Stage 2 of Aladdin (Virgin Games) takes place in a desert. In this stage, Aladdin must collect the three pieces of the Scarab, while dodging the palace guards, snakes, and Iago.
Gobi's Valley in Banjo-Kazooie. Sand doesn't suck the player in, but it's so hot that walking on it is harmful. There are also many pyramids with different traps and challenges.
The original game has Reptilia, an American desert filled with cacti, scorpions, literalarmy ants that fired grenades, cowboy snakes, green chameleons (don't ask), and the ever-annoying invincible horned lizards.
Bug Too! has "Lawrence of Arachnia", which takes place on the set of the titular film. Scene 2 in particular takes place in the sandy parts of the desert.
Clustertruck has its first world as a desert, except with a whole ton of trucks populating it instead of anything else.
In Secret of the Oracle, the 4th Episodic Game in the series, the north-west section of the World Map consists of a desert. It contains 3 levels, 2 of which are mandatory in order to proceed. Surprisingly, although the same game also features 4 pyramids, they are not located in this area of the map but rather in a forest more to the south.
In the fanmade Episode 8 (Dead in the Desert), Keen is stranded in a desert planet. Many of the levels explored here are set on hot yellow sandy dunes, many of which have a labyrinthic design underground, though there are some levels showcasing other settings (such as Lethal Lava Land and Down the Drain) for variety's sake. Once Keen retrieves the Plot Coupon that allows him to repair his ship and escape, he's betrayed by a creature who was trying to help him, and the climax pits the two in a boss battle. After Keen defeats his enemy, he escapes the planet and the episode ends.
In Densetsu no Stafy 4, the sixth stage is Flourishing Desert, filled with ruins, pyramids, and cacti, of course. And since it isn't a Starfy game without water to swim in, the third stage in the area is an oasis.
Donkey Kong 64 has Angry Aztec. The main floor hazard here is lots and lots of scorching sand, but it doesn't swallow you up; it just hurts for a slice of melon, complete with Knockback. Appropriately, this level is where Donkey Kong gets his Invincibility Power-Up and Diddy Kong gets his jetpack.
In The Flintstones (1993), the third level, Desert Drive, takes place in a desert. In this level, Fred drives the Flintmobile across the desert in search of Pebbles, dealing with such hazards as cacti, quicksand, and cow skulls.
Kirby's Dream Land 3 has the first true desert world in the series, Sand Canyon, as the game's third world.
Kirby 64 also has Rock Star, a shattered desert planet, as the second planet Kirby and company travel to, though the latter levels don't have a sand theme.
Sky Sands from Kirby Air Ride is a desert track. And not to mention, Top Ride's Sand track.
Kirby's Epic Yarn has Pyramid Sands and Dusk Dunes as sand-themed levels, both located in the second world, Hot Land.
Gigabyte Grounds in Kirby: Planet Robobot. It also has a few Eternal Engine elements to it, owing to the game's "Machinery and Robot" theme.
Originull Wasteland in Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It's actually a dried-up sea, with shipwrecks and dead marine animals as far as the eye can see.
Land of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse has the Desert. Sentient cacti and vultures serve as enemies. This stage has a path that leads to the Sand Castle, as well as a Pyramid that holds the Cloud Shoes that Mickey will need to recover in order to walk across clouds.
In Lost Home, the second world is a desert where the player encounters enemies like buzzards and meerkats, and includes a level where it is possible to die from the heat.
Several of these are to be found in the Mega Man franchise, usually with Arabian-themed bosses at the end.
Overdrive Ostrich's stage in Mega Man X2. First part of the level features a sandstorm (albeit one created by a machine). The boss fight zone wraps around, creating a sense of "featureless desolate expanse."
Mega Man Zero has one which, like some other areas in the game, hosts more than one stage; in fact, it is technically the most-visited area mission-wise, with two missions fully traversing it and two missions requiring you to travel a short distance through it before going underground. This is perhaps intentional, since it's the first game in a series in which most of the Earth is now a barren wasteland. All four times you must deal with fire-breathing camels.
Mega Man Zero 2 kicks off in a desert as well, and has you face off against a titanic Scorpion robot.
