which is tougher than the Village Dungeon and has a nasty boss at the bottom. Those two are mutually exclusive. There's also the Puppy Cave, which sounds innocuous but is actually part of a brutal sidequest. Finally, there's the Small Cave, a one-level dungeon that leads to a hidden town and enforces this trope by scaling to double your current level. A level one character will find it tricky but manageable, while a level ten character will get shredded by monsters he can't hope to scratch.
• Angband and most of its variants feature only a single dungeon that becomes progressively more difficult as the player progresses. The first levels are very similar to the typical noob cave - they feature only small insects, worms, rodents and the occasional enemy adventurer. In variants with multiple dungeons, the game typically begins near a fairly shallow and safe one.
• Notably averted by Nethack, where what sounds like a strong contender (the "Gnomish Mines"? How hard can it be?) turns out to be the start of things going very rapidly downhill (hence the Gnome With The Wand Of Death). A big reason why most new players die almost immediately is because it lacks any tutorial phase before throwing you into a dungeon full of deathtraps.
• Enter the Gungeon has a mandatory tutorial level called the Halls of Knowledge, which ends with a few rooms to explore containing basic enemies. After clearing them, you get to fight Ser Manuel himself, who is less of a threat than some of the enemies you'll encounter in the Keep of the Lead Lord.
• Dungeonmans starts every new world with a newbie dungeon to the east of the Dungeonmans Academy called the Convenient Scrobold Warren. It's only three levels deep and most of the enemies, including the boss, are easy to take down with your basic skills.

