‘The Last Of Us’ Infesting Halloween Horror Nights Began With A Tweet

While seeing the seminal video game The Last of Us manifest as an attraction at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights is a dream come true for fans, the guy behind it is having his own fan-boy moment.

It all started with a punt on social media two years ago.

“I grew up in Florida, so every year I would make the pilgrimage from Miami to Orlando and go to Universal Studios and Halloween Horror Nights,” recalled Neil Druckmann, Co-Studio Head and Head of Creative at Naughty Dog as we spoke on the Universal Studios Hollywood lot. “I knew there were enough eyes on me on social media that if I said something, it could probably reach the right person, so it wasn’t completely blind. I wasn’t sure I would get something back, and I didn’t believe I’d get something back that same day, but I did. I was stoked and like, ‘Okay, we have to make this happen.'”

That led to John Murdy, Executive Producer of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, his counterpart in Orlando, Michael Aiello, and Druckmann taking the conversation offline, and the spore was planted.

“I talked to everybody back at Naughty Dog, we set up a Zoom call, we started talking about what the partnership would look like and what made sense,” Druckmann explained. “Once we worked that out, we were like, ‘Let’s do this ASAP. Let’s fast-track it.’ I couldn’t wait to experience it as a fan, and I knew if I felt that way, I’m sure our fans would feel the same way.”

The announcement that the PlayStation game, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, would be brought to life in both the East and West Coast theme parks received a rapturous welcome from fans. When the original The Last of Us game landed in June 2013, it was a massive hit, selling over 1.3 million units in its first week. This also marks the first time Halloween Horror Nights has hosted a house inspired by a video game.

The next step was working out how to bring the game to life. Druckmann learned from his past experiences, the good and the bad.

“When I work with people that are experts at their medium, my approach is to trust them and not to come saying, ‘I know better than you.’ I’ve experienced that ego from the other side,” he said. “We’ve talked to certain movie studios that have wanted to adapt our material, and they’d say, ‘We know how to do this,’ and it’s like, ‘Hold on. What we are doing needs to be a collaboration.’ There are certain constraints and things I will always protect about this franchise, such as the core of it being this relationship between the game’s lead characters, Joel and Ellie, which is why they are sprinkled throughout this entire experience. It’s not just about jump scares.”

Beyond that, the creative wanted to keep an open mind, treating their pitch and the early development process as “an education.”

“I was like, ‘Tell me how you built all these other houses you’ve done? What worked? What didn’t work? How do you like receiving notes?’ We decided early on that instead of doing it as a montage of all the different parts of the game, they should focus on a single part of the game, the most iconic part, which is Pittsburgh, Druckmann explained. “We wanted to make the guests feel like they’re going on a journey with Joel and Ellie. Beyond that, we allowed them the freedom to do what they do best.”

A decade of The Last of Us offered the perfect opportunity for the collaboration between Universal Studios theme park creatives and Naughty Dog. The brand enjoyed a significant surge in popularity with gamers and non-gamers alike this year thanks to the acclaimed HBO TV adaptation, which was a ratings smash. However, it is solely the game that the seasonal experience is inspired by.

“Ten years is like several lifetimes in video games,” Druckmann mused. “Someone asked me what has allowed us to do all these things, and the simple answer is our fans. If our fans didn’t connect with this material the way they do or tell their friends about it, we wouldn’t be here right now talking about Halloween Horror Nights.

“Naughty Dog’s responsibility is to make sure when we venture outside of gaming, we pick and choose what we do very carefully. We don’t just like do the shotgun approach, so you don’t see tons of The Last of Us merchandise or licensing deals out there. We’ve teamed up with HBO, the best people on TV; we’ve teamed up with Universal Studios, the best people in theme parks, and that’s always been our approach.”

He continued, “When the show was coming out, I knew there’d be people that watch the show that had no idea it was a game, but they’d check it out, and that will be like their gateway to gaming. Likewise, some people will come here because they’re fans of theme parks and Halloween Horror Nights and be like, ‘What’s this?’ They will experience the house, then the game and the TV show. All these things are speaking to each other. They’re almost like parallel dimensions of the same story.

“Another thing that makes this house so special is that it will be here for two months, a lot of people will come to experience it, and then it is gone, and only those people get to do that versus the game or the TV show because they’re there forever.”

Has the experience made the Naughty Dog team want to do something similar for Halloween Horror Nights again? The bar has been set pretty high.

“If we’re going to come back here and do it again, it needs to have that specialness. It needs to be something new,” Druckmann confirmed. “It’s been so rewarding for me. I’m sure I’m going to feel even greater about it once I see people walk through it. I might have a day where I come here and dress up like a Clicker. I have more than thought about doing it so that’d be fun. We’re also going to have a day where we bring all of Naughty Dog here, hundreds of us, and we’re all going to go through this house.”

For now, the Co-Studio Head is happy with how the vision and world of the game have been realized and elevated to a whole new level, something he didn’t imagine happening “in a million years.”

“When I was finishing working on the game, and people I’ve worked with know this, I was like, ‘I don’t think this is going to succeed.’ I was so insecure about it,” he revealed. “We had worked on Uncharted, and it was such a big hit. The last game I worked on before The Last of Us was Uncharted 2, which blew up that franchise. It had this mass appeal because it’s a pulpy, action-adventure, but this is more niche, horror, and subtextual. However, The Last of Us was extremely successful, and when you talk to fans, they have such an attachment. When we did Comic-Con Brazil, I got to meet the Portuguese voice actor for Ellie, and she was so excited to meet me, shake my hand, and say how much that meant to her.”

Druckmann concluded, “To this day, fans are still arguing about the game’s ending and what it means. I would have never predicted it, but I love it. Part of my responsibility is to make sure that is something I don’t take for granted. I have to ensure that everything we do with The Last of Us and what we give back to our fans is excellent, and this experience is no exception.”

Halloween Horror Nights is now underway at Universal Orlando Resort with Universal Studios Hollywood following suit on Thursday, September 7, 2023. Tickets for both events are now on sale.