Universal details the robotics behind Epic Universe on its first anniversary
Universal marked the first anniversary of Epic Universe, which opened May 22, 2025, and Creative president Molly Murphy used the milestone to lay out how much custom robotics the park required. Murphy said the project generated more than 161 patents, which she described as a step up in Universal’s technology integration.
The densest animatronic work sits in the Dark Universe land, where the Monsters Unchained ride runs 14 of the park’s most sophisticated robotic figures. Among them are a Phantom of the Opera that locks eyes with riders and a werewolf that lunges close enough for guests to feel spittle. In the How to Train Your Dragon land, Isle of Berk, robotics drive the roaming dragons and the drone dragons that fly overhead, and the interactive Toothless figure lets guests touch its textured skin.
Murphy said AI is now speeding up the design pipelines behind these figures. For a park a year old, the anniversary read less like a retrospective than a status report on how much of the show depends on robotics that had to be invented for it.