It all started with a tweet. Or an X. Or whatever we’re calling it these days.
Santa Monica resident Neil Druckmann, a game developer, co-studio president and head of creative at Naughty Dog, was visiting Universal Studios Hollywood two years ago and after a day of fun he shared on Twitter that he’d love to see his video game, “The Last of Us,” turned into a maze at the theme park’s annual Halloween Horror Nights.
“I was just here, having a blast with my family, and I have just been a fan of theme parks since I was a child, and horror, too, so I just put it out there in a tweet and I got a response,” Druckmann said with a laugh as he stood alongside HHN creative director and executive producer John Murdy in front of the façade of one of the eight walk-thru attractions that make up the 2023 HHN season.
“This was the first haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights that was birthed through Twitter, so something good came out of social media,” Murdy added. Universal Studios Hollywood’s annual scare-a-thon begins on Thursday, Sept. 9 and continues select evenings through Tuesday, Oct. 31.
Adapting the game
“The Last of Us” is an action-adventure video game set in a post-apocalyptic world that follows main characters Joel and Ellie as they dodge humans infected by a fungal virus — known as runners, stalkers and clickers — and a hostile group known as The Hunters. It was released in 2013 and received critical acclaim as it picked up several gaming awards and went on to become one of the best-selling video games of all time. A clear fan-favorite, the game has been turned into a graphic novel, a tabletop game, a wildly popular television series on HBO that aired earlier this year and now it’s a walk-through attraction at both Universal Studios Hollywood and Orlando.
The maze begins at a quarantine zone in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Joel and Ellie have wrecked their vehicle and they’re forced to fight their way through the…
Read the full article here