‘Fallout’ Boss ‘Digs’ The Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween House

‘Fallout’ fans get to enter the “enormous” universe at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Simon Thompson

Following the success of The Last of Us in 2023, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood is bringing the legendary gaming IP-turned-hit Amazon series Fallout to life. The result of this real-world reimagining is so impressive that it has even surpassed the expectations of the team behind the Amazon series.

“The costumes alone on this experience are crazy,” enthuses John Murdy, HHN’s Creative Director and Executive Producer at Universal Studios Hollywood. “I was walking Fallout‘s executive producer, Jonathan Nolan, the production designer, and a bunch of other people from the production through this house last week, and the art director goes, ‘Oh, you have one of our suits?’ and I was like, ‘No, we don’t. This is one of our suits.’ He couldn’t tell the difference, and Jonathan was digging it.”

“If you look at the Vaulters suits, they’re so complicated that again we actually reached out to the production and we were like, ‘Can we borrow one?’ They were in production on season two while we were designing this, so we hooked up with their costume designer, and they gave us one of the suits so we could really study it and figure out all the different materials that go into making it.”

It’s a massive compliment for Murdy and his team at the Hollywood theme park. However, they didn’t stop there.

“There’s also the Pip-Boy gadget that they wear on their wrist,” he continues. “We reached out to Amazon, and they made an amazing consumer product that is a one-for-one replica of what is on the show, so we were like, ‘We need a lot of those.’ If they’re sold out, it’s probably our fault, as we bought a large quantity of them. They made it like an alarm clock on a base, so we took them, disassembled them, and remodeled them so they were wearable. It was amazing. All our performers will be wearing them. It’s about all the details that go into creating this particular world.”

Here’s What You Need To Know About ‘Fallout’ At Universal Studios Hollywood

Fallout, located on the Upper Lot in the space previously occupied by A Quiet Place, is set in 2277 and takes place two hundred years after a nuclear war destroyed civilization. All that is left is “a highly violent hellscape” known as The Wasteland, inhabited by mutated creatures, and the underground, where people live in luxury fallout shelters or Vaults.

The seasonal attraction, also featuring at Universal Studios Orlando, places fans in iconic scenes and face-to-face with their favorite Fallout characters on a journey that begins beneath the surface in Vault 33. Among the familiar faces fans will encounter are the heroine, Lucy, the Ghoul, and Maximus, as well as a gaggle of mutating and robotic foes.

“When we first started talking about working on Fallout, we watched the entire series, and what hit me initially was that this universe is enormous,” Murdy laughs. “It goes everywhere, and there are three different story lines you’re following, so what we ultimately landed on for our approach is that we’re following in Lucy’s footsteps, so we’re going to begin in the wedding just like the series began. That’s the point where the raiders break in and start killing everybody, and then we’re going to follow Lucy’s journey as she leaves the vault and goes into the wasteland.”

“We also wanted to see one of the big creatures that has been affected by the radiation exposure, and the Super Duper Mart sequence. To me, that’s a haunted house finale right there with all the feral ghouls running around.”

Transport From Universal Studios Hollywood To The Vaults Of ‘Fallout’

Right out of the gate, Murdy and his team faced a considerable challenge replicating the look of the Vaults, the first area guests experience when entering the house.

“Everything is custom, right down to each little bolt,” he laments. “We enter Vault 33, where Lucy will have just gotten married. There will already be dead bodies of some of the Vaulters scattered around, including their poor wedding officiant, who got impaled on the wall. Still, guests are going to be put right in the middle of Lucy and Monty, her arranged marriage husband, who is trying to kill her.”

“Lucy’s in her wedding dress, she’s already been stabbed and is bleeding, and she’s got a broken shard of glass that she has used to carve up Monty’s face. The sirens will be going off, something has gone horribly wrong in here, and then we keep going and run into another raider.”

Because of the amount of detail in almost everything, the Fallout set decorating pushed the creative team to their limits.

“Even with the vault doors, I can’t even remember how many layers of what we would call CNC, which stands for Computer Numerical Control, cutting this out layer by layer. That’s not one piece, so it’s all sandwiched together from individual layers. It’s a huge scenic piece unto itself,” Murdy explains as we walk through. “Another one of the raiders has a Vaulter, and we watch as he slashes his throat, showering you with blood, and then we keep going through a curtain of hanging bodies, skeletal figures, and you’re having to push your way through them.”

It Took Four Months To Construct The ‘Fallout’ House At Universal Studios Hollywood

Work started on the Fallout build right after Fan Fest Nights concluded in the spring, giving Murdy and his team just four months to complete construction. Days ahead of the event, the final technical touches are being installed, while set dressings are being completed. Among the spaces that are a flurry of activity is the Wasteland scene, another close collaboration with the producers of the Prime Video show.

