In our 8/12/19 episode of the podcast, “Everything we know (so far) about Universal’s Epic Universe“, we discussed the concept art that Universal released for their newly announced theme park “Epic Universe“.
Here’s the art so you can take a look for yourself if you haven’t yet seen it, and some of the rumors and leaks that the internet has had a chance to digest and speculate about since this announcement.
So let’s take a walk around the map and see what clues the folks at Universal may have left here for us to decipher and figure out what each of these self contained little lands might have in store for us. Before we continue, let’s remember that lot of this is all rumor, speculation, and some wild but educated guesses. The final form of the park might end up looking a lot different, but it’ll be fun to come back to this in a few years and see what was right, and what was totally off the mark!
Starting on the left side of the map, it looks like this could be the long rumored “Super Nintendo World” that has been anticipated to make it’s arrival to Universal Orlando in one form or another. The land is believed to include a Mario Kart Ride and a Yoshi themed Yoshi’s Adventure omnimover ride. This family friendly attraction will allow you to ride on a Yoshi, for an adventure through the Mushroom Kingdom. A close look at the at the art in this area also show’s what’s thought to be a Donkey Kong themed roller coaster.
Up there in the top left corner we see what appears to be a European Village that looks a lot like the Classic Monsters land concept art that was leaked by Orlando ParkStop a few months ago. The leaked documents refer to this land as the ‘Worlds of Universal Classic Monsters; think Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, etc. Rumors seem to point at a Creature from the Black Lagoon themed boat ride might end up being the main attraction here as well as an amphitheater for live shows.
At the top of the map we see a deluxe resort hotel attached directly to the park and a fountain filled lagoon surrounded by seats in a theater-in-the-round configuration. Moving along and we see what appears to be a land that looks like the streets of Paris, leading speculation that this will the next location for a Wizarding World of Harry Potter themed area and attraction. It could either be based on the Fantastic Beasts franchise, or the new home of a Ministry of Magic themed attraction.
The next area, is sort of a mini-land, but we do see what looks like a sci-fi looking building, and this is speculated to possibly be a Star Trek themed roller coaster or maybe a new original sci-fi themed concept for the park.
The last visible land is a Viking style village circling a small lagoon, and this rumored to be a land based on your How to Train your Dragon franchise. It will be the “Fantasyland” section of the park, and may include a roller coaster based on the franchise. We would just LOVE to see a roller coaster that finally lets you fly Toothless! If this isn’t a fully themed viking village, it may end up as a sort of Dreamworks Animation Land that gives Universal a place to play around with attractions and shows based on IP’s like Kung-Fu Panda, Madagascar and Shrek.
The map also looks like it has some space for future development. The newly purchased land just a couple miles south of Universal Orlando Resort will give Universal a lot of new space to play around with. Can’t wait to see what comes next, and to see what Disney does to counter this!
