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News & Rumors
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SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA
Chicago, Illinois
Six Flags Theme Parks
Park News - (1/15/2024) According to information given at the ACE No Coaster Con event, Six Flags Great America has a few interesting off-season projects they’re working on. The list includes retracking on the Viper wooden coaster, work on the lifts for Joker and American Eagle, and Whizzer is getting a new control system. Elsewhere, Condor is planned to reopen this season and the Crazy Bus will also be getting a major rehab.
Elsewhere in the park, there are plans to renovate the park’s front gate (inside and out), new landscaping to the Carousel Plaza, new brickwork outside Sticky Fingers, and in the County Fair the removal of the Kidzopolis ship, Revolution, American Eagle/DDD portal and the basketball game.
 2024 - Sky Striker - (7/1/2024) Six Flags Great America has now opened their new Sky Striker ride, a Zamperla Discovery Giga 40 pendulum ride. Zamperla described the ride as an experience where “riders are launched skyward, they will feel a surge of excitement from soaring high into the sky. The pendulum's back-and-forth motion creates a sense of vertigo, while reaching incredible heights induces an unparalleled freefall sensation.”
According to Six Flags Great America Park President, John Krajnak, “We are thrilled to introduce Sky Striker to our world-class lineup of attractions here at Six Flags Great America”. “Our ongoing relationship with Zamperla has been instrumental in bringing
innovative and exhilarating attractions to our guests. The addition of Sky Striker not
only exemplifies the quality and excitement that Zamperla attractions are known for,
but also reinforces our commitment to delivering unforgettable experiences to our
guests.”
(6/14/2024) Local media thrill ride aficionado, Marcus Leshock, takes the new Sky Striker ride at Six Flags Great America for a test spin in the video clip below. At this time, the park has not set an official opening day for the new ride, but I can’t imagine it will be too long from now if they are testing with live media broadcasters. From the look of the site in the video, it may just come down to finishing up the entrance and queue areas before they can open.
(4/13/2024) According to a local news update, the pieces of the new Sky Striker ride coming to Six Flags Great Adventure are on site, but not yet put together. The say that the timetable is to have the ride ready to open “later this spring”.
(2/10/2024) According to the local news, the warmer than normal winter season has allowed for construction projects to move forward unhindered at Six Flags Great America. As such, they say that when Six Flags Great America opens for the 2024 season on April 20, we can also expect the new Sky Striker ride to be ready to open.
This is a nice switch for Six Flags, as many of their parks over the past several years have seen the opening of their new rides delayed until Summer and even Fall months. This has been much to the outrage of the park’s season passholders who often decide if they are going to buy a pass or not based on what’s going to be new at the park each season.
(8/30/2023) Six Flags Great America’s website has confirmed that Sky Striker is coming in 2024. As many predicted, this will be a new Zamperla Giant Discovery, a 172 foot tall spinning pendulum ride that will swing guests back and forth at speeds up to 75 mph.
(8/19/2023) The latest tweet from Six Flags Great America seems to indicate that the park’s Revolution ride (a Huss Frisbee if I’m not mistaken) may be leaving at the end of the season. The tweet also includes the #TakeToThe Skies2024 hashtag, and if the park is indeed adding a Zamperla Giant Discovery, it would make sense to remove Revolution as it offers a similar ridge experience, just in a much smaller size.
(8/18/2023) An interesting note has come in about the 2024 teaser set-up at Six Flags Great America. It was pointed out on Twitter that the “Day 172 on Strike” sign could be a reference to a Zamperla Giant Discovery ride, which just happens to be height of that ride model, and Six Flags has purchased a good number of them throughout the chain so far.
The lightning bolt in the middle of the word “Strike” also kind of struck me funny, as we know Six Flags like to us DC comic characters as themes for their rides, and this particular bolt brings the character of Shazam to mind immediately… along with the related Black Adam character.
(8/17/2023) So what’s going on at Six Flags Gream America? Now the entrance to the park’s Dare Devil Dive (Skycoaster) has been decorated and themed with new signs claiming that the Dare Devil is on Strike, “Day 172 On Strike” and the hashtag, #TakeToTheSkies2024.
