UPDATE: All Houses and Scare Zones are now OFFICIALLY announced for Halloween Horror Nights 2022!
Breakdown of ALL TEN Houses
Breakdown of ALL FIVE Scare Zones

Halloween is quickly approaching, and with it comes house announcements and speculation map revisions! Recently, our friends at HHNightmares released version 3.0 of the HHN31 spec map. Of course, with two houses officially confirmed and more accurate rumors and permits filed to the city, there’s been some refinement to the original HHN 2022 speculation map. If you missed our thoughts on the original, be sure to catch up on them here!

The biggest update to this map is the addition of ScareZones! We now have an insight into what we can expect for the streets this year. While nothing has changed in terms of layout, there are a few interesting things to note. The first observation that I have is the glaring lack of a roaming chainsaw horde in Springfield again this year. In last years event, HHN 30, one of my biggest negatives was how awkwardly empty that section of the park felt. The roaming chainsaw horde has been a staple of Halloween Horror Nights since its inception, and it feels strange to not have them hiding behind corners waiting to slash at your limbs in an aggressively friendly and terrifyingly funny way. Hopefully Universal heard the feedback and added them back into the event, but from the looks of this SPECULATION map, it seems as if they haven’t. However, these maps are meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Nothing is fact (except the two announced houses), so we’ll just have to wait and see.

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That being said though, there are some interesting concepts being thrown around here for street themes. The first thing I notice is the return to various properties. Not only do we have a “Traditional Halloween” street, but we also have a return to “Treaks & Foons”, which was a popular street in the 2002 season which was split between the two parks. However, these characters have made multiple appearances in the event since then, mainly all in the early 2000’s, but some as recent as last year in the “Lights, Camera, Hacktion: Eddie’s Revenge” scare zone. It’ll be interesting to see the return of these characters in their own zone again. WILL THERE BE A BUBBLE WALL AGAIN? The internet needs to know. 

This year seems to be returning to many properties formerly seen at the event. Amongst the scare zones featuring Traditional Halloween, Treaks & Foons, Scarecrow, and Vampires, we also have houses like Halloween, the Evil Dead, and a follow up to Seeds of Extinction. Although I don’t inherently have any issues with this, it does seem interesting that the creative team wants to return to these properties in a year that, otherwise, is stacked with fresh, new ideas. I would much rather see another fresh property than another return to Halloween or the Evil Dead, which we’ve seen several times over at this point. (UPDATE) Universal has officially announced that Halloween (1978) will return to this year’s event.

With that being said though, I’m very excited at the possibility of some of these original houses and brand new IPs (intellectual properties). Universal has absolutely knocked it out of the park with their Universal Monsters houses over the past few years! Even if it’s just a ploy to get us invested into the characters again before the launch of Epic Universe, I’ll still be here for it as long as they keep delivering quality houses. Speaking of quality houses, Seeds of Extinction seems to be getting a follow up this year. Seeds was my favorite house of 2018’s event, and I would be very curious to see(ds) a continuation of the concept. Witch, Dead Man’s Wharf, El Chupacabra, and Bug House don’t have very many details as of yet, but they all sound to be fairly inline with what we’ve come to expect from the creative team at Universal. As more information arrives for these original houses, we’ll be sure to keep you all updated.

The Weeknd has been rumored for a long time now. Ever since Billie Eilish lost her shot for the spotlight in 2020, everyone’s been talking about the rumors of The Weeknd coming to Halloween Horror Nights, and 2022 seems to be their year. It will be interesting to see how the creative team twists the pop culture phenomenon’s music into a terrifying beast. They definitely have my attention with this house, but maybe for nothing else than pure skepticism and morbid curiosity. (UPDATE) The Weeknd has officially been announced! Check out this article to catch up on the storyline of their album, After Hours, before experiencing the house!

The Horrors of Blumhouse: The Black Phone & Freaky does not surprise me in the least. Blumhouse has been on fire lately with its low budget, indy horror movies. And the fact that Universal owns the rights to the properties they release makes for an easy and seamless addition to the event. The last year of my scareacting career was spent in Blumhouse in 2018, and if there’s one thing I learned that year, don’t sleep on the underdog. Blumhouse came out swinging for the fences that year due to its poor reception and last minute addition to the event. If this year is anything like that, Blumhouse might just have a fighting chance. Although it's towards the bottom of my hype list, I’ll still be keeping an eye out for what this house has in store. I believe in you Blumhouse, do me proud! (UPDATE) The Horrors of Blumhouse: The Black Phone & Freaky have officially been announced for this year’s event.

And finally, we come to the end of our HHN Spec Map v3.0 journey with the conclusion of our shows and live entertainment. The Fear Factor stadium pulls itself back up in the final seconds of the round before the bell rings and just makes it see another season! At the end of the 2021 season, we were all unsure if we’d ever see another show in the infamous Fear Factor stadium. However, it seems as if it’s pulling through for one final round! Nightmare Fuel looks to be returning with a follow up to its debut season last year. While I wasn’t as over-the-moon about this show as most other people were, I still quite enjoyed it and I’m very interested to see how it’ll evolve for this coming year. And last, but not least, Marathon of Mayhem is returning! This lagoon show has quickly become a staple of the event. Debuting strongly in 2019 and continuing its takeover in 2021, I’m not surprised at all to see this return. In fact, I’d probably be more surprised to not see it return. This show has been excellent both years, and it’s a fun, easy to put on show that gives the guests just one more thing to do on their visit. I’m glad to see this returning.

However, that’ll be it for this rundown of the latest HHN 31 Speculation Map! Did we miss anything? Let us know down in the comments section below! We’d also love to hear your thoughts and opinions! So let’s get a conversation going down there! As always, be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you can stay up-to-date with all things Halloween Horror Nights as they get revealed! See you in the fog!

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