With Epic Universe, the newest theme park in Orlando, open for over a full month now and the announcement season for Halloween Horror Nights 34 proceeding apace, Universal decided to keep all of its diehard fans on their toes by throwing a curveball into the normal marketing proceedings: on Thursday, June 26, it went ahead and unveiled a second year-round Horror Unleashed installation, in Chicago, before the first, in Las Vegas, has even opened its doors.

It’s a monumental moment for Universal, establishing its full-throated commitment to its new business venture (in new markets around the country, to boot) and, just possibly, hinting at future developments still to come – but it also raises some questions, in both the near and long term, especially on the matter of timing.

A quick rundown on the situation seems to be in order, then, doesn’t it?

What is Horror Unleashed Chicago (and when will it open)?

We don’t have a lot of specific information on this front – and there’s still plenty of time for the company to dribble those juicy morsels out, given the new location’s expected opening timeframe – but, by this point in the Horror Unleashed lifecycle, with the original Nevada destination having been announced now for over two-and-a-half years, we definitely have the general picture down.

One can infer from the late-June press release that this second iteration of the new concept will, at least generally speaking, exactly mirror the structure of the first, including “unforgettable scares,” “immersive, horror-centric entertainment,” themed culinary offerings, and exclusive merchandise. While we don’t know what, exactly, its contents will be (we’ll discuss that more in just a moment), we can say, for those who need a quick refresher, that the Nevada rendition has a roster of four haunted houses – Scarecrow: The Reaping, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist: Believer, and Universal Monsters – with each boasting an attached entertainment/scare/gastronomical area (and, of course, there’ll also be that collectible merch that has come to dominate so much of Halloween Horror Nights at the various Universal theme parks over the decades). Expecting something similar here doesn’t seem to be too much of a leap.

This first-ever Universal attraction in the Midwest will be located on Chicago Avenue, between the River North and West Town districts, at the former Tribute Distribution Center, a 114,000-square-foot building where the famed newspaper was printed for 43 years before closing down almost exactly a year ago; replacing it is a still-under-construction Bally’s casino resort, the first in the city, with Horror Unleashed located right next to it. Universal may very well be banking on that specific type of tourism – gamblers and spectacle-seekers alike – just as it is in Sin City, where it will not only draw upon the nearby Strip, but also that of the broader Area15 immersive entertainment district that it will reside within when it opens on August 14.

The only other particulars we have on this new project come from some further reports by regional publications that accompanied Universal’s June 26 press release: the company first started work on this year-round follow-up back in October 2024; construction is expected to begin early next year, following “design finalization and permitting”; the current opening date is projected to be sometime in 2027; and, once operational, city officials expect it to generate more than $1 billion in “economic impact” for Chicago, creating 400 permanent jobs in the process.

What will be Horror Unleashed Chicago’s attractions?

This is the central question at hand.

The most obvious answer here is that Universal will take something of a cookie-cutter approach with Horror Unleashed, creating an exact template in Nevada that can then be trotted out to all subsequent installations, from Illinois onward – meaning, that is to say, four haunted houses with four connected entertainment/culinary zones that can rotate out at regular intervals. This not only would make sense logistically – the company has hinted pretty much from day one that this horror spinoff would be an umbrella of experiences that could possibly stretch across the entire country (if not the entire world, if we want to get carried away here) – but it would also copy the approach that has been at work with the various Horror Nights events around the globe, in which some combination of haunts, scare zones, live shows, and other immersive and entertainment opportunities are deployed all across a Universal Studios park.

But even with that said, the different HHNs do feature a great deal of variance from one another: Hollywood, despite sharing most of its contents with Florida every year, gets its own exclusives, which isn’t to mention the headlining Terror Tram; Japan has boasted some pretty impressive encounters, including an upcharge interactive maze and a Laser Tag-esque experience set within the Resident Evil videogame franchise; and Beijing doesn’t even use the same moniker, although it does borrow some elements from the ever-growing Halloween Horror Nights lore, such as the headlining icon of Jack the Clown. It’s not inconceivable, then, that Horror Unleashed Chicago could potentially have a trick or two up its Midwestern sleeve.