Role-Playing Game

• Bug Fables has Snakemouth Den, the very first cave that is explored by the Vi and Kabbu, the protagonists. It's in this dungeon they find Leif, The Stoic of the Power Trio for the rest of the game. The enemies here are fairly easy, and it mostly serves as a tutorial for basic game mechanics. However, starting from Chapter 5, the player can visit the optional Upper Snakemouth area, which is much more difficult than the cave it's located at.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails:
  • Trails in the Sky: The Rolent Sewers is where Estelle and Joshua complete their test to become junior bracers.
  • Trails from Zero: The first section of the Geofront is where the SSS first venture into to rescue some children.
  • Trails of Cold Steel: On their first day at Thors Academy, Class VII is dropped into a underground area to battle a few monsters with their acquired weapons to reach the exit.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The Temple of Fiends from Final Fantasy does double-duty as both the Noob Cave and The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the latter of which is the Temple of Fiends from 2000 years ago.
  • The Empire-held town of Fynn in Final Fantasy II. Simple enough, just don't talk to the Imperial soldiers.
  • In Final Fantasy III the very first scene you see is your character falling through a hole into a cave, complete with a boss fight at the end of it.
  • Final Fantasy IV has the Mist Cave as its initial dungeon; it's only one floor and relatively simple to traverse. Its sequel, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, has the Adamant Isle Grotto.
  • The Pirate Cave from Final Fantasy V. It's where you find your last party member, and you finally get to travel across the map as opposed to being stuck in a single area.
  • Narshe Mines in Final Fantasy VI. You are pretty much Rail Roaded into it with Biggs and Wedge in Power Armor with you, and you fight a Warmup Boss which teaches you that this game uses "Real time" battle as opposed to being literally turn based, making you wait for the snail boss to come out of its shell, and it's only afterwards that Locke saves Terra and the game properly kicks off with The Resistance.
  • Final Fantasy VII has two in the beginning of the game - the Sector 1 and Sector 5 reactors. Though they vary somewhat (Sector 5's reactor has a simple timed button press puzzle, and you're on a timed exit from the Sector 1 reactor that's impossible to accidentally mess up), the two dungeons are actually identical after a certain point, and both bosses are pretty simple.
  • Final Fantasy VIII has the Fire Cavern. You can select how much time you're given, but in order to get the best Seed rank in the beginning, you have to get as close to 0:00 as possible. Between 0:00 and 0:07, specifically.
  • Final Fantasy IX has two: Evil Forest and Ice Cavern, with the latter has Dual Boss.
  • Final Fantasy XI has the Zeruhn Mines, literally right next to Bastok Mines.
  • Final Fantasy XII has Dalmasca Estersand, the game's very first dungeon, which contains the game's only mandatory Hunt. Once you clear the Hunt, two more dungeons, Giza Plains and Dalmasca Westersand, will become available. Since the game is very sandbox-like, you can scour through these dungeons anyway you like (although access to other dungeons are blocked by Broken Bridge). These locations provide a good place to level up early on, though do beware of Wild Saurians and Werewolves.
  • Final Fantasy Mystic Quest has the Level Forest. It's a relatively short dungeon-like area without many enemy encounters, and while the Minotaur you face at the end is the first real boss, he's relatively simple to defeat.
• In Fallout, the player takes control after stepping out of their Vault's entrance, and finds themself in a cave populated only by rats, which they must navigate to reach the greater game. Initially the player is unable to re-enter the Vault, but later in the game they must come back and pass through this first cave in order to return to their Vault and progress through the plot.
  • Temple of Trials in Fallout 2 is the Noob Cave, though it can be a Scrappy Level for some characters (particularly those not being played for melee), and it's still notorious for ending with a really difficult fight for a Level 1 character (that isn't specialising in melee).
  • Vault 101 and the Super Duper Mart fill this role in Fallout 3. The cave beneath Springvale School can also qualify, as it's more immediately accessible to newbie players, and it has the giant ants.
  • Fallout: New Vegas has the Goodsprings Schoolhouse, a relatively small room filled with large mantis, enemies that have little health, don't do much damage and lack ranged attacks.
  • Fallout 4 has Vault 111 as the tutorial level, where you learn the basics of combat by stomping some radroaches. The first proper "dungeon" the player encounters is usually the Museum of Freedom in Concord, where you meet some raiders, the remnants of the Minutemen, your first suit of power armor, and a deathclaw.
• In Arcanum, the crash site where the game begins is a mountain valley inhabited by weak wolves, boars and small goblin-like creatures, obviously to grind up a level before leaving. There is also a small cave, for those who take the time to explore the valley.
• The Golden Sun series has one in each game. The Sol Sanctum in the original and Kandorean Temple in the sequel. The Sol Sanctum can't be revisited, while Kandorean Temple has nothing of worth for high-level characters besides a single Djinni needed for 100% Completion.