Mega Man Zero 3 revisits the desert from the first entry and has Zero fighting Anubis Necromancess V, a revived version of Anubis Necromancess III from the same game.
Monsters, Inc.: Scream Team: All of the levels in the Desert training field take place in different sections of a desert. The most explicit instance is in the levels The Sphynx and The Oasis. The former features ancient archs and pillars that have to be traversed to reach items and the dummies in need of a scare; there are also platforms that have to be pounded in a certain order indicated by a central spot. In the latter, as its name implies, there's a large oasis whose deep water has to be avoided, as well as palm trees and sandcastles.
In Quackshot, Mexico and Egypt both start out as desert-themed levels. Both these levels end at a pyramid with a Locked Door which Donald needs a key from another level to unlock.
Quest for the Shaven Yak: Starring Ren Hoëk & Stimpy has the Stinking Dry Desert, which serves as the second world of the game. Enemies include cacti that shoot prickles, lizards, vultures that lay eggs, scorpions that act as mirages of lemonade glasses, wildebeest skeletons, spiders, crabs, and hopping toads. The boss of the world is a spitting cobra.
Quik the Thunder Rabbit has Oblivion Desert (Level 2, unsurprisingly), whose sandy ground is host to a strange abundance of saguaros and palm trees.
The Planets Aridia and Tabora in the Ratchet & Clank series. Tabora is sort of a double dip, as the caverns below the desert are filled with hot lava.
Stage 5 in Sparkster (SNES) also takes place in a desert, with a few Temple of Doom elements as well. Generalissimo Lioness' Wolf Soldiers are even dressed in Arabian garb for this stage. The boss of the stage is a robotic Segmented Serpent.
Shantae: Risky's Revenge has the Baron Desert, which has Nagas, Sandstone Golems, and the Ammo Baron's army preparing for their takeover of Scuttle Town.
Sonic the Hedgehog has its fair share of desert-themed levels, usually filled with sandy hills, pyramids, and wide open spaces. examples include, but not limited to:
In Songs for a Hero, an Egyptian-styled desert is the fourth level, divided into three acts: Lühnee Dunes, Pyramid Skeeme and Ottoh Tomb, though this trope is more present in the first one. The enemies are vultures, giant sand verms and walking cactuses, and the Hero can suffer hallucinations from the heat and get stuck in moving sand.
Spyro the Dragon has an assortment of desert levels in the first three games, complete with an unusually sensible distribution of cacti (no clearly non-American style desert has them). The majority of the Peace Keepers world is arid/desert (with little actual sand); Scorch in the second game is Arabian-style with sloping hills of sand acting as the level borders; the third game's Desert Ruins is a (presumably Egyptian-style) ruin half-buried in the sands of the desert, and Dino Mines in the third game is Wild West in concept.
Strider (Arcade) has a desert camp stage exclusive to the PC Engine version, where it is (optionally) inserted between the original first two levels.
The third and fourth levels take place within a wide, scorched desert with some ancient buildings and functional furnaces. The former level has a furnace with a switch that floods much of the level with lava, but there's another whose switch reverts the flood.
The second level of the Doomsday campaign aims for The Wild West instead of the Middle East motifs seen in the base campaign's desert levels. It's a scorched land whose features include cacti, crystal statues shaped like bird necks, a pair of rails where a train does an endless Wrap Around trip, some saloons, small plateaus that can be climbed, and more uniquely a set of floating cubic devices that can be used by the kiwi to gain extra height while gliding (with them, it's even possible to go through the whole level without ever touching the ground).
The Super Mario Bros. games frequently include a desert world with pyramids and Pokey, usually as the second world in the game:
Super Mario Bros. 2 has Worlds 2 and 6. In addition to classic features like quicksands, sand-dwelling enemies (including the debut of the living cacti known as Pokey) and an overall arid environment, these worlds have various caves and pyramid dungeons where Mario and his friends have to dig through sand. And since there are many enemies patrolling the inner parts of the sand, the holes the dig leaves will make them fall under and approach the characters, potentially harming them.
