Wreck-It Ralph was a popular enough franchise that it became one of the few Disney animated features to have received a theatrical sequel. And yet after two movies have been released, we have yet to see a major attraction in a Disney Park. There were rumors for a long time that some sort of Wreck-It Ralph attraction would come to Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, replacing the now-closed Stitch’s Great Escape. That has never come to fruition, but now a Ralph-based ride is finally coming to a Disney Park, replacing Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blaster at Tokyo Disneyland.
A Wreck-It Ralph Ride Is Coming To Tokyo Disneyland
Today The Oriental Land Company, which owns and manages Tokyo Disney Resort, revealed that a new attraction inspired by the Sugar Rush racing game in the original Wreck-It Ralph is set to replace Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, with the new, as yet unnamed, attraction set to open in 2026.
The attraction will see guests enter the world of Sugar Rush, which is being attacked by Sugar Bugs. The ride is being called an “interactive gameplay experience” and the concept art, as seen above, still shows guests using blasters as they do now with the Buzz Lightyear ride. So the core attraction experience appears to be untouched, this will simply transform the ride from one franchise to another. Astro Blasters is set to close at Tokyo Disneyland in October to begin the transformation.
A Wreck-It Ralph Attraction Was Rumored For Magic Kingdom
While it had been some time since we’d heard anything from the old Disney World rumor, the suggestion was that Stitch’s Great Escape, arguably the worst attraction at Disney World, would be replaced by some sort of VR-based Wreck-It Ralph attraction. Whether that idea was ever actually considered, it never happened.
We certainly won’t see this Wreck-It Ralph attraction take up the Stitch’s Great Escape space, as that location is very near to the Magic Kingdom version of the Buzz Lightyear attraction. The Stitch’s Great Escape space remains without an attraction, most recently it was used as a pop-up store for Tron merch when Lightcycle Run opened last year.
A version of Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters previously existed at every single Disney Resort. While it goes by a variety of names, the core experience, using a plastic blaster to hit targets and score points on various alien creatures, has been the same. This is now the second Buzz Lightyear attraction to be replaced. In 2019, the Hong Kong Disneyland version of the ride was replaced by Ant-Man & The Wasp: Nano Battle, which also kept the core attraction experience intact while changing the franchise.
With two of the rides now gone, it will be interesting to see what happens to the remaining four. It’s not simply a question of Toy Story’s popularity in Asia, Tokyo Disney Resort opened an entire Toy Story Hotel in 2022, so clearly the franchise is successful there.
We could be in the middle of simply replacing and updating the attraction platform. The oldest version of the ride, Magic Kingdom’s Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, opened in 1995 and since then we’ve seen the shooting game attraction evolve significantly. Several Disney Paks Resorts have versions of Toy Story Midway Mania or Web-Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, which are functionally the same experience, but with more advanced technology.
We could see this same, Wreck-It Ralph attraction replace Magic Kingdom's Buzz experience. Or we could also see a different Ralph ride still take over the old Stitch space as previously rumored. If nothing else this proves that it isn't too late for a new Wreck-It Ralph attraction, so perhaps something at Disney World is still possible.
