The Walking Dead may have concluded its run back in 2022, but the universe lives on in a string of spinoffs like Dead City and Daryl Dixon. Not content with waiting for viewers to demand more franchise stories, AMC also explored a few spinoffs while the mothership show was still on the air. But how many of those spinoffs are worth a watch, and how many of them should you feel comfortable skipping?cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});We’re ranking every The Walking Dead spinoff so you can figure out if you should spend your precious time on them. However, if you’re a true Walking Dead completist and you’ve already seen them all, feel free to have a read through and let us know if you’d rank them differently in the comments!6. The Walking Dead: World BeyondUnfortunately, The Walking Dead: World Beyond lands at the bottom of our ranking because its first season was so slow and unengaging. We spent a lot of time following its group of teens as they navigated the universe’s post-apocalyptic world, but this coming-of-age focus sacrificed the gritty survival drama we expected from The Walking Dead universe, and it didn’t help that the characters were extremely unmemorable.To be fair, some of them did develop as the series went on, but we were way too frustrated by that point. The fact that the show was also marketed as the key to understanding the mysterious Civic Republic Military, but then saved all that good stuff until the second season, only added to its problems.Still, World Beyond wasn’t all bad. The second season was a decent improvement, with much better pacing and a greater focