The Walking Dead Is Changing In 2025, But The Story Is Far From Over

Daryl from his spinoff, Maggie from Dead City, and Rick from The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

The Walking Dead's plans for 2025 aren't quite as noteworthy as the two years prior, but there's no sign of this zombie franchise taking a headshot. Over the course of 15 years, Robert Kirkman's creation has evolved into a veritable juggernaut of television, diversifying into a catalog of The Walking Dead spinoffs. Fear The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond ran parallel to the main show, while Tales of the Walking Dead offered a more unique, standalone flavor.

Since The Walking Dead season 11's ending in 2022, however, the franchise has been upheld by three newer spinoffs, each starring a duo from the main cast. The Walking Dead: Dead City focused upon Lauren Cohan's Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan. Daryl Dixon brought back Norman Reedus as the title character and, eventually, Melissa McBride's Carol. The Ones Who Live reunited Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes with Danai Gurira's Michonne. Through these three shows, The Walking Dead has been able to survive after death, and while that rejuvenation will continue in 2025, the landscape looks a little different.

There Will Be No New The Walking Dead Spinoffs In 2025

The Walking Dead Is Playing Back The Hits In 2025

Carol (Melissa McBride) and Daryl (Norman Reedus) walking in front of a mossy bus in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.

For the first time since the franchise wrapped up its main series, The Walking Dead looks destined to release no new shows in 2025. The blow of The Walking Dead finishing in 2022 was softened by both Dead City and Daryl Dixon premiering the following year. Then, in 2024, Daryl Dixon season 2 was joined by the highly-anticipated The Ones Who Live. In 2025, fans will get The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2, followed by Daryl Dixon season 3.

Getting new seasons of Daryl Dixon and Dead City doesn't carry the same thrill as getting a new season of The Walking Dead used to.

In terms of pure numbers, The Walking Dead's faithful followers will actually be two episodes richer than in 2024. The Ones Who Live and Daryl Dixon season 2 contributed six episodes each, bringing 2024's total to 12, but AMC has granted Dead City season 2 an eight-episode run, meaning 14 installments of The Walking Dead across 2025. Alas, in terms of actual content, 2025 looks like The Walking Dead's least eventful year for a while.

2022 saw the main show's series finale and the Tales of the Walking Dead premiere, 2023 gave debuts to Daryl Dixon and Dead City after ending Fear the Walking Dead, and 2024's return of Rick was a story six years in the making. Dead City season 2 and Daryl Dixon season 3 are both exciting releases in their own right, but viewers now know what to expect from those spinoffs. The Walking Dead's 2025 slate is missing the sense of unpredictability that made the past two years exciting.

Granted, Dead City and Daryl Dixon's upcoming seasons could be excellent and deliver all manner of surprises. The franchise's plans at a glance, however, don't generate the same hype as visiting Europe for the first time, finding out what happened to Rick Grimes after The Walking Dead season 9, or taking those tentative initial steps into the noir-ish realm of New York City with Maggie and Negan.

Some might argue that The Walking Dead has simply nestled back into its 2010s groove, when one season of The Walking Dead (and later one season of Fear) would drop per year. That comparison doesn't quite work. As an ensemble show, The Walking Dead was inherently broad in scope and filled with unexpected turns. With fewer characters and fewer episodes, the franchise's current spinoffs are narrower by design. Getting new seasons of Daryl Dixon and Dead City, therefore, doesn't carry the same thrill as getting a new season of The Walking Dead used to, and the lack of new shows in 2025 makes that more apparent.

The Walking Dead's Future In 2026 & Beyond Is Unclear

The Walking Dead Doesn't Have Much Lined Up

Rick Grimes reunited with his daughter in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

2025's plans may be set already, but The Walking Dead's future beyond that is far less certain. The Ones Who Live season 2 could happen, but no announcement has been made, and Dead City season 3 remains unconfirmed at the time of writing. Daryl Dixon's showrunner has mentioned early plans for a fourth season, but simultaneously stressed that nothing has been green-lit at AMC. Tales of the Walking Dead could make a surprise comeback, or perhaps the reported comedy spinoff will be resurrected, but as the situation stands, The Walking Dead's future looks more sparse than it has for years.

Previously, The Walking Dead always had several plates spinning at any one time, announcing multiple projects way in advance, but franchise boss Scott M. Gimple is now holding one plate in each hand - Dead City and Daryl Dixon - with no guarantee that he won't put both down before 2025 is over. While still unlikely, the lack of new shows or seasons in development beyond 2025 does give the impression that The Walking Dead could potentially start winding down sooner rather than later.

The Walking Dead Still Has Plenty Of Stories To Tell

Hope working in laboratory from The Walking Dead: The World Beyond.

The main reason to stay optimistic about The Walking Dead's future isn't the number of projects that may or may not be confirmed, but the amount of narrative fuel left in the tank. Looking across the timeline of The Walking Dead, there are so many avenues unexplored, so many teases unresolved, and so many important character moments yet to materialize.

The end of the main series set up a new villain, Designation 2, which had been working with the Commonwealth before the good guys ousted Pamela Milton and Lance Hornsby. Designation 2 was widely assumed to belong to the Civic Republic Military, but The Ones Who Live explored the CRM fully without ever mentioning Designation 2, implying the existence of a separate enemy lurking in the shadows. Since Designation 2 was allied to the Commonwealth's prior owners, a ready-made reason for conflict exists.

In terms of character arcs, The Walking Dead will not be complete until Rick Grimes and Daryl Dixon reunite, while Norman Reedus' character needs to revolve his simmering romance with Connie too. Fear the Walking Dead's ending set up a future role for Morgan that still hasn't led anywhere, while also leaving a door open for Fear's characters to merge into the main show's cast. Another mystery emerged following Heath's disappearance in The Walking Dead season 7: the presence of a card reading "PPP." The same card turned up in Tales of the Walking Dead, and an explanation has not yet been forthcoming.

World Beyond dropped two major bombshells in its final episode, revealing the possibility of fungi as a solution to the zombie outbreak, then partially explaining the origin of The Walking Dead's zombie virus. The virus' creation, Primrose Team, the existence of natural variants - all of these plot points are waiting patiently to be picked up by a future The Walking Dead TV show. Intriguingly, an alternate, unused ending to The Walking Dead's series finale involved older versions of Judith and other young characters in the future of the apocalypse, still fighting the good fight against zombies and assorted ne'er-do-wells.

Clearly, The Walking Dead is not out of ideas, and simply addressing the dangling threads listed above would give AMC enough material for another five years of content. That alone is reason to believe The Walking Dead's future remains promising, even without an influx of new shows in the pipeline.