It was manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) and designed by Werner Stengel, from a concept by park developer John Wardley.

The four-inversion roller coaster was one of the first rides by the Swiss manufacturer B&M to be installed outside of the United States, and the first in Europe as an independent company.

[3] In 1990, Alton Towers added the Thunder Looper roller coaster; the addition was only temporary due to planning restrictions imposed on its installation.

[6] Due to the design of the ride and the height restriction imposed on the park, the Secret Weapon would only have a track length of 300 metres (980 ft).

[7] However, the Arrow pipeline project was cancelled when Wardley rode the prototype, describing how it was "very slow (and rather boring), looked cumbersome, and was very energy inefficient".

[7] Jim Wintrode, the general manager of Six Flags Great America at the time, proposed the concept of an inverted roller coaster that featured inversions and worked with Bolliger & Mabillard to develop Batman: The Ride.

Wardley and Nick Varney, marketing director of Alton Towers, came up with the theme for "Nemesis" as an alien creature excavated from the ground.

Tussauds collaborated with a landscape architect to design the excavated area and create a ride that could be exciting for both riders and non-riders – the final inversion was built at the eye level of an observer, and the queue winds all the way around the track.

[17] In January 2022, Alton Towers proposed retracking a majority of the roller coaster for maintenance reasons, including replacing 89 of the 117 support columns.

[21] During the refurbishment, Alton Towers built an observation platform next to Nemesis: Sub-Terra allowing up to 30 park guests at a time to view the construction taking place.

This leads into an elevating second inversion, a zero-g roll, where riders experience a feeling of weightlessness in an air time moment.

They also repainted and revamped parts of the station, and added a screen with a video of an eye and 2 rows of moving claws surrounding it built into the side.

This described Nemesis as a mysterious alien creature from another dimension, found buried underground during excavation work at Alton Towers.

At the end of the show, a video was played that featured a Phalanx spokesman announcing the closure of Nemesis, confirming the start of an investigation.

A promotional video released in April 2023 depicted surveillance footage from what appears to be a Phalanx testing facility, in which workers are examining the new Nemesis track.

Prior to its 2023 refurbishment, Nemesis was positively received by enthusiasts and the attraction industry,[33] and consistently ranks in Amusement Today's annual Golden Ticket Awards among best steel coasters.

[34] It is also one of only seven roller coasters to appear in the top 50 every year since the award's inception in 1998, ranking tenth in its debut and peaking seventh in 2003.