Super Roster Maker - Halloween Horror Nights: TerrorVerse

One of the things that fans of Netherrealm Studios, developers of Mortal Kombat and Injustice, have been asking for is a crossover fighting game with several different horror movie icons, especially with the inclusion of horror characters as guest fighters in the recent Mortal Kombat games. While this can cover a broad spectrum a way to focus it a bit would be to tie this game in with another crossover, Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights.

This annual Halloween event taking place at Universal theme parks brings park guests into the worlds of different horror properties with haunted houses and scare zones based on original ideas as well as relevant or iconic horror properties. In the past, Universal has gotten a hold of horror franchises from different companies and different mediums to add to their yearly attraction. A partnership between Netherrealm, Warner Brothers (which currently owns Netherrealm), and Universal could allow such a game to come to fruition. Different movie studios have worked together in the past (see Sony’s deal with Disney and Marvel for Spider-Man), so it’s not outside of the realm of possibility.

That is our topic for this Super Roster Maker, Halloween Horror Nights: TerrorVerse.

For this roster, we will be focusing on characters and series that have been featured in Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights event, particularly the Orlando event, which has been around the longest, having started in 1991. Any series is fair game if they have been featured as a haunted house at the Orlando event.

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PART 1: THE ICONS

In this section, the characters we will pick for the icons are the actual icons used in HHN, special characters exclusive to the event. For different years at HHN, Universal has created original characters to serve as hosts for the frightening festivities. They help to set the tone and establish the theme for the years they are used in. It’s these characters that would likely get first consideration to be added in a game about HHN and they add more of an original identity to the roster beyond just well-known horror characters.

The picks are:

Jack the Clown

The Caretaker

The Director

The Storyteller

Bloody Mary

The Usher

Fear

Lady Luck

Chance

These Icon characters include Jack the Clown (a serial killer clown and host of a nightmarish carnival), The Caretaker (a ghoulish cemetery caretaker with some vicious tools of the trade), The Director (a snuff film director never seen without his camera and torture implements), The Storyteller (an elderly woman whose scary stories come to life), Bloody Mary (a psychologist who becomes a mirror-inhabiting spirit of corruption), The Usher (a ghostly movie theater usher haunting a theater where horror movies come to life), Fear (the demonic embodiment of fear itself), Lady Luck (a shapeshifting succubus with a thing for gambling and choice), and Chance (Jack’s Harley Quinn-style sidekick).

PART 2: THE FIGHTERS

This section is for characters that have already been featured in officially released fighting games in the past (sorry, Terrordrome fans). While the only series that counts for this article is Mortal Kombat with its aforementioned guest characters, it provides five iconic horror characters that fans would be sure to look out for in this roster.

From Mortal Kombat (9): Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

From Mortal Kombat X: Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th)

From Mortal Kombat X (continued): Predator (Predator) & Xenomorph (Alien)

While this is a small number for this segment, the characters provided add a lot to this roster, as Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, Predator, and the Xenomorph are all faces of well-established horror movie series and their time in Mortal Kombat proves that they can hold their own in a fighting series.

PART 3: THE STARS

For this section, the characters picked each represent a different genre or popular sub-genre of horror, with the characters selected being from either classic or currently successful horror franchises.

The picks are:

Gore/Torture: Jigsaw (Saw)

Psychological Horror: Jack Torrance (The Shining)

Killers/Slashers: Laurie Strode (Halloween)

Monsters: The Wolfman

Zombies/Undead: Ash Williams (Evil Dead)

Supernatural: Imhotep (The Mummy)

While Ash from Evil Dead and Laurie from Halloween are not horror movie villains, in a cast already loaded with villains, adding a couple of well-known heroes in the mix can bring some variety. One is one of the toughest guys to survive an onslaught of horror monsters and the other is the original final girl, who has surely come up with some ways to defend herself against things that go bump in the night.

Speaking of things that go bump in the night, the other characters in this section include Jigsaw (who could have a trap-setting zoner playstyle) and Jack Torrance (who could attack with his axe and possibly help from ghosts from the Overlook Hotel). The Wolfman and Imhotep are open to more interpretation, but Wolfman could be seen as a fast hard-hitter slashing with his claws like Sabrewulf from Killer Instinct and Imhotep could be a mummified, decayed magic user (depicted either resembling the classic movies or the 1999 remake for a more action-oriented take).

PART 4: THE WILD CARDS

For the wild cards characters, we have two characters each for three different categories; popular studio picks, favorite fan requested characters, and experimental characters that could bring about new presentations for a move-set or set of powers.

The picks are:

Studio Picks: Dracula and The Governor (The Walking Dead)

Dracula is one of the most iconic faces of horror and has had countless interpretations of the years, so including a version of Dracula with this cast would make a lot of sense, especially since Universal has made a lot of use of him in HHN. Something else HHN has gotten a lot of use from is the comic/TV series The Walking Dead, and with the villainous Negan already a guest fighter in Tekken 7, the Governor another of the series’ biggest villains can be a good way to represent the series.

Fan Favorites: Chucky (Child’s Play) and The Thing (The Thing)

Chucky is a frequent figure at Halloween Horror Nights, both as a show with Chucky’s Insult Emporium and in haunted houses like with Chucky: Friends ‘Til the End, where other twisted toys have been brought to life to help the killer doll with his rampage. This could be used as an element for developing a move-set for him. Another frequent figure in Horror Nights history is the creature from The Thing, who could possibly add a shapeshifter to the roster in the style of Shang Tsung.

Experimental Characters: Eddie Schmidt and H.R. Bloodengutz

The Icons are not the only original characters that Universal has created for HHN. Originally meant to be the Icon for the eleventh HHN in 2001, before certain events transpired, Eddie is Jack’s slightly-less crazy brother and the main character in the 2006 haunted house, Run: Hostile Territory, where guests enter a Saw-style torture house. The other experimental character here is H.R. Bloodengutz, the star of the 2011 haunted house H.R. Bloodengutz presents Holidays of Horror. He is a midnight horror TV show host in the style of the Cryptkeeper or Elvira who goes crazy after his show gets cancelled, and his haunted house lets guests enter the worlds of the schlocky, low-budget horror features from his show. This has a lot of potential for another comedic character to lighten up the roster a bit.

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FINAL ROSTER

Jack, The Caretaker, The Director, The Storyteller, Bloody Mary, The Usher, Fear, Lady Luck, Chance, Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, Alien/Xenomorph, Predator, Ash, Laurie, Jigsaw, Jack T., Dracula, Wolfman, Imhotep, Chucky, The Governor, The Thing, Eddie, H.R. Bloodengutz

This roster has 26 characters, which is pretty big for a new fighting game, but with two big entertainment giants backing it up, it could happen. Not counting all the HHN original characters (of which, there are 11), each character comes from a different movie or series and almost all of them originated from movies, the only exception being the Governor as our only comic book and TV character.

As for how the game itself could be done, with Netherrealm Studios doing the game, it could come out looking similar to Mortal Kombat, down to each of the characters having a couple of fatalities they could perform and posibly a story about how several legendary horror villains are terrorizing a population with only a few heroes, like Ash and Laurie, trying to fight against it.

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What did you think of this article? Do you think a fighting game with horror icons would make a good game? Who would you want to see in its roster? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming!