Here's my speculation.
So I believe that in general, Epic Universe can not afford not to start constructing for expansion as of right now. If not, it will be a catastrophe due to a drastically lacking attraction lineup than people's demand. It was way more overwhelming than what they simulated and the park is not even at full capacity. But the general wait time in Epic is already one of the highest in the world. Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, Battle at the Ministry, Wing Glider, Stardust, and almost every attraction without unchained is listed at least 1 hour in general. and the highest often caps at 4 hour wait, which I find that not normal. Also, rides consistently break down due to new technological difficulties, and 60% of attractions is located in outdoors, which makes it brutal for Florida weather; rides down very often due to weather conditions.
We love Epic, but let's be honest, general audience reviews have been pretty rough. Yelp, Google, and TripAdvisor are full of complaints, and the park’s information booths are constantly crowded with guests asking for refunds it’s happening everywhere. They say that the park is beautiful and amazing but often heavily criticized for park management on crowds and extreme wait times.
Imagine a general audience paying like 200 bucks individual or often 800 bucks for the whole family for one day at Epic, which is a pretty expensive investment. and able to get to only ride 3 or 4 attractions due to heavy crowds and downtimes. That seems unacceptable for general guests and far from reasonable at all for paying 200 bucks each plus parking, food, and their time off. From a general guest's perspective, no matter how pretty the place is, this could be a very unpleasant experience.
Getting bad reviews for a year and showing noticeable improvement after listening to feedback would be understandable(like the opening year of Volcano Bay), it would show that they care about guest experience and long-term quality. But instead, they’re planning to raise capacity even further by the end of the year, which will only intensify the existing problems. If this trend continues through 2029, four years after opening, without any major expansions or operational fixes the ongoing wave of negative reviews could have a serious impact, not just on public perception, but also on future earnings calls, investor confidence, and the company’s overall reputation.
That's why I think that new attraction expansion will be completed around the end of 2028 at least, and between the construction of this experience, construction for other expansions will begin as well.
I believe that they can't simply afford to do nothing by the end of 2029 from a business perspective.
For Ip, unfortunately, I believe Wicked will take the largest expansion pad instead of Lord of the Rings and Zelda will take Super Nintendo expansion site. And as everyone speculates, Potter's second attraction is the first one that will begin construction. (Anything is fine for me. I just hope it's not a flying theater type. Isle of Burk suits better.)
Wicked has been clearly so obvious, CEO of Creative Woodbery keep mentioning in every interview, Ariana Grande's interview(I believe this is intentional noise marketing), the Director of the film Jon Chu keeps featuring epic universe interviews and future documentaries.
I think it’s been in development for quite a long time, and personally, I’m okay with that. It’s a strong and commercially successful IP that’s proven its longevity, with great potential thanks to its intriguing world setting, architectural design, and storytelling. However, I believe this approach is quite experimental and might not deliver the same level of impact as opening a new Lord of the Rings land which, in my opinion, could generate excitement and synergy comparable to (or even greater than) when hogsmeade first opened. I think they are saving Lord of the Rings for something even greater(maybe in for IOA after the merge?)
Since Lord of the Ring is off the table, ancient and medievalism, mythic themes in the epic universe will be missing. The Legend of Zelda IP could elegantly fill that void, bringing back the missing sense of myth, exploration, and enchanted architecture in an epic universe.(Zelda's site is next to Kong's jungle, which makes more sense than having a ghost mansion in the middle of a jungle setting)
Also, there has been a leaked photo where Miyamoto and the director or Zelda game, Hidemaro Fujibayashi staring at a future expansion site in Super Nintendo Land construction, and there is literally Zelda reference stained glass and merch in store on Celestial Park.
I do think that Universal desperately wanted to utilize this IP on IoA but Nintendo has very strong stubbornness. in my speculation, this will come in Epic instead of Luigi's Mansion. If they wanted to utilize Luigi's IP, they should have been adept at AR shooting(or sucking) mechanism technology and vehicle type in this ride, instead of Mario Kart. Luigi's Poltergust would work in perfectly in AR mechanism so if they add the same thing in Mansion Ride, there will be no differences in ride type between the two attractions, and this becomes a repetitive experience right next to one another, making even more questions on Mario Kart's choice of ride type (like how does a high speed simulating attraction could have same speed as slow moving haunted mansion style attraction)
If my speculation is right, I wouldn't complain honestly. Zelda and Wicked will balance out the theme of the epic universe even more richer and add lot more diverse to it. Wicked one is like a bet rather an adventurous choice than a safe investment. But if they executed well, it has a really, really strong potencial.
Thanks for listening to these long words!