How to watch The Walking Dead and spin-off shows in order

AMC’s hit zombie apocalypse TV series, The Walking Dead, ended in 2022after 11 seasons.

There’s more Walking Dead content hitting screens, however, with multiple spin-offs led by stars from the original show. The Walking Dead: Dead City and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon are both preparing for second seasons, and there have been other spin-offs since The Walking Dead debuted in 2010, like Fear The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: The World Beyond. There’s also the most recent series which sees Andrew Lincoln’s Rick and Danai Gurira’s Michonne reunite, called The Ones Who Live.

So, it’s a perfect time to jump into the Walking Dead Universe. You could watch each show in the order they were released, but it’s always more fun to watch on-screen TV universes in chronological order. That’s a little complicated with The Walking Dead, as the time in which each TV series is set can change by the season, along with year-long time jumps.

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For instance, the Tales of the Walking Dead anthology series features a new story, every episode set in a different time of the apocalypse. On top of that, there are online shorts that fill in many background details about the Walking Dead universe. To make it easy for you to watch every bit of Walking Dead content available, we’ve made a chronological watch guide.

Our guide features The Walking Dead and its spin-off shows listed in chronological order how they happened during the zombie apocalypse.

1 Fear the Walking Dead – seasons 1 through 3

The origins of the zombie apocalypse

The first spin-off of The Walking Dead is a bit of a prequel. The original series opens with Rick waking from a coma in an abandoned hospital after the events that led to the zombie apocalypse. So, we never really see what it was like as society collapsed in The Walking Dead universe. That is, until Fear The Walking Dead is released. It follows Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), a high school guidance counselor in Los Angeles who has to navigate the early days of the zombie plague while also keeping her splintering family together.

The first three seasons of Fear the Walking Dead take place at the beginning of the outbreak and show us up to around the time Rick reunites with his family in the first season of the Walking Dead.

2 The Walking Dead — season 1 through 8

Rick wakes up to a zombie apocalypse

The Walking Dead stars Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, a Georgia sheriff’s deputy who falls into a coma after being shot during a pursuit. He awakens weeks into a full-blown zombie apocalypse and immediately sets out to find his family. Eventually, he puts together a hardened group of survivors that are capable of anything.

The first eight seasons happen pretty much consecutively, with some short time jumps between seasons. It adds up to about two years since the zombie outbreak in 2010, placing the end of season 8 (when Rick finally defeats the Saviors) in 2012. If you want to watch chronologically, stop watching The Walking Dead here, as season 9 features multiple time jumps.

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3 Fear the Walking Dead – season 4 through 7

A time-jump and a new lead

Morgan (Lennie James) joins up with the rest of the Fear the Walking Dead cast and becomes one of the most important characters in the series after debuting on The Walking Dead.

After the finale of season 3, Fear the Walking Dead skips ahead late 2012, just after season eight of The Walking Dead.

There’s an 18-month time jump between seasons eight and nine of The Walking Dead, and that’s where the events of these three Fear the Walking Dead seasons take place. The eighth and final season of Fear the Walking Dead features a seven-year jump that puts it around the time of the final seasons of The Walking Dead.

4 The Walking Dead: The World Beyond

A group of teens need to save their home

The Walking Dead: The World Beyond is AMC’s third Walking Dead spin-off. The events of both seasons take place over the course of a few months in 2020. The World Beyond is centered around a community in Omaha that’s been relatively unscathed by the zombie apocalypse. When one of their parents goes missing, a group of teens led by Iris Bennett (Aliyah Royale) leave the safety of their home behind and venture into a world they don’t know.

The World Beyond expands the world of The Walking Dead by establishing a much larger group of communities working together throughout the US. The series also reveals that France is the origin of the zombie virus.

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5 The Walking Dead – seasons 9 through 11

The final seasons

The final seasons of The Walking Dead take place 10 to 12 years into the zombie apocalypse. Rick disappears shortly into season nine, but don’t worry, he returns in his own spin-off. After his departure, the residents of Alexandria and the Hilltop band together to defeat the Whisperers and a massive undead horde. While there are a few time jumps that skip a couple of months at most throughout the final two seasons, the largest jump comes on the final episode, where the series flashes forward one year.

We see a rebuilt Alexandria moving on after its destruction by a massive zombie horde, and Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) sets off to find Rick and Michonne.

