The Walking Dead Debuts New Main Titles Sequence

The Walking Dead's main titles logo gradually decayed for the first eight seasons, but Season 9 brought new life. The opening credits sequence — which was redone in animation when showrunner Angela Kang ushered in "a new beginning" in 2018 — is filled with Easter eggs and references to past seasons of The Walking Dead. Amid a fiery Whisperer War in Season 10, the logo was set ablaze, later left smoldering and crumbling as the survivors rebuilt in the aftermath of destruction. In the final Season 11, the logo is renewed, reflecting the post-apocalyptic civilization of the Commonwealth. But even as society rebuilds, blood will be shed and lives will be lost.

Sunday's "Lockdown" midseason premiere of The Walking Dead debuted an expanded main titles sequence for the final eight episodes, which you can watch in the video above. Featuring an extended and remixed version of composer Bear McCreary's iconic Walking Dead theme, the updated introduction spans the communities of Alexandria, Hilltop, and the Commonwealth, which sits beneath a blood-red moon.

A massive walker horde swarms and surrounds the community, defended by red-armored soldier General Mercer (Michael James Shaw) and the Commonwealth military. The extended titles sequence has also been updated with new additions to the cast of series regulars, which bills in order: Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohan, Christian Serratos, Josh McDermitt, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, Cooper Andrews, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

New names added to the main titles include (in order of appearance): Eleanor Matsuura, Lauren Ridloff, Cailey Fleming, Nadia Hilker, Cassady McClincy, Angel Theory, Paola Lazaro, Michael James Shaw, Josh Hamilton, and Laila Robins. (Morgan still receives the final "and" credit.)

The animated credits end with a reconstructed logo dripping blood. In these last-ever eight episodes of The Walking Dead, the logo will get more bloodstained with each new episode.

Produced by Emmy award-winning titles design company Huge Designs (Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 onwards, AMC's The Son and Into the Badlands), the animated sequence was shaped by The Raven and other works of Edgar Allen Poe. Tamsin McGee, who co-designed the Season 9 animated credits with Paul McDonnell of Huge Designs, told The Art of the Title in 2018: "'Life emerging from death. Nature taking over, while other things are crumbling.' That was the fundamental premise of the brief." 

The animated sequence of Season 11C features new Easter eggs and callbacks to past episodes, including the Commonwealth flags draped over Hilltop's walls since Lance Hornsby's (Josh Hamilton) takeover of the allied communities. 

"We felt that including these Easter eggs was a nice way to call back to the titles we had done in the past and at the same time give the fans something to be able to really dig through the title sequence itself and look for these items," McDonnell explained in 2018. "The Walking Dead is a very different show in that it has so many iconic items that you attach to your favourite characters and it brings you an instant recognition as to who that character is in seeing that item. I always loved how fun it was to watch Game of Thrones and wonder what different part of the map we might travel to this week. I thought similarly, how fun it would be for a fan of the show to watch the title sequence each week and maybe notice something that they had not noticed before?"

Follow @CameronBonomolo and @NewsOfTheDead on Twitter for TWD Universe coverage all season long. New episodes of The Walking Dead's final season premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+.