The Walking Dead: World Beyond will have four new worlds in season 2

The Walking Dead: World Beyond only has 10 episodes remaining before it draws to a close for good. The first half of this limited series didn’t excite fans as much as The Walking Dead or Fear the Walking Dead did, so here’s hoping season 2 can give us more to talk about.

If you’re new to this spinoff, it’s a coming-of-age story that follows a group of teens — Iris Bennett (Aliyah Royale), Hope Bennett (Alexa Mansour), Silas Plaskett (Hal Cumpston), and Elton Ortiz (Nicolas Cantu) — as they traverse the desolate zombie-infested lands outside their community. Their goal: for Iris and Hope to find their father, who they believe is in trouble. By the end (SPOILER INCOMING) we learn that Hope is considered a powerful “asset” and is carried away by the mysterious Civic Republic Military, or CRM.

It’ll be interesting to see how things shape up in season 2 given how the group is scattered around everywhere with Hope (seemingly) out of the picture. And according to showrunner Matt Negrete, the show will live up to its name by introducing fans to more unique worlds. “I don’t want to give too much away, or else I may go missing in the dead of night,” he told Den of Geek. “I’ll say that there are three very distinct worlds that couldn’t be more different, but they’re also tied together through the story of the season.  Because these worlds are so distinct, it really gave us some really interesting opportunities, in terms of writing, but also for our art department to really go to town and bring these worlds to life. And they each have their own palate – their own feel.”

If three new worlds to explore still isn’t enough for you, it doesn’t stop there. “There’s actually a fourth world that we’ll see in (season two episode one), that is even different from those other three.”

When does The Walking Dead: World Beyond take place on the timeline?

Given there are now three shows in The Walking Dead Universe, and that time jumps are fairly common, it can sometimes be bewildering trying to piece together where in the timeline everything takes place. Thankfully, Negrete is on hand to make things clear:

"We’re definitely post-time jump season 9 of Walking Dead. Basically what we’re saying on our show is that we’re 10 years in. And I could be wrong on this, but I think that Walking Dead is probably a couple of years ahead of us. Fear is maybe around six years, give or take, behind us. So that’s kind of roughly where we fit in."

Confused? To put it simply, World Beyond slots right in between Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead.

Don’t expect to see Rick Grimes in season 2!

We all know that Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is poised to return to the franchise on the big screen at some point. However, don’t get your hopes up about seeing him make an appearance in the franchise before then. In the first season of World Beyond, some fans got carried away in making theories up about how he will show up, and he didn’t. According to Negrete, it sounds like we shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

"There are always going to be these connection points. And a lot of people are speculating, like, “Oh yeah, we’re going to do some big Rick Grimes reveal.” I’ll just say that that was never the intention. I think that for us, again, it’s just telling a story that makes sense for our characters. It’s not to say that there aren’t going to be hints of certain things, universe-wise, that may play into references to other shows. But for me it’s really about keeping the big picture in mind."

Sure, that’s a bummer. As always, patience is required to see more of Rick Grimes.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond teaser: “They have no home to go back to.”

As the premiere draws near, we’re beginning to see little teasers pop up here and there. This one is an entire scene from the second season, featuring Felix ( Nico Tortorella) and Hope:

Unfortunately, we have no full trailer yet, but we should expect one very soon. At the moment, the AMC marketing team is probably focusing their efforts on the upcoming final season of The Walking Dead, which premieres on August 22 (August 15 for AMC+ subscribers).

The Walking Dead: World Beyond will return for its second on Sunday, October 3.

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