6 Fear The Walking Dead — season 8

A seven year time-jump

Season eight is centered around Morgan taking down the organization known as Padre, which is responsible for kidnapping his daughter and many more children. Morgan and his daughter Mo (Zoey Merchant) also visit some locations in Georgia from the first season of The Walking Dead. There is a seven-year time jump during the back-half of Fear the Walking Dead’s final season. This jump puts the conclusion of Fear the Walking Dead slightly later in the timeline than the final seasons of The Walking Dead.

7 The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

The Walking Dead goes international

Daryl has been a mainstay in the original Walking Dead series from its onset. Now, the character finds himself across the Atlantic stranded in France. The series takes place shortly after the conclusion of The Walking Dead, putting it around 2022 or 2023 in The Walking Dead timeline.

One of the most interesting parts of the Daryl Dixon spin-off is how it shines light on the zombie virus’ origins in France. There are also new types of zombies that Daryl and his new French allies have to fight off. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season two is slated to premiere on September 29, 2024. A third season is already being planned as well.

8 The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

Rick and Michonne’s long-awaited reunion

The Ones Who Live centers around Rick and Michonne’s reunion after spending eight years apart. Rick spent eight years in captivity at the hands of the CRM (Civic Republic Military), but never stopped trying to escape. He even loses his hand in the process. When the pair are finally reunited though, they realize that in order to make it back to Alexandria, they’ll need to defeat the CRM, and it’s leader General Beale. (Terry O’Quinn) to stop them from following the pair home.

There’s currently no more planned seasons for The Ones Who Live.

9 The Walking Dead: Dead City

Zombies take Manhattan

Dead City follows two unlikely compatriots, in Lauren Cohen’s Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan. Set 15 years into the apocalypse, or around 2025, Maggie’s son Hershel has been taken by a man known as the Croat (Željko Ivanek). With Maggie’s son as leverage, he forces the Hilltop to give him all their supplies. Maggie notices the Croat uses all the same tactics Negan and the Saviors had used years earlier, so she tracks down Negan in the hopes he might be able to help get her son back from the Croat’s base of operations in Manhattan.

Dead City sits here because it takes place around six years after the finale of the original series, which makes it our furthest look into the future of the Walking Dead universe. A second season of Dead City is currently scheduled to debut in 2025.

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FAQ

Q: Is there a spoiler free version of the Walking Dead universe in chronological order?

Here’s the above order without any spoilers.

1. Fear the Walking Dead – season 1 through 3
2. The Walking Dead – season 1 through 8
3. Fear the Walking Dead – season 4 through 7
4. The Walking Dead: The World Beyond – seasons 1 and 2
5. The Walking Dead – seasons 9 through 11
6. Fear The Walking Dead – season 8
7. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
8. The Walking Dead: Dead City
9. The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

Q: How to watch all of the Walking Dead universe in chronological order, including the shorts.

Here’s everything Walking Dead related that you can watch. This list includes absolutely everything from the Walking Dead universe. We’ve included online shorts (which you can check out on YouTube) that were released around seasons of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. We’ve also included all six episodes of Tales from the Walking Dead (an anthology series that aired in 2022).

1. Fear the Walking Dead – season 1 through 3
2. Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 2 (anthology series)
3. Fear the Walking Dead: Dead in the Water (online short)
4. Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462 (online short)
5. Fear the Walking Dead – season 2
6. Fear the Walking Dead: Passage (online short)
7. Fear the Walking Dead – season 3
8. The Walking Dead – season 1
9. Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 1 (anthology series)
10. The Walking Dead: Torn Apart (online short)
11. The Walking Dead – season 2
12. The Walking Dead: Cold Storage (online short)
13. The Walking Dead – season 3
14. The Walking Dead: The Oath (online short)
15. The Walking Dead – seasons 4 through 7
16. The Walking Dead: Red Machete (online short)
17. The Walking Dead – season 8
18. Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 3 (anthology series)
19. Fear the Walking Dead – seasons 4 through 7
20. Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 6 (anthology series)
21. The Walking Dead: The World Beyond – seasons 1 and 2
22. Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 4 (anthology series)
23. The Walking Dead – season 9
24. Fear The Walking Dead – season 8
25. The Walking Dead – seasons 10 and 11
26. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
27. Tales from the Walking Dead – episode 5 (anthology series)
28. The Walking Dead: Dead City
29. The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live