The Walking Dead: World Beyond Has Largest Scope of All Walking Dead Shows

The Walking Dead: World Beyond is "national news" while The Walking Dead and first spinoff Fear the Walking Dead are "local news," according to star Nico Tortorella, who says the two-season limited event series opens up a "whole new vantage point" of TWD Universe. Set through the eyes of a new group of young survivors — sisters Hope (Alexa Mansour) and Iris (Aliyah Royale), and friends Elton (Nicolas Cantu) and Silas (Hal Cumpston) — the expansive scope of World Beyond includes pulling back the curtain on CRM, the shadowy organization that has appeared in both series and is responsible for the six-year disappearance of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln).

"I'm just so excited for everyone to get a taste of this so soon," Tortorella said Sunday during their couch debut on Talking Dead. "I've been thinking a lot about this and this is gonna sound a little shady, and I really don't mean it to be at all, but I feel like Walking Dead and Fear deal with this universe in local news, and right off the bat with World Beyond, we're dealing with national news."

Audiences can expect to see "a lot" of those familiar helicopters identified by the three-circle symbols representing three entwined civilizations, and for the first time, Tortorella added, we'll "get to really meet who's in those helicopters and where they're coming from."

Taking place a decade into the apocalypse, putting it in sync with the timeline on The Walking Dead Season 10, World Beyond marks "a whole new vantage point of the universe."

"We're dealing with a younger generation who do not know life before the apocalypse, who were raised in a community that has been totally protected and self-sustaining," Tortorella said. "This is an adventure story, more than anything. And I think because they're so much younger, there is a hunger for life beyond survival. They're trying to figure out who they are in this world and what it actually means to be alive."

When revealing new details from the series at New York Comic Con in October, TWD chief content officer and World Beyond co-creator Scott Gimple noted this new show is "very much on its own," having only "points where there is a little bit of crossover" with the wider universe.

The Nebraska university setting of World Beyond is one of the three different civilizations represented by the three-circle symbols, with another expected to be revealed in the forthcoming Walking Dead feature film centered on the missing Rick Grimes.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond premieres Sunday, April 12, following the Season 10 finale of The Walking Dead. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.