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Looks like 'Westworld' could get five more parks

Time to trade those Old West-style guns for samurai swords? One possible attraction seems to be set in ancient Japan.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read

Possible spoilers for "Westworld" ahead.

So far, fans of HBO's "Westworld" have only spent time in that specific cowboy-centric theme park from the show's title. 

But now it looks like Westworld, last seen facing a disastrous revolt by its android hosts, could be joined on the show by other themed lands.

During the Super Bowl on Sunday, HBO showed a "Westworld" trailer for season 2, and it turns out it contained more than meets the eye. Reddit user Askin1 spotted white bars 33 seconds in to the preview, and figured out they could be read in binary code to equal 52.89.126.34. Put that into a browser bar, and it relocates to DelosDestinations.com, Delos being the parent company of the fictional theme parks.

Once there, not one, but six different park sites are mentioned. Only Westworld is listed as open for reservations, but next to it, Park 2 features a blurry image, and the following park sites are listed as having "reservations closed to the public." (To be fair, we always knew Westworld was more than meets the eye.)

westworld-article

It seems likely Park 2 may be set in ancient Japan, since samurai were shown in the season 1 finale. The Delos Destinations website hints further at that by displaying a photo of what certainly looks like a traditional Japanese temple.

Want to guess at what the other parks could be? The 1973 Yul Brynner movie "Westworld" also provided glimpses at Medievalworld and Romanworld. And that film's 1976 sequel, "Futureworld," offered not only the Futureworld of its title, which was set on an orbiting space station, but a park called Spaworld, "where old age and pain have been eliminated." 

Season 2 of "Westworld" comes to HBO on April 22.

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