“There’s a massive cyclorama going all the way around the room, and then we have big foreground set pieces, with the bodies that were obliterated during the nuclear blast,” he explains. “There will be actual sand on the ground and up against the edges of everything, so then when you step out, it should feel like Lucy did when she walked into the wasteland. Ahead of you is a ruined shack from which you hear the sound of somebody turning into a feral ghoul. In the other window, there are radroaches. We got the 3D model for the shack from the production. We asked for a lot of the assets because some of these things are so complicated, we really needed that to reproduce them as accurately as possible, and that was the only way to be sure.”

While Fallout at Halloween Horror Nights is based on the first season of the wildly popular TV show, unlike The Last of Us, which was based on the video game, Murdy and his crew made sure to explore and draw inspiration from the entire franchise.

“I wrote this house in December 2024, so I was researching the series, and even though we’re doing the show, I feel beholden to the video game franchise, and Fallout goes way back,” he recalls. “I wanted to try to understand it from the gamer perspective, as well as just the people who watch the Amazon series. It’s a rich world and everything means something.”

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While the Fallout houses in Hollywood and Orlando are broadly similar, the most significant difference comes in the next area of the seasonal attraction. Subtle localized changes are something both Murdy and his Orlando counterpart, Michael Aiello, have leaned into in recent years.

“The next stop we’re going to make on this journey is to the Ghoul’s graveyard. This is where we differ between Orlando and Hollywood,” he confirms. “We have certain things in common, like the vaults, but here we wanted to introduce you to where the Ghoul made his entrance in the series. We’re doing this scene while Orlando is doing different scenes, such as the Philly sequence that we’re not doing.”

“Mike and I were on stage at Midsummer Scream. I asked the audience how many people attend both parks for Halloween Horror Nights, and it was shocking how many do. That shows how Halloween Horror Nights has evolved. It’s become a horror tourism phenomenon, where people take their vacation they’ve been saving up and spend it during the Halloween season. They’ll travel around the country, and sometimes to other countries, to see all of the content they can.”

He continues, “They’re just different, and audiences are different. Orlando is very much a theme park town. I lived there for two and a half years when I was with Creative, and I grew up in LA, so I know both very well.”

‘Fallout’s Finale Recreates Another Fan Favorite Moment At Universal Studios Hollywood

From there, the Fallout house hits several fan favourite beats from the show, including a cave featuring Maximus in his fully armored T-60 suit, Titus, and a jaw-dropping encounter with a bear.

“The T-60 itself is about seven feet tall, and the bear is huge,” Murdy exclaims. “It’s weird showing it to somebody, submitting it to the show’s producers, or whatever, and saying, ‘Here are pictures.’ I always make somebody stand next to it because you have to understand how big this is. It’s just massive.”

Eventually, Lucy and her fellow traveler guests arrive at the iconic Super Duper Mart for the terrifying grand finale involving Snip Snip and other nefarious characters.

“Fans love Snip Snip,” Murdy enthuses. “He’s the incredibly polite English robot that Lucy encounters when she goes into the Super Duper Mart. When she reaches this stage, she walks in, and a large robot emerges, saying, ‘Oh, let me help you.’ She’s like, ‘Oh my God. He’s so nice,’ and then he casually goes, ‘… and then we’re going to harvest your organs,’ and obviously she freaks out.”

“Inside the building, there is a big rear projection where you see Snip Snip putting Lucy on an operating table, and one of his hands turns into a blade, and he’s about to cut her open. She’s struggling with him, zaps him with defibrillator paddles, and he shorts out. She then comes out of a door, paddles in hand, but stops. Then we get into the feral ghouls. Martha, who is becoming a ghoul but is trying to hold on to her humanity, is a distraction, and as soon as you turn the corner, four ghouls come out and attack you. This is the finale sequence, but it’s not the end of the scares.”

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While many will come to be frightened by their favorite franchises, just as crucial to Murdy is the attention to detail. It’s always been important, but in recent years, Halloween Horror Nights have become even more keen on incorporating elements like screen-matching carpets and enveloping environmental details to further immerse guests in the worlds they love.

“We’re getting more and more into that as we go along,” the Universal Studios Hollywood creative concludes. “In the Fallout house, we have a real drop ceiling in the Super Duper Mart to replicate the look and feel of the show. It’s about trying to immerse our fans in the world of their favorite property as deeply as possible. At the end of the day, no matter how good what we create in any given year is, we then have to top it. We always have that mentality where as soon as the event is over, it’s done, it’s gone for us, because we’re already into the next one, and then you’re thinking, ‘Well, what can we do now to top that?’ and we love that.”