The Walking Dead: The Ride
The Walking Dead: The Ride (formerly known as X:\ No Way Out and X) is an indoor roller coaster haunted attraction located at Thorpe Park, England. It was the park's first non-powered roller-coaster. It was themed around a rave and had the strapline "Ride on a wave of light and sound" — when it was titled X — but currently The Walking Dead: The Ride's slogan is "Those who ride, survive". The X roller coaster combined a variety of lights, lasers and music with a completely indoor ride circuit, featured inside a large blue and terracotta pyramid structure. On 1 December 2017, plans to drastically change the entrance of the attraction were filed. The name "X:\ NWO WD" written on the documents sparked rumours of a The Walking Dead re-theme. On 20 February 2018, it was announced that the ride was to become The Walking Dead: The Ride. On 27 March 2018, Thorpe Park announced that the ride would open on 31 March 2018. The ride (Along with Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise Of The Demon was closed during the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was due to the inability to social distance with the attraction being indoors. It re-opened for the 2021 season on 17 May. History The ride opened as X:\ No Way Out on July 1, 1996 as Thorpe Park's first non-powered roller coaster. It was marketed as the "world's first backwards roller coaster in the dark" and featured an elaborate queue system through multiple interactive themed rooms, such as a trommel tunnel, "decontamination" area and illusionary rooms. The ride was themed to, and starred, a computer virus that infected the power supply of Thorpe Park, thus sending the trains backward. The ride's cyberpunk theme was drastically toned down after the 2001 season when most of the interior rooms became disused, and many in-ride effects removed. In March 2013 the ride underwent further significant changes, which removed the remnants of the computer horror theme and shortened its name simply to 'X'. The trains were refurbished by Vekoma to now run forwards, to resolve the common issue of motion sickness. The addition of lighting and lasers from 2013 onwards removes the pitch black darkness that riders originally rode in. In the exit queue line, there was a 5 ft-long model of an Eveready AA battery labelled 'Thorpe Park Power Supply'; this was removed in 2013. The ride layout has also had many features removed since its opening. There is an on-ride photo camera which allowed riders to purchase their on-ride photo; this was removed in 2005 and replaced in 2019. The lift hill of the ride had multi-coloured flashing LED light strips added in 2000; these were removed in 2013. Music In 2013 the ride was given an original soundtrack to accompany the new lights and lasers, this was removed in 2014 and was replaced with a playlist of dance music. In 2016 the selection of songs was updated. In June 2017 the dance music