  • An example from Golden Sun: The Lost Age that fits the "has something to offer later on" subtrope better is the Shrine of the Sea God, which can actually be accessed even before Kandorean Temple, but can't be explored very far. Exploring it as soon as you've finished Kandorean Temple nets you a very useful Djinni, but you also need to revisit it somewhere during the middle third of the game (comprised of a bunch of quests that can be tackled in just about any order).
  • Golden Sun: Dark Dawn has the forest in the start of the game as the noob forest. The enemies are pretty weak (including the boss) and the puzzles are incredibly simple to solve. You also have two characters that join you as a Guest-Star Party Member and they are so powerful that they rarely attack unless you're in trouble. They'll also let you borrow their Djinn and they have enough to allow you to use a tier 3 and tier 4 summon ability right off the bat to teach you how using Djinn work. Once you completed the area, you're on your own and you don't get to keep the Djinn you borrowed.
    • While Tanglewood doesn't come back as a bonus dungeon thanks to the Point of No Return, it does turn out to be an Innocuously Important Episode. Namely, it sets up the concept of supernatural darkness that empowers monsters, and using light to dispel that darkness, which comes back in the Grave Eclipse.
    • The training course in the first town of the game is also a noob cave where you go through several obstacles while using several Pysnergy spells to advance and it's followed up by a warm-up boss fight. Luckily, this section is only necessary once, for the pass to Konpa Gate.
• In Icewind Dale, the party has to clear the appropriately named Easthaven Cave, before it can proceed with the adventure.
• The Elder Scrolls typically starts either starts the player out in one, or has one accessible shortly after character creation (sometimes both). Usually, it includes a tutorial and allows the player to pick up his/her first set of equipment. Additionally, the first "dungeon" the player is required to enter as part of the main quest is also usually crafted with a low-level noobie character in mind. The mooks are usually quite low-level and it often has a Warm-Up Boss which is tougher than anything else you've faced if you've stuck to the main quest. To note:
  • Arena has the Imperial Prison, covering both of the above types.
  • Daggerfall has Privateer's Hold, covering both just like Arena.
  • Morrowind:
    • Morrowind is the only game in the series without a true "tutorial dungeon", with the start of the game merely you getting off of a boat, creating your character, and being released into the game world. However, it has an optional example quickly accessible - Addamasartus is a smallish smuggler's cave literally across the bridge from the starting town of Seyda Neen. It has a few really low-level baddies to kill, some slaves to free, and some low-end loot.
    • In terms of the main quest, Arkngthand is the first "dungeon" that the player is required to visit. It too has some low-level baddies, modest loot, and a Warmup Boss in Boss Crito. (It also has some optional deeper areas to explore with much tougher foes...)
  • Oblivion:
    • Oblivion has the Imperial City Subterrane as a tutorial dungeon. When you exit, another dungeon (Vilverin) is right across the river from where you exit the subterrane. You may need to revisit it several times, but it's described by the game's strategy guide as a "Baby's First Dungeon".
    • For the main quest, the first Oblivion Gate you enter is outside of the city of Kvatch. As Oblivion Gates go, it is quite low-level (unless you wait an extremely long time to start the main quest, as the Level Scaling will make it much more difficult).
  • Skyrim:
    • Helgen, specifically the keep and tunnels, where the player learns all the game basics and fights their first enemies. Several dungeons around Helgen and Riverwood also handle the player with kid gloves as well.
    • Considering its prominence, both visually (as you near Riverwood) and promotionally in pre-release demos, plus its appearance in both an early available side quest and one of the first main quests as well, Bleak Falls Barrow seems to be what Bethesda are treating as Skyrim's first 'real' dungeon. It also has two Warm Up Bosses - a Giant Frostbite Spider and a leveled Draugr "boss" in the room with the Word Wall.
• The game properly begins in one of these in The Last Remnant. The Ruins of Robelia Castle and The Gaslin Caves may also count as this is where a lot of the gameplay is explained and they're the earliest and easiest missions.
• Dragon Quest:
  • The first cave in Dragon Quest had no monsters in it. And in every subsequent game, the first cave is usually full of smiling blue Slimes. Most of said first caves don't even have a boss, and they're usually just connecting tunnels out of the hometown.
  • Spring of Bravery in Dragon Quest II downplays the trope, as its layout is pretty simple and has only one level. But the encounters are pretty tough for your level, especially the big cobras that can poison you, and you have only one character with no magic whatsoever so you have to rely on items to heal and cure poison; even then, you can only carry a few items including your equipment. There is a healing spring at the end at least, but first you have to get to it.
  • The Promontory Cave in Dragon Quest III. The cave itself is not bad, but it's also connected directly to the next dungeon, the Tower of Najima, where the Thief's Key is located.
  • In Chapter I of Dragon Quest IV, Ragnar McRyan ventures into a well where he can meet Healie, a trusty Healslime companion. This dungeon shows up again as the Noob Cave of Dragon Quest Monsters, where Terry can fight Healie (named Hale in the original GBC version) to get him to join your party.
  • In the first portion of Dragon Quest V, the main character's village Whealbrook has a cavern called Whealbrook Adit. It needs to be explored to save a shop owner who is trapped under a boulder. Though the lead character has to go through it on his own, there is free equipment to be found within. He can also rest up for free in his house.
  • Dragon Quest VI has the Mountain Pass just outside of The Hero's hometown of Weaver's Peak.
  • The ancient temple in Dragon Quest VII, which you'll be visiting quite a lot since it connects to the other worlds. It has a lot of puzzles in it, but no monsters to fight.
  • The Waterfall Cave in Dragon Quest VIII.
  • The Hexagon in Dragon Quest IX, which the player character will have to venture by themselves.
  • Dragon Quest XI has Cobblestone Tor, which is the first dungeon that mostly serves as a tutorial and is filled with easy enemies.
• In the Avernum games, there will be a first-level dungeon full of goblins, and you will go through it, or else get flattened by a slime or giant lizard elsewhere.
• Albion has one on the spaceship Toronto right at the beginning in the form of a less frequently visited area of the ship that you're not supposed to go to. There are no enemies, only puzzles and seemingly harmless cleaning robots. (Much later, you will find that these are actually Killer Cleaning Robots of Doom that could each flatten a battalion of demons, but at this point they don't attack.) This dungeon is optional and easy enough to miss. There is also the Hunter Clan's supply cellar that holds some decent loot and money to get you started. The strongest monsters in the cave are a Skrinn 2 and a Krondir, both of which are regular enemies outside the city walls, but at this level, even a few of the lesser Skrinn can be dangerous.
• The Heroes' Guild is the Noob Cave in Fable II. Full of beetles and not much else.
• In Planescape: Torment, the protagonist Wakes Up At The Morgue, and then has to leave, which is complicated by the fact that the morgue in question is staffed by members of a Cult that find his immortality blasphemous. This being Planescape: Torment, however, the player is given ample opportunity to escape with only one "casualty" (and that was a zombie, so it hardly counts), or (if you have a decent charisma score) to simply walk up to the front door and kindly ask the doorkeeper to open it for you.
• Most of the Wizardry games start out with a "Noob Cave." The early games (I-V) usually had the "noob cave" as the first level of the dungeon. Wizardry VI took it to another level with a "noob castle" that you had to keep coming back to throughout the game, and Wizardry 8 forced you through a "noob monastery" which started out easy but increased the difficulty geometrically the longer you hung around in it, to discourage Level Grinding. Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant was the only one to have an optional "noob cave", although it was highly encouraged to help build player levels before heading further into the game.
• Eden Prime in Mass Effect; Lazarus Station in Mass Effect 2. Both have their game's respective tutorials, the temporary squadmates (Richard L. Jenkins and that Wilson guy) who are killed and then replaced (with Ashley and Miranda) within 15 minutes of gameplay, and a few not particularly strong enemies (weak geth and LOKI mechs). While you start off with all your basic weapons in ME1, in ME2 you're equipped with a heavy pistol you conveniently find next to your bed and a grenade launcher you steal off a dead guy halfway through the stage.
  • Averted in Mass Effect 3, however. Vancouver is largely cutscenes, and what action there is is so heavily structured, it's basically just a controller tutorial instead of a proper mission (one battle actually ends when you run out of ammo; you can literally just shoot the ground until you run out and get on with it). The next mission, Mars, doesn't qualify either, thanks to an increaes in difficulty resulting from the introduction of Cerberus's incredibly tactical enemies.
• Baldur's Gate: Nashkel Mines, a relatively simple dungeon that the game tasks you to reach (although you might go somewhere else and only return later), with weak enemies, easy to detect traps, chances to experiment with most tactics from area-of-effect spells to luring enemies through passages. It is designed as a practice exercise in dungeon crawling for beginners.
  • Chateau (de) Irenicus in Baldur's Gate 2, the dungeon you start the game in and must escape from. Known for being so reviled by long-time players that a mod was eventually made just to let people skip it. On an unrelated note, Noob Cave or not, it's easily the thematically darkest dungeon in the whole game, including "Hell".
• Dark Souls:
  • The Undead Asylum and Undead Burg from Dark Souls are relatively simple, non-hazardous affairs (by Souls standards), with mostly basic foes and the occasional Boss in Mook Clothing to help show you just what skills you're going to need to survive.
  • Dark Souls II has Things Betwixt, which is even easier and doesn't even have a boss. It also introduces the torch by way of Blackout Basement.