(8/13/2023) Is Six Flags Great America adding something new for 2024? According to some posts on social media, the park has started to use the hashtag, #TakeToTheSkies2024 in various posts. No official announcements of course, and really not a solid teaser other than the hashtag, but it clearly seems to indicate something new is planned.
While the name could possibly be indicative of something tall like a Sky Screamer, it could also point to something like the Dare Devil Dive Flying Machines that were added to Six Flags Fiesta Texas during the pandemic. Stay tuned…
2025 - New Ride / Wrath of Rakshasa - (7/25/2024) While we really don’t know much yet about what is planned for Six Flags Great America, the fact that they started teasing a 2025 attraction so soon compared to other parks is usually an indication that it may be a larger project, such as a roller coaster.
What I like to call a “wild rumor” was just sent in that does tick off a few boxes, but as of yet I’ve not been able to verify anything with any other sources, so please do take this particular rumor with a large grain of salt until we can find out more. According to the claim, The Wrath of Rakshasa might actually end up being a clone (or near clone) of Dr. Diabolical’s Cliffhanger from Six Flags Fiesta Texas. If you are not familiar, Dr. Diabolical is a B&M Dive Machine coaster with a unique 7-across seating configuration. As for that “SA” hint in the previous teaser, if this holds true, then the SA may have simply been a hint about San Antonio, the location of the Fiesta Texas park.
Currently the park’s Rapids ride is said to be closed for the rest of the year, and we may end up seeing the new Wrath of Rakshasa coaster built to fly over the top of the rapids area in order to fit it into this section of the park.
(7/19/2024) Six Flags Great America has begun to post some teasers about their plans for the 2025 season. While there isn’t much to go on, they go include the tagline, #FearTheWrath, along with the message “Something iS coming, just wAit”. You’ll note that the extra capital letters “S” and “A” are on purpose and not a mistake. Some have taken this to perhaps be an abbreviation for perhaps something that S-A could stand for, and others say we should also include the first S as well, giving us SSA. Of course in the amusement biz, if you see “”SS” the first thing that comes to mind is S&S the ride company, known officially now as S&S Worldwide or S&S - Sansei Technologies. Of course, this may clearly be assuming far too much at this point.
What is more interesting is we think we’ve got a clue on the theming and location of the attraction as well. In the park a teaser banner was put up at the site of the former Mardi Gras Hangover ride that says ‘Looks Can Be Deceiving” and has the same #FearTheWrath hashtag.
Meanwhile a Screamscape reader uncovered a new Six Flags trademarking filing for the name, “Wrath of Rakshasa”. Raksha-whata? I’m glad you asked… because Rakshasa are a race of demon-like creatures from Hindu mythology. They are more powerful at night than during the day, have been known to eat humans, shapeshift to lure in prey and so on. Just nasty buggers in general, you wouldn’t want to meet one on the park midway alone at night, that’s for sure.
It is worth mentioning that the New Orleans / Mardi Gras section of the park has pretty much removed all previously themed attractions, with only the Big Easy Balloons remaining, along with the nearby Roaring Rapids, so it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that the Rapids and this section of the park would be getting a new theme to go along with the new attraction. Though an attraction themed to flesh-eating Hindu demons sounds more like a killer dark ride idea than anything else, but we’ll have to wait for the next clue.
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Track Record
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Six Flags Great America
Chicago, Illinois
Six Flags Theme Parks
Abbreviation: SFGAm
Website
Newest Developments
2022 - DC Universe
2021 - Tsunami Surge
2019 - Maxx Force
2018 - Mardi Gras Hangover
2017 - The Joker
2016 - Justice League
2015 - Red Baron, Tot’s Libery and Ladybugs
2014 - Goliath
2013 - Batman Backwards,
igNIGHT, Viper Backwards
2012 - X-Flight
2011 - Riptide Bay
2010 - Little Dipper, Glow In The Park Parade, SkyTrail, MagiQuest
2009 - Buccaneer Battle
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