Nemesis: Sub-Terra dark tower ride re-opens at Alton Towers

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Visual for Nemesis: Sub-Terra (© Alton Towers / Merlin Magic Making)

In 2012, British theme park Alton Towers opened a dark freefall ride which storywise related to the adjacent Nemesis roller coaster. The new ride was called Nemesis: Sub-Terra, and riders of the indoor freefall would witness an eggs of the Nemesis monster. The highly themed ride was closed after only three years, in 2015, following the Smiler incident which caused a handful of Alton Towers rides to close. Today, 8 years later, the park has re-opened Nemesis: Sub-Terra, allowing guests a glimpse at the monster’s eggs again.

The re-opening of Nemesis: Sub-Terra had been rumoured for almost a year, since some activity was spotted around the ride in 2022. By March of this year, Alton Towers started teasing the re-opening of the ride via Twitter, eventually confirming the opening date to be the 27th of May. It might not be coincidental that the park decides to re-open the ride, now that the namesake roller coaster is undergoing a major revision and the Forbidden Valley area of the park is therefore missing one major attraction.

Nemesis Sub-Terra logo
Revised Nemesis: Sub-Terra logo (© Alton Towers / Merlin Magic Making)

In the original experience, visitors were invited to the research facility of the secret Phalanx organisation, tasked with keeping the Nemesis beast under control. Guests are allowed in to take a glimpse of a recently uncovered egg of the Nemesis monster, which lay dormant underground. However, after guests are secured in their seats and watch the egg, it seems to be not so dormant after all. Apart from a pre-show and drop tower sequence, Nemesis Sub-Terra also used and elevator sequence and a small scare maze including live actors, to create a complete experience.

Alton has been advertising the ride as “Your worst nightmare, underground”. The backstory as introduced on the park’s website however was similar to the story of the original experience, suggesting that the ride would re-open without a re-theming of any sort. Indeed, first reports of the re-opening day state that the ride experience has had some minor changes, including a new logo and more emphasis on the Phalanx organisation, but no major changes were made to the overall experience and sequence. Nevertheless, the park has re-opened one of its immersive experiences, and the ride’s popularity was shown by the queue times that rose to 90 minutes just after opening.