Starting next year, Nintendo fans can step through a life-size warp pipe and enter the Mushroom Kingdom for the first time on American soil.
After its debut in 2021 at Universal Studios Japan, Super Nintendo World, an interactive replica of Nintendo’s dynamic lands and characters, will bring its colorful chaos to Universal Studios Hollywood when it opens on Feb. 17. The expansion provides an opportunity to race alongside Mario and Luigi before meeting them face to face, and it will bring video game-inspired dining, retail and merchandise to the California theme park inside an immersive, bowl-like structure lined with spinning coins and turtle shells.
An early preview tour of the land as it finalizes construction reveals the layered facade set to a chirping soundtrack of cheerful instrumentals and distant coin clinks. Whether Koopa Troopas in motion or a fake desert set against the actual skies, there’s always something to look at-and somewhere intriguing to head first.