Let’s say, however, just for the sake of argument, that this new iteration is a carbon-copy of Vegas – that still leaves room for some variations on the theme. Universal could follow the same exact lineup as Sin City’s, unfurling Scarecrow, Texas Chainsaw, and the others for the same amount of time before moving on to the second- and third-generation haunted-house inhabitants, whatever those end up being; it could skip these originals entirely and just jump ahead to the 2027 roster, keeping tandem with its sister location from then on; or it could go a completely different route, drawing upon intellectual properties that have more of a tie to the region, and rolling out a schedule that’s uniquely catered for the location (or, just possibly, doing some combination of all three options, seeing what works and what doesn’t in an ad hoc fashion). This will be really telling, not only for what we could expect from other potential Horror Unleasheds in the future, but also for what Universal’s overriding business goals are.

Actually, speaking of which…

Why did Universal pick Chicago for the next Horror Unleashed?

This is one question that is actually easy to answer: the Windy City has a large population, an established tourism track record (not to mention a reputation for entertainment), a willingness to help invest in the revitalization of underused or otherwise-vacant neighborhoods, and, perhaps most notably, not much in the way of theme or amusement parks (though it does already boast an array of haunts, even if many seem to be seasonal only). All of these points can be quickly summed up in the statement of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who said that his state brings to the table an “unmatched entertainment sector, renowned workforce, and strong infrastructure”; Universal officials, for their part, have called Chicago a “perfect match for the [horror] genre,” which will help fuel the company’s “broader growth strategy to reach new audiences, in new markets, through new and original concepts” (the “new concept” here not being the potential copy-and-paste contents of Horror Unleashed Las Vegas, mind you, but the very idea behind the nascent horror initiative itself).

Given all these elements, it creates a ready-made playbook that one could easily extrapolate to a whole number of further locations across the United States, from Hawaii to New England – and given the timetable we’ve already seen at play, it may not be too much longer before we receive that next wave of announcements.

Why did Universal announce Horror Unleashed Chicago now?

Why would the company reveal its second year-round horror attraction before the first one even opens? There are a couple of possible elements to consider, and they each have some pretty interesting implications.

First and foremost, Universal has been following an aggressive development path ever since Comcast purchased it back in 2011, updating, refreshing, and, even, expanding every single theme park within its purview – all of which, of course, has been capped off by this summer’s opening of Epic Universe, the biggest expansion of them all. Continuing to lay out an equally aggressive road forward seems to be of paramount importance, as well: after the first Horror Unleashed bows next month, there will be another first-ever for Universal, the Kids Resort, in Frisco, Texas, next year; Universal Studios Great Britain in 2031; a potential cruise line, if certain rumors and paperwork are to be believed, for sometime thereafter; and, naturally, a whole new round of further expansions at all of the pre-existing parks, most especially Epic Universe (which has entire plots of land specifically put aside for the purpose) and Universal Beijing Resort (which has hundreds of undeveloped acres left to utilize). Fleshing out a whole new track of experiences – and revenue – with the regional haunt scene, which rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars every year, would seem to nestle quite nicely within this ever-more-crowded framework that Universal and Comcast are busily cobbling together.

But there could be even more at play here. The always-insightful Philip Hernandez has put forward an interesting – and pretty convincing – theory, which he pretty succinctly sums up thusly: “Let’s be clear: Horror Unleashed Chicago isn’t about building a surefire haunt. It’s about building investor confidence ahead of Comcast’s next earnings call on July 31.” Citing the parent corporation’s continually eroding userbase of cable customers, a trend which is only expected to accelerate in the future as cord-cutting permeates more of our society, Hernandez postulates that investor pressure to diversify Comcast’s business portfolio will likewise increase – and themed entertainment, a sector that the company initially was wary of before quickly realizing the many financial opportunities that it offered, would seem poised to help fill the breach. If this is, indeed, an accurate reading, then stepping more fully into the haunt scene would make just as much sense as building new theme parks in Florida, China, Texas, and the United Kingdom.

And while appeasing stockholders in the short-term certainly seems plausible, there just may be more going on in the background, as well – perhaps Universal is signaling that it’s already here to stay in the regional haunted-house market, warning both established and would-be competitors away. Or maybe it’s something of an early sounding board, looking to see how various elements within the industry, from those rivals on down to the average consumer, respond, with what level of enthusiasm and with what level of demands for IPs and the like, to help steer this still-experimental outing as it enters into construction; if so, this certainly wouldn’t be the first time the park operators have been known to deploy such a tactic.

Regardless of the motive, the announcement is now real, to be followed shortly by a very real physical presence in a very new regional market for Universal – meaning that the entertainment rubber will meet the financial road imminently, with some rather portentous outcomes for the entire industry.

For even more in-depth analysis like this, be sure to check out Horrors Untold, the unofficial, comprehensive guide to Halloween Horror Nights Orlando.

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