The Walking Dead: World Beyond Characters Could Return in TWD Universe

Warning: this story contains spoilers for the series finale of TWD: World Beyond, “The Last Light.” It’s the end of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. It’s not the end of World Beyond‘s characters in the Walking Dead Universe. The series finale​ of the spinoff, “The Last Light,” leaves off with Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes (Pollyanna McIntosh) climbing the ranks of the Civic Republic Military, her predecessor Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond) jailed for treason. For “The Endlings” — Iris (Aliyah Royale), Hope (Alexa Mansour), Elton (Nicolas Cantu), and Silas (Hal Cumpston) — the end of World Beyond is just the beginning​. 

“This is all a very, very big story and each one of these people, each one of these characters, are little pieces of that story,” Scott Gimple, co-creator of World Beyond and chief content officer of TWD Universe, told EW. “But the story continues, and we hope to have that continue.”

Gimple co-created the two-season limited-event series with showrunner Matt Negrete, concluding the 20-episode run with “The Last Light.” But an open-ended finale — and a post-credits epilogue starting the next big story in AMC’s Walking Dead Universe — means World Beyond will live on in other ways outside the limited series.

Asked if World Beyond‘s cast of characters are planned to return on other Walking Dead shows, Gimple said, “It’s more about hopes and dreams and wishes because we’re not this giant organization. We make plans and we pivot. We want to continue this story in different ways.”

“We want to see these characters in different ways, but it’s not going to be Walking Dead: World Beyond,” he said. “It’s going to be the world continuing on and you seeing these people pop up in different ways with different arcs.”

RELATED STORY: Who Lives and Who Dies on TWD: World Beyond‘s Series Finale​

One potential landing point is Tales of the Walking Dead, the greenlit anthology spinoff series coming to life this summer at AMC Networks. Tales will bring back familiar faces, both living and dead, in never-before-seen stories set throughout the timeline and across TWD Universe. 

Another possibility is The Walking Dead movies, where audiences will learn what happened when Jadis traded Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) to the CRM after they disappeared from The Walking Dead. 

“The greater Walking Dead story, the meta story, the whole story, it continues on and on. And thus, I imagine these other characters will pop up in those stories,” Gimple teased. “Will every single one of them pop up like clockwork in the very next thing we do? I doubt it, but we’re doing a lot of things. And then there is this greater spine that we’re seeing with the CRM story as it touches Fear, as it touches Walking Dead even, and now in World Beyond. That story will have to have a reckoning​.”

Tales of the Walking Dead premieres Summer 2022 on AMC. 

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter and ComicBook’s @NewsOfTheDead for TWD Universe coverage all season long.