After a 100% third season, Walking Dead: Dead City has 'a good shot' at season 4, says the franchise boss
The Walking Dead boss Scott M. Gimple has raised hopes for Dead City Season 4 with an encouraging update on the New York spin-off’s future.
If you thought we'd seen the last of zombies stampeding through New York’s streets, there's some actual light at the end of the tunnel for fans of The Walking Dead: Dead City. The franchise's top brass, Scott M. Gimple, has given us easily the most optimistic update yet on whether we’re getting a proper fourth series. Here’s what’s lurking in the pipeline for Dead City and the wider Walking Dead universe as we trudge into 2026.
Season 4 Prospects
If you're the sort who obsessively refreshes renewal announcements – and you’re right to, given how trigger-happy networks are these days – you'll want to pay close attention. At MultiCon 2026, Scott Gimple chatted exclusively to The Direct and sounded pretty upbeat about where things are headed for the Manhattan-set spin-off. He didn’t exactly pin a date to it, and there’s no formal greenlight just yet, but in his own words—
Asked about Dead City’s future, Gimple explained:
I would hope for everyone to hold out hope, because it’s performing well in the numbers, and people are digging it. So, I think it’s got a good shot at it, but it is a different time.
That’s a fairly candid way of saying "look, it isn’t a done deal, but it’s hardly on the chopping block either". The buzz might not guarantee a renewal, but anyone winding up a series this well-reviewed ought to feel at least slightly optimistic.
How It’s Been Faring
Here’s a stat you can wave in any Twitter argument: Dead City Season 3 actually pulled a 100% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s the highest for any season of the show so far. For context, the debut run hit 80%, and Season 2 dropped off the cliff to 56%. The just-finished series wrapped up in September after an eight-week drop on AMC and AMC+ and left things open for more undead mayhem beyond Manhattan—potentially spreading into the rest of New York’s boroughs.
Dead City Season 3 landed a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, the franchise’s best critical reception yet.
Streaming Complicates Everything
Gimple also got a bit candid about just how strange it is tracking a show’s health these days. The whole business of ‘waiting for overnight ratings’ is over; the numbers are slipperier, and the economics make less sense by the day. He reminisced about being able to do some basic sums on Walking Dead seasons in the past—if they lost half the audience, you could calculate how long it’d last. Now, as he puts it, that entire world’s ‘insane’. There's no neat equation for call-in renewals, just constantly shifting allegations of ‘engagement’ and ‘impressions’ somewhere in the void.
If you’re after something more concrete, here’s what the broader slate looks like: AMC renewed Dead City for Season 2 right before the first season’s finale, then waited until a month after Season 2 ended to make Season 3 official. The schedule’s definitely slowing down: Gimple confirmed fans should expect less urgency and more time between launches for any Walking Dead offshoots or event series.
What’s Next for the Franchise?
While the next and likely last word on the calendar is Daryl Dixon Season 4—concluding Norman Reedus’ cross-Channel saga in early 2027—there are rumours of a new crossover series brewing behind the scenes. But as far as anything else actually confirmed? Dead City’s still very much in the running, buoyed by a top critic score and (at least according to HQ) audiences still turning up for it.