Universal Halloween Horror Nights Orlando 2023 is in full swing, and the most exciting new addition is a haunted house based on Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us video game. Naughty Dog co-president and The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann and Universal Orlando Senior Director Mike Aiello took IGN on a walkthrough of the house just hours before its grand opening, and then once night fell, we got to walk through it ourselves. Druckmann and Aiello shared how this collaboration came to be, the biggest challenges they faced, and how they captured The Last of Us’ signature tone.
It All Started With a Tweet
Having grown up in Miami, Florida, Druckmann would often make the trek to Orlando for Halloween Horror Nights each year. After a visit to Universal Studios Orlando in December 2021, Druckmann tweeted out, “I’d love to do a TLoU Halloween Horror Nights attraction! Who do I need to talk to?!” As it turns out, he needed to talk to Aiello, the man at Universal who could make it happen. And after seeing the tweet Aiello excitedly sent him a message to get the ball rolling. The rest is history.
“There’s always that story of like, ‘Okay, if we just talk once and now it’s going to happen.’ You always believe that, but oftentimes it never equates that way. But this absolutely did. Literally, it was a couple of days before Christmas, Neil tweeted out and I responded, and a day or two later was the Zoom call,” Aiello recalled.
“You don’t quite know if the deal terms will all work out,” Druckmann said. “I want to say on our side, PlayStation has been incredible partners, they really let us curate and pick and choose these kinds of projects. Because they know it’s going to be a big investment of time for us, and likewise, it seems like on your end everything was smooth, that it’s just we’re able to hit the ground running right away.”
Striking the Right Tone
Halloween Horror Nights is an event designed to entertain guests with all manner of spooky fun and violent delights, but the tone of The Last of Us is a harrowing and somber one that feels sad and bleak. Not exactly the best match on paper. Yet, they were able to bridge the gap to make the haunted house fun while staying true to the vibe of the game.
“I think that’s what makes the game, and in turn, this experience, so layered. And that is a challenge. How do you pay off all of those layers?” Aiello said. “I think it’s about recognizing those things, but also being very specific with what you want the experience to be. In adapting, there is that filter you have to put on the experience. So I will say there is an intensity to this that we want to maintain because it is a haunted house experience. However, the instances where you are engaging, Joel and Ellie kind of bring you back to that core value of what this story is about.
“There’s a moment we do a projection gag where there’s a Runner really going to town on a victim, and the audio for that is the notion of they’re doing this horrific act and they know it. So, it’s this cross between the savagery of that action and the cries of sadness that they’re doing it, which is something we implanted into the audio design to kind of show both sides of the turmoil that some of these victims are going through, knowing that they’re uncontrolled now at this point.”
Joel and Ellie are featured throughout the maze, popping up to warn you about the infected and help fight them off. The Last of Us fans in particular will appreciate that all their dialogue is by the original Joel and Ellie voice actors from the game, Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson. All-new dialogue was written and recorded just for this experience.
Although, staying true to the characters did require some creative thinking. Druckmann said, “One of the interesting constraints was like, ‘We can’t drop f-bombs.’ I’m like, ‘Well, how do we do Ellie’s dialogue if we can’t?’ But then you get a really clever idea. So we brainstorm. There’s a part again where Ellie’s protecting you and she has a rifle, lifted straight out of the game, and she’s like, ‘Die mother…’ Bang! And she shoots the rifle and you know exactly what she’s saying, and it’s kind of like gallows humor. I think fans will get a kick out of that.”
A Rare Distinction
Over Halloween Horror Nights’ many years since its inception in 1991, there have only been a handful of houses based on video games. (It’s important to note that this year’s Last of Us house is adapted from the game, not the TV show starring Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie.) The Last of Us house now joins this exclusive club, alongside Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Biohazard, and Nightmare Creatures II, the latter of which was HHN’s very first video game adaptation.