  • The Cemetery of Ash in Dark Souls III. It has an excellent example of a Warmup Boss that introduces the player to the two-phase mechanic of the bosses in this game, by turning into an intimidating Eldritch Abomination halfway through. The area also has an alternate version later on in the game, a pitch-black Brutal Bonus Level with tougher enemies and Black Knights.
• Most Pokémon games have one of these, usually a cave or forest fought right before the first gym:
  • Pokémon Red and Blue had the Viridian Forest.
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver had the Sprout Tower.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire had Petalburg Woods.
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl had Oreburgh Gate.
  • Pokémon Black and White is unique in that the very first Noob Cave, the Dreamyard is fought after the first gym. The sequels had Floccesy Ranch, which is explored before your first gym.
  • Pokémon X and Y had Santalune Forest, which in a nostalgic throwback had a layout almost identical to Viridian Forest and all of the same Pokémon (plus a few others that debuted after Generation 1).
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon had Verdant Cavern, the site of the first Island Trial.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield has the Slumbering Weald, located right next to the protagonist's house. Unlike most of the other examples in franchise, the player only visits a small part of it, and returns to the Weald in the endgame in which it becomes much more labyrinthine and complex, and the wild pokemon extremely powerful.
  • Every Pokemon game also has a route where you can catch your first Com Mons before you actually get to the Noob Cave.
• Wild ARMs has one per character: a set of ruins for Jack, a library for Cecilia, and a literal cave for Rudy.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1 has Tephra Cave, which interestingly doubles as both this and a Bonus Dungeon, in that a second, MUCH tougher portion opens up in the last fifth of the game. It's completely optional but involved in a fair few late-game sidequests.
• Reptid Cave in The Last Story. It's explored again near the end of the game, in Chapter 39.
• Tales of...
  • Tales of Phantasia's first "dungeon" is a small forest with non-threatening enemies. The first proper dungeon thereafter is bigger but also relatively non-threatening.
  • Tales of Symphonia has the Temple of Martel, a small dungeon with no boss (unless you count Vidarr, who actually comes before you enter) and a small block-pushing puzzle.
  • The Imperial Capital Sewers fill this role in Tales of Vesperia.
• The first dungeon in Last Scenario is an abandoned copper mine populated with enemies that are lucky to deal even 1 hitpoint of damage to Hilbert... and a griffin that can be nasty if you don't bring antidotes along.
• World of Mana:
  • Trials of Mana: Cascade Cavern is the first true dungeon. It's filled with water and has waterfalls on both the outside and inside, but the resident monsters aren't much of a threat, even despite the limited amount of party members upon entrance.
  • Legend of Mana: Domina, the first town you open, is home to two Noob Cave missions, one in Mekiv Caverns and the other in Luon Highway.
  • Dawn of Mana: The Prologue, a combination beginner cave/tutorial, taking place in the woods near home. Keldy comes back to it near the end to chase after the Big Bad.
• Breath of Death VII begins in a cave where the only enemies are two dumb trolls and their only marginally dangerous leader.
• Demon Gaze: Once you get your initial party members set up, Lorna takes you on an escorted jaunt through the first area of the first dungeon, giving you a crash course in exploration and battle. One step beyond that area, and the kid gloves come off.
• Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals has the Secret Skills Cave, where Maxim is taught about dungeon exploring and solving puzzles.
  • Lufia: The Legend Returns has Patos Cave, where Wain is given a refresher on dungeon mechanics and the Spiritual Force system.
  • Lufia: The Ruins of Lore has Lukie Cave, which Eldin and Torma must conquer to earn their Hunter's Licenses.
  • Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals has upper Soma Temple, a notable case as the lower part of the Temple is a separate dungeon and the upper area later becomes the Disc-One Final Dungeon.
• Mega Man Battle Network: ACDC Area. In one game it's revealed the reason why ACDC area usually has such weak viruses is because MegaMan clears out the area so often that the only viruses that could form were small ones.
• Super Mario Bros.
  • Bowser's Castle in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars doubles as this and the first section of the Final Dungeon.
  • The Mario & Luigi series has one in each game.
    • The Koopa Cruiser in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, where you learn the basics of how to move and fight as a pair. You come back here much later on in the game.
    • Bowser's Castle in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, where you learn the basic piggyback mechanics.
    • Cavi Cape in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, where you learn the basics of controlling Bowser.
    • The catacombs underneath Pi'llo Castle in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team.
    • Sunbeam Plains in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam.
• Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood: Green Hill Zone is the first map of the game, being pretty simple to navigate and having hypnotized animals as its main threats.

