How Universal’s Epic Universe Park Still Drives Innovation With Drone Dragons, Power Bands and Wizardly Wands as It Celebrates Its First Anniversary

“Five Immersive Worlds. One Amazing Theme Park.” This is the motto for the Orlando-based Epic Universe, which opened in May 2025. As the first major theme park to open in the U.S. in 25 years, Epic Universe had to debut with a bang, and indeed, it’s immersive worlds, entered through dedicated portals — Dark Universe, How to Train Your Dragon — Isle of Berk, Super Nintendo World and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter — Ministry of Magic — offer rides, live shows and experiences using cutting-edge technology and detail-oriented design.

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The theme park has generated roughly $2 billion for the state of Florida alone in its first year.

Designing each world to be immersive is key to the park’s success.

Jeff Polk, executive vice president and general manager of the park, has been with the company for over 36 years. Reflecting on Universal Studios Florida in the 1990s, Polk says the company was then just starting to dip its toes into immersive experiences to engage visitors. Over time, with the opening of Islands of Adventure and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Polk and his team learned from their guests: “They told us time and time again that they wanted more of those highly immersive details; they love that stuff.”

Dark Universe is one example of giving people what they wanted. The themed land centers around the classic monsters of the Universal Pictures world. Monsters roam the area, Monsters Unchained is a dark ride while Curse of the Werewolf offers a spinning rollercoaster experience. Polk calls it “a love letter to our movie background.”

Elsewhere, there are monster makeup experiences, and roaming performers who add to the storytelling built by the world around the guests.

Beyond Dark Universe, parkgoers can use wands to engage magic in the Wizarding World, which has haptic-integrated technology that introduces a deeper level of questing. Super Mario World has power-up bands that are an integrated part of the experience. Molly Murphy, president of Universal Creative, explains, “They make you feel like you’re in the video game. Our guests are responding very positively to all of that.”

Epic Universe offers much more than just walking into a themed space — it presents a new way for fans to connect with recognizable IP.

Within Dark Universe, there are 14 of the park’s most sophisticated robotic figures that get closer to guests than ever before. Murphy says that encounters such as the Phantom of the Opera locking eyes with guests, or the werewolf swiping at guests and “you feel his spittle on you as you’re riding the ride” are some encounters that have come to life largely thanks to advances in technology.

“It was really a step up in our technology integration in the park. The goal was to make that seamless and to get those emotional moments with the characters that you you remember. Technology is a big piece of how it came together. We have over 161 patents just procured for Epic — it’s pretty significant,” Murphy notes.

She notes that “another example is How to Train Your Dragon, where you get to meet Toothless,” where guests can even pet him and feel his leathery skin, while robotics drive the drone dragons and other dragons around the Islr of Berk, adding to richness of the experience.

And yes, AI factors into all the innovation. “AI is absolutely pushing our technology pipelines quicker and faster today than ever before,” she says.

Polk adds, “It definitely contributes to how we manage the guest experience, because we’re trying to leverage it a little bit more with how we manage our Impact app. We’re using a lot behind the scenes for how we look at trends within our business and maintenance and where AI has been able to accelerate how we react and respond to problems.”

He adds, “We’re very engaged as a company in that space, because we feel strongly that it can really assist us in making our experiences better, and how we manage our business, but also in how we deliver experiences to the guests.

The park’s storytelling comes alive through its dedication to bringing more live entertainment to the worlds, and having performers and even team members become part of the experience.

“We’ve really tried to reinvigorate live entertainment as part of the storytelling in the world of theme parks — some of that has been a little bit lost, because we get very enamored with technology and bigger, bigger, bigger,” says Polk. “But we found that these subtle touches of having live performers in a space and then carrying that over to the team member experience and having the team members really engaged as part of the story has become a very important and meaningful part of actually creating this immersion.” For the guests, it allows them to enjoy the experience, not just dash of from ride to ride, “checking your little box off. You’re actually just progressing through this grand experience that may have a ride in it, but that may not be the thing you remember,” Polk says.

Storytelling extends beyond the rides and immersive experiences — it even ripples down to the food offerings. Polk and Murphy conducted extensive food tastings, and the result is a carefully curated culinary menu. “There was storytelling built into all the food. Every location is different, and there is no duplication of things,” says Murphy.

Among the offerings are viral mac and cheese cones and butterbeer crepes. Polk notes, “We had an hour wait for people to buy a mac and cheese cone; we’ve sold half a million of them.”

Polk explains when it comes to food, it was just as much as a part of the storytelling as anything else. “It was a big piece of what we did, and that’s why, as we did the Wizarding World, we saw guests really respond to, ‘Wow, I can actually get in here and have a butter beer with my friends, something I saw in the movie, and now I can actually do it.'”

Looking ahead, they’re exploring ways to leverage the space, but with caution. “You have to watch and get a feel for what’s really going to work in the space,” says Polk. “There is no doubt in the future, you’re going to see things continue to happen here, both at Epic and across Universal Orlando Resort.”