“It still blows my mind how big the game has become and how the people that love it, really love it. Sometimes a little too far,” Druckmann said. “But, it has afforded us to do something as cool as this. This dream of like, ‘I want to be in the game.’ Some people could argue, ‘Well, you’re already in the game. You’re playing Joel, and you turn the camera on, you can choose where you want to go.’ Yes, that’s true, but you’re seeing it on this two dimensional screen on your wall. What if we break those borders and it surrounds you 360 degrees and you can feel it, you can touch it, you could smell it? Just it hits you a little bit differently.”
The Last of Us at Halloween Horror Nights. Photo by Joshua Yehl, IGN.Bringing the Game to Life
When first deciding what The Last of Us maze should contain, they considered doing a “jukebox” approach where they featured a variety of different moments from throughout the game, but they ultimately chose to adapt a specific, linear section of the story instead.
“What we chose to do was, ‘Let’s tell a story as if you’re moving with Joel and Ellie in real time.’ Through an experience from the moment they crash the truck, all the way through Pittsburgh, through the stores, and this finale in the suburbs, it’s lifted straight from the game, until you exit with them, and you feel like, ‘I went on a journey with Joel and Ellie.’” Druckmann explained.
The Last of Us at Halloween Horror Nights. Photo courtesy of Universal.
Choosing this stretch of the game also allowed them to feature a variety of The Last of Us’ signature monsters.
“One of the reasons we picked Pittsburgh specifically is because you get to run the gamut of all the things you fight in the game, from Hunters, from the human threat, all the way to Runners, then to Clickers, and finally to Bloaters,” Druckmann said. “To make sure each one of those is authentic, we lifted audio straight from the game. The actors that are doing the infected, they had an infected bootcamp where they’re studying the game and learning to move like what our animators have created in the game”
Aiello was especially jazzed about bringing the iconic sounds of The Last of Us to the house.
“The audio design is so important to the experience,” he said. “For me, that’s one of my favorite parts about the experience, because, as a gamer, that is so important to how you’re playing the game. You’re hearing Clickers in the distance, you’re getting a sense of environment just based on the audio. So, to have the actual sound effects from the game to be able to employ in this experience, only furthers the authentication. Beyond all the scenic and the costumes, that audio experience is so, so, so important.”
There are other elements familiar to fans of The Last of Us video game throughout the maze, such as the workbenches used for crafting.
The Most Challenging Part
A majority of The Last of Us haunted house is full of broken down buildings and horrifying undead monsters, which is par for the course of Halloween Horror Nights. But there was one section, in particular, that proved incredibly difficult to create: “Molotov hallway.”
“We wanted to experience a part where Joel or Ellie has thrown a Molotov [cocktail] and there’s infected on fire,” Druckmann shared. “It went just like in the game, we want them to run out, then they’re smoldering. I’m like, ‘That sounds awesome. How are you going to do that?’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, we’re going to figure it out. We don’t know yet.’ How they pull it off is really impressive.”
“Some costume lighting, internal lighting around the source material where, let’s say, a Molotov cocktail was thrown directly at the chest of one of these Clickers. How do we create that burning and that kind of embering, burning that exists in that point of origin? We built a costume that illustrates that. You’re going to see Clickers on fire within the experience,” Aiello said.
Speaking of Clickers, and the rest of the infected, every monster costume from The Last of Us is unique with no repeats, and they were all custom designed for this attraction.
“The costumes are really challenging,” Aiello said. “These are amazingly detailed characters throughout. It’s easy to say, ‘We’re going to put a Bloater in a haunted show attraction experience.’ The challenge is, how do we have it look correctly, move correctly, but also be comfortable for the performer over the period of time that they’re in it? This is different than being on a TV show or a film where you can yell, ‘Cut,’ and you’re getting out of that costume. These performers are amazing. They’re the blood of this attraction, and to make them comfortable and be able to move and be those characters is a massive challenge. But we figure it out. It’s what we do.”
What the Future Holds
The Last of Us franchise has plenty more to offer. There’s the rest of the first game, a sequel, and a TV show with its own unique elements. So what are the odds that he’ll make a return to Halloween Horror Nights one day?
“I won’t say yes or no to that question,” Aiello said. “I think the possibilities are endless.”
Druckmann added, “I will say from my side of things, it’s been such a pleasure working with the Halloween Horror Nights team. Given the opportunity, I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
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