• Many Might and Magic games:
  • VI has two optional examples in the form of Goblinwatch and The Abandoned Temple. Both house very easy to complete quests and their only residents are weak bats, rats, goblins and cobras, so it is a good idea to visit them before heading to Castle Ironfist, which is your first destination in the main storyline.
  • VII obliges you to visit the Temple of The Moon if you want to even get out of Emerald Island, and later the Castle Harmondale, which is needed to advance the story. Again the Goblins will be your strongest opponents here. However, the Red Dragon Cave on Emerald Island is not this trope, as it, as you might have guessed, houses a Red Dragon, normally an endgame monster. You can kill it though if you arm yourself with bows, save slots and lots of patience.
  • VIII has an Abandoned Temple again and yet again it is the only way to progress the story.
• The Ruins in Undertale has a very simple layout with puzzles that are not only easy to solve, but will solve themselves for you if you screwed up several times. The random encounters are also easy to deal with thanks to their simple bullet patterns and they're also easy to spare with simple logical thinking through the ACT commands. Toriel will also teach you how to operate the mechanisms for some puzzles, guide you through a hazardous section of spikes, teach you how to win battles without needing to hurt anyone, and she'll even scare off an enemy that ambushes you. Toriel serves as a Wake-Up Call Boss at the end of the Ruins section where she has a lot of HP, more complex bullet patterns, and has a more convoluted way of sparing her that involves doing something other than using everything in the ACT menu once.
• The Divine Beast's Cave in Dark Cloud. It contains fragile Mooks and serves as an introduction to basic combat and the Duel system, as well as giving information about finding the Atla. The boss, Dran, introduces the idea of switching between party members to beat dungeon bosses.
• The Underground Channel and Rainbow Butterfly Wood share this role in Dark Chronicle. As with Cloud, they serve as basic combat tutorial and teaching the player to find the Geostones.
• BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm has Digg, an archaeological site you stumble upon while searching for shipwreck survivors in Chapter 1. The enemies there are very easy, and tutorials about dungeon crawling are scattered around, disguised as safety reminders written to the workers.
• Persona
  • Persona: The Hospital is where the party first awakens their Personas and are give the first instance of tutorial info.
  • Persona 2: Seven Sisters High School and its accompanying Clock Tower in both Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment.
  • Persona 3 has the first level of Tartarus. On your first night exploring Tartarus, Mitsuru will give your character, Yukari and Junpei guidance on fighting Shadows as you explore the floor. The expedition will end once you find the stairs to the next floor.
  • Persona 4 has the first floor of Yukiko's Castle, which is mainly populated by weak enemies that are weak against Lightning and/or Wind, the elements used by your starting Persona, as well as Yosuke's Persona, respectively.
  • Persona 5 has the dungeons below Kamoshida's Castle, which serve as an extended tutorial to the dungeon crawling mechanics.
• In Max: An Autistic Journey, Max's clothing drawer is the first dungeon. While Max is the only party member you have, the enemies aren't especially challenging, and the dungeon is fairly small.
• Etrian Odyssey: Most games avert this trope (even the first floor in the Yggdrasil Labyrinth is usually prone to Early Game Hell, due to the series' Nintendo Hard nature), but the fourth and sixth games intend to play it straight with the Old Forest Mine and the Eastern Shrine respectively, as does the fifth to a lesser extent with the initial half of the first floor of Tutelary Forest.
• Knights of the Old Republic has the Endar Spire, a Republic ship that the Sith are boarding, which serves as a tutorial dungeon to the game. You get a Guest-Star Party Member who helps show you the ropes.
• Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords has an optional tutorial, but much of Peragus Station counts, since Kreia and Atton help give you guidance as you learn the game's mechanics.
• Skies of Arcadia: Shrine Island, an uninhabited ruin of white stone filled with monsters and Magitek devices, where the heroes go to recover a Moonstone that fell from the sky the previous evening. Shrine Island returns at the end of the game as the entrance to the Very Definitely Final Dungeon: the lost Silvite continent of Soltis.

