We need a new Haunted Mansion game…
WELCOME FOOLISH MORTALS, today’s subject is a hallmark of the Disney parks that recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first iteration in Disneyland, The Haunted Mansion! Though not an opening day attraction, The Haunted Mansion is certainly considered an iconic staple of the Disney parks all over the world and is one of my favorite rides and a must-do every time I go.
Disney recognizes the long-standing popularity of The Haunted Mansion ride and has tried to make it more than just a theme park ride for sure, but unfortunately, it’s been extremely limited in success. There’s been one awful movie with Eddie Murphy, a video game that came out around the same time as the movie with no ties to the movie that was at best mediocre, and most recently a very enjoyable Muppets special that should be an annual watch for any Halloween fans now honestly.
Disney is far from done trying to make the Haunted Mansion their next big franchise, however. There is a new movie coming our way next year. While we haven’t seen any footage, the premise sounds at least a little darker and more daring than the 2003 flop so that’s already a positive. But I think the best format for doing something with the Haunted Mansion is honestly a video game, let’s get a new one of those.
Horror games are absolutely thriving in 2022 in a way they haven’t in years. You’ve got stuff ranging from The Quarry to The Calisto Protocol and a bunch of unique stuff in-between from developers both big and small. A new take on Haunted Mansion could take many forms, but I honestly believe a game in the style that Supermassive Games has made their trademark would be the best format. Could it be as scary as The Quarry or Until Dawn? Most definitely not, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be a bunch of friends exploring a slightly spooky mansion and uncovering a mystery and maybe just tone done the scares and gore and nobody dies.
If you think that can’t work there’s literally entire series of books like Goosebumps and shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark to prove you wrong. Horror doesn’t need to be filled with blood and guts to be effective and fun. Also, as one of the few original rides not based on any particular IP left in the parks, while I don’t think The Haunted Mansion is ever in danger of going away, (it’s just eternally popular and never going to happen), it would be nice to see Disney let someone make games about things that aren’t mostly Marvel or Star Wars-based as that’s 95% of what we are seeing these days with the other 5% still being huge properties like Alien or Indiana Jones or Avatar. Just me banging the drum of hey Disney you’ve got so many IPs to exploit for games, think outside the box a little more!
That’s it for today, most likely won’t be any more posts for the rest of this week but I might try and do two next week if I can, either way, see ya real soon!
