Enter the battle arena, dodge the assassins, and compete for your survival...
Enter the battle arena, dodge the assassins, and compete for your survival...
| Theme Park | Thorpe Park |
|---|---|
| Type | Scare Maze |
| Audience | Thrillseekers |
| Season | Fright Nights |
| Debuted | 2022 |
| Location | Swarm Island |
Waiting to enter the Survival Games arena
Located within a large building behind The Swarm, Survival Games is one of the more intense Fright Nights scare mazes at Thorpe Park.
The premise of the maze is simple: you enter the building to play The Survival Games, the main task being to survive to the exit avoiding a group of red uniformed assassins who are out to kill you.
Unlike the majority of Fright Nights attractions, in Survival Games actors are permitted to touch visitors: and they will ... right from the start. People waiting outside the maze's entrance are literally dragged inside and pushed into cages. If they had come as a group, they are pretty much guaranteed to have already been split up from their friends.
Much of the maze is designed to be free flowing with multiple different paths to follow. Assassins are found throughout, and will regularly get up in the faces of visitors and invade their personal space.
Assassin
The actors work hard to create maximum confusion and disorientation, splitting people up and sending them down different routes or even back the way they came. As such, much of the experience relies heavily on the actors. Videos from press nights show a multitude of assassins creating a crazed panic throughout, but off-peak when there are less actors in the maze it can feel somewhat less exhilarating.
It can still get intense, and thanks to repeatedly being sent off in different directions it can be a very long time before reaching the maze's finale scene and ultimately exit. Some people will see their friends already outside ... and some will have to hang around hoping they emerge again!
Survival Games has a great concept which feels in many ways very similar to the old Sub Species: The End Games at Alton Towers Scarefest. Overall Survival Games is the inferior cousin: While Sub Species had some fantastic theming and set design, Survival Games' "battle arena" is mainly basic dark coloured chipboard walls. Thorpe Park have attempted multi-route free flow mazes in the past, with the fantastic Cabin in the Woods and the labyrinthine Experiment 10. Survival Games is great, but doesn't quite match those.
As a Fright Nights maze Survival Games works well and provides a different - and intense - experience. It is a pity about the low quality theming, because the game play elements together with some great scare acting makes it a superb Halloween attraction that could have been spectacular had it been given a bit more attention to detail.
Survival Games is located at the back of Swarm Island
Queueline
The battle arena
Entering the maze
Assassins push guests inside
Two assassins
Chased out of the maze
Chainsaw guy