Shoot Em Up

• Solar Jetman has Preludon, a relatively small planet with a few weak enemies and only one fuel pod to collect (all of the later planets require three or four). It's basically there to teach you how to use the Tractor Beam you find on the planet to carry and deliver items to your main ship.

Simulation Games

• Elite Dangerous: A cluster of previously desolate systems located deep within the Core Systems forms the Pilots' Federation District, a network accessible only to pilots with a special permit; said permit is given only to players who start a new game within the District, which is the only option for most post-Kickstarter players. The permit (and thus, access to the District) is automatically revoked if its holder lands on a station outside the District or kills too many players within the District.
• RollerCoaster Tycoon: The first scenario in each title^note Forest Frontiers and Leafy Lake in the original, Arid Heights for Loopy Landscapes, Electric Fields in RCT2, Vanilla Hills in RCT3, Captain Blackheart's Cove in Soaked! and Scrub Gardens in Wild! provides the player with enough cash and attractions to get started, straightforward objectives, and a solid start on research.

Tabletop Games

• While it took a while, BattleTech and its RPG system Mechwarrior finally have pregenerated campaigns in their rule books. While there are several basic missions, "Milk Run" is the easiest by far, tasking players to chase down a convoy of food and medical supplies stolen by pirates. There's a basic moral choice presented, in the form of the pirates arguing that as people on the planet that they deserve food and medical aid too, but considering they killed convoy guards to get it and weren't going to share it with the rest of the suffering populace, it isn't exactly a difficult ethical dilemma for most teams.
• Dungeons & Dragons
  • The B series of modules for Basic Dungeons & Dragons was designed to be all introductory adventures.
    • The granddaddy of all adventure modules: B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, is laid out as a series of Noob Caves ringing a box canyon. From left to right, each cave is populated with successively harder humanoid opponents.
    • Another example would be the granddaddy's sister, "B3: Palace of the Silver Princess", a novice scenario in which a fairy-tale castle (which is nearly all underground passages for some reason) has had its residents Taken for Granite and been invaded by monsters. The first few rooms' descriptions actually talk the Dungeon Master through the process of running a game, much like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You Can't Go Home Again in this one, because if you finish the scenario, the statues un-petrify and it goes back to being a peaceful community where there's no call for adventurers.
    • Their predecessor, the module B1 In Search of the Unknown. It featured a set of fully described rooms, with the DM choosing a monster and treasure for each room.
  • The N (for "novice") series of modules were created to provide low level Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventures for beginning characters.
    • N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God had the PCs going up against an evil cult.
    • N4 Treasure Hunt. The module starts with the PCs washed ashore on an island with no money, weapons or other equipment.
• The base Second Edition of Descent: Journeys in the Dark recommends the scenario "First Blood" as the introduction to the new players, as it has a relatively small map with straightforward mission goals and consists of only one encounter (all others have two). It can also serve as a prologue to the Shadow Rune campaign included with the game.
• The 2nd edition of Monster of the Week comes with two ready-to-run mysteries for beginner monster hunters: Dream Away the Time, which pits them against an ogre marauding through a countryside town, and Damn Dirty Apes, where they have to fight lab monkeys that gained superpowers as a result of an experiment Gone Horribly Right.
• Dragon Age has a number of level 1 adventures, starting with The Dalish Curse, which came with the original boxed Set 1 (and is now available for free from Green Ronin online store). The free Quickstart Guide includes An Arl's Ransom, while the Core Rulebook contains Invisible Chains. There is also Duty Unto Death, the module that was played at TableTop and later released for free, and Amber Rage, the starter adventure from the Blood in Ferelden supplement.
• The Numenera Core Rulebook contains three ready-made adventures, including one for first-tier characters called The Beale of Boregal, which is explicitly recommended for new players starting a campaign.
• Pathfinder has the Beginner Box which, as the name suggests, contains everything necessary for new players (and GMs) to run a simple dungeon crawl. Each encounter introduces a basic gameplay mechanic, from combat and skill checks to things like surprise rounds and damage reduction.

Third-Person Shooter

• The Casual multiplayer mode in Gears of War 3, which is basically straight-up team deathmatch catered to new players of the series. To that end any player that has an achievement from either the two previous games or the third game's beta is not allowed in.

Wide-Open Sandbox

• Destroy All Humans! has Turnipseed Farm. Of its six open-world areas, it is the smallest, has the fewest buildings and people, and only appears in the very first mission as the tutorial, letting you get the hang of Crypto's basic weapons and abilities against successive waves of farmers, cops, and soldiers. You never have to visit it again, though you can of course do so to complete bonus missions and find probes, and also find Town Crazies that, in the original version (though not the remake), yield a ton of DNA when you harvest their brains.
• New players in Starbound start out on a random Garden-type planet, the lowest difficulty planet type. The environment is relatively gentle (the worst one might encounter is normal water rain, compared to other worlds that might have raining poison, oceans of lava, or falling meteors) and hostile enemies are generally easy to deal with. The only dungeons available there is a single old abandoned mine on each world whose toughest monster is a Poptop mommy, which while not easy for someone just starting out is fairly straightforward to beat for anyone who holds higher level equipment. The mines hold the only easy source of core fragments (i.e., accessible without needing to do a ton of digging down to the lowest levels of a planet), which are needed to progress through the story and eventually fix the ship the player character initially fled on to be able to travel to other worlds.

Non-Video Game Examples

Literature

• A Dearth of Choice: "The Orchard" was more or less supposed to be this, with just a handful of skeletons and a single lifedrinker, surrounding a fruit-bearing tree. But after seeing that novices will struggle even against that, the dungeon goes further and constructs a room where they can choose to battle just one skeleton at a time, at their own pace.

Web Animation

• Mighty Magiswords:
  • The Cave of Stuff is a recurring setting that has a different theme in every episode it appears in. It's designed to be an easy dungeon for new adventurers, the level 1 monsters that work there taking pride in being "professional losers".
  • The Jelly Dome is an even easier example, as it's said to be a Level 0 cave and is populated entirely by harmless slimes, and the puzzles and obstacles inside provide the Warrior siblings with no challenge whatsoever.

Webcomics

• Our Little Adventure has an RPG Mechanics 'Verse, so the Evil Overlord antagonists maintain a starter dungeon to train new Mooks, complete with guides, features to test their new class features, survivable traps and obstacles, and kidnapped civilians to butcher for XP.

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