Super Mario Bros. 3: World 2 takes place in Desert Land. Some levels do have oasis with water where Mario and Luigi can swin in, while others have pyramids (and one of them can be explored from the interior). Fire Snakes, Chain Chomps, Fire Bros. (only present in a hidden part of the map) and the Angry Sun are first seen here as well.
Super Mario Land has Birabuto, one of Sarasaland's kingdoms. Uniquely for a Mario game, it is the first world. It is based on real-life Egypt, and many pyramids can be seen on the background. The boss is King Totomesu, a living sphinx that breathes fire.
Super Mario 64: The Trope Namer is Shifting Sand Land, the eighth world. It is a relatively flat location packed with hazards like instant-death quicksand, Fly Guys, Pokeys and a pyramid full of traps (and home to the level's boss: Eyerok). A small oasis is located here as well.
New Super Mario Bros.: World 2 in all games in the subseries (called Layer-Cake Desert in New Super Mario Bros. U, giving it a touch of Level Ate). Besides bringing back features seen in previous games' desert levels, these worlds also introduce geyser-like streams of sand that elevate Mario and his friends towards higher spots, including Star Coins that would be unreachable otherwise.
Super Mario Galaxy has the Dusty Dune Galaxy, while Super Mario Galaxy 2 has the Slipsand Galaxy. In both games, the nonstandard gravity makes sand move and behave in unique ways (sometimes working in Mario's favor, sometimes not).
Super Mario 3D Land: Desert stages are scattered throughout the worlds, such as 3-1 (a large sandy terrain which has a tall tower where the level's exit lies at the top, and is home to the sand-dwelling Sandmaargh), 5-1 (a sandy Death Mountain that has to be climbed while dealing with enemies like Pokeys and Boomerang Bros.) and 6-2 (the interior of a pyramid filled with dunes that rise and lower periodically). Remixed versions of these levels appear in the Special Worlds as well.
Super Mario 3D World: The map of World 2 is desert-themed, but only the first level (Conkdor Canyon) is actually set in a desert; the sandfalls located in certain spots can be used to reach high places. There's also Plessie's Dune Downhill in World 8, where sand sculptures modeled after Bowser can be found.
Super Mario Odyssey: Tostarena in the Sand Kingdom is a desert with ruins, a Mexican-inspired town, and sombrero wearing sugar skull inhabitants. It's the third world (followng up the Cap and Cascade Kingdoms), and is unique in that the desert is initially cold (to the point some ice crystals are formed), though this is reversed later when the heat is restored. Outside this kingdom, and as an Easter Egg, at the very edge of the grasslands surrounding Peach's Castle you can see a desert, a reference to how desert worlds often come after grass ones in the Mario series.
Super Mario Maker 2: This is one of the added settings for level making and playing, being available in four of the game styles (including the one based on Super Mario Bros., which didn't have any explicitly themed worlds at all). The excluded style is Super Mario World, which instead receives a level theme based on Chocolate Island (a Death Mountain world). When played in Night mode, wind will blow (its direction and rate will depend on the game style).
Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Sunbaked Desert is the fourth numbered world, contrasting the majority of 2D Mario games where the desert world is the second. It's a vast, sandy landscape that is normally abundant in water, but has dried up since Bowser Jr.'s stolen it all for himself; it features white-colored dunes plus a pristine oasis at the south and a wide, majestic palatial citadel at the north whose levels have exotic features like a musical stage where Ninjis dance, a mansion that stores large boxes, and a maze full of advanced contraptions. Unlike its predecessor desert worlds which are stereotypically Egyptian-themed, Sunbaked Desert follows a Middle Eastern theme.
Tiny Toon Adventures: Stage 2-1 takes place in a desert, with an oasis featuring spiky aquatic enemies in the second half. The quicksand is surprisingly strong, requiring the player to quickly jump out of it should their character fall onto it to avoid losing a life. There are red crustacean enemies that can jump fairly high as well.
In Wacky Races (1991), Stage A-2 takes place in a desert, with giant armadillos, scorpions, and quicksand. The boss of this stage is Sgt. Blast and Private Meekly in the Army Surplus Special.
