Updated:
As construction on Universal Studios Japan's Super Nintendo World nears completion, the company has decided to delay the opening of the theme park indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Super Nintendo World was originally slated to open on July 1. The new park would have increased visitor numbers to Universal Studios Japan, which is already attempting to keep the number of guests at a minimum by only allowing park visitors who are annual pass holders or from the six prefectures of Kansai. No official opening date has been given. The original story follows.
Pop culture theme parks are all the rage right now. Universal Studios Orlando has popular attractions like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Springfield (home of The Simpsons) while Disney recently opened Galaxy’s Edge, its Star Wars theme park.
Now, new details have been released about the newest entry into this increasingly crowded space: Universal Studios Japan’s Super Nintendo World. After breaking ground back in 2017, Universal Studios Japan and Nintendo have recently released more information about what to expect from the project.
See Also: Disney announces opening dates for Star Wars-themed parks
In the same way Galaxy’s Edge was designed to make guests feel as if they were staring in their own Star Wars adventure, Super Nintendo World wants to make people feel like they have been teleported inside their favorite Nintendo games, with Universal Studios Japan describing the park as “a life-size, living video game.”
Guests will be able to explore Mushroom Kingdom, Peach’s Castle, and Bowser’s Fortress and also play a real life version of Mario Kart. Custom designed wrist bands, dubbed Power Up Bands, will link to a smart phone app and connect guests to iconic Nintendo items throughout the land, like coins, keeping track of what they earn and competing against other guests.
Super Nintendo World is slated for completion this summer ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Related Stories
| Dec 17, 2010
Sam Houston State arts programs expand into new performance center
Theater, music, and dance programs at Sam Houston State University have a new venue in the 101,945-sf, $38.5 million James and Nancy Gaertner Performing Arts Center. WHR Architects, Houston, designed the new center to connect two existing buildings at the Huntsville, Texas, campus.
| Nov 2, 2010
Cypress Siding Helps Nature Center Look its Part
The Trinity River Audubon Center, which sits within a 6,000-acre forest just outside Dallas, utilizes sustainable materials that help the $12.5 million nature center fit its wooded setting and put it on a path to earning LEED Gold.
| Oct 13, 2010
Biloxi’s convention center bigger, better after Katrina
The Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center in Biloxi is once again open for business following a renovation and expansion necessitated by Hurricane Katrina.
| Oct 13, 2010
Apartment complex will offer affordable green housing
Urban Housing Communities, KTGY Group, and the City of Big Bear Lake (Calif.) Improvement Agency are collaborating on The Crossings at Big Bear Lake, the first apartment complex in the city to offer residents affordable, eco-friendly homes. KTGY designed 28 two-bedroom, two-story townhomes and 14 three-bedroom, single-story flats, averaging 1,100 sf each.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community center under way in NYC seeks LEED Platinum
A curving, 550-foot-long glass arcade dubbed the “Wall of Light” is the standout architectural and sustainable feature of the Battery Park City Community Center, a 60,000-sf complex located in a two-tower residential Lower Manhattan complex. Hanrahan Meyers Architects designed the glass arcade to act as a passive energy system, bringing natural light into all interior spaces.
| Oct 13, 2010
Bookworms in Silver Spring getting new library
The residents of Silver Spring, Md., will soon have a new 112,000-sf library. The project is aiming for LEED Silver certification.
| Oct 12, 2010
Holton Career and Resource Center, Durham, N.C.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Special Recognition. Early in the current decade, violence within the community of Northeast Central Durham, N.C., escalated to the point where school safety officers at Holton Junior High School feared for their own safety. The school eventually closed and the property sat vacant for five years.
| Oct 12, 2010
Richmond CenterStage, Richmond, Va.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Bronze Award. The Richmond CenterStage opened in 1928 in the Virginia capital as a grand movie palace named Loew’s Theatre. It was reinvented in 1983 as a performing arts center known as Carpenter Theatre and hobbled along until 2004, when the crumbling venue was mercifully shuttered.
| Oct 12, 2010
Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Gartner Auditorium was originally designed by Marcel Breuer and completed, in 1971, as part of his Education Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Despite that lofty provenance, the Gartner was never a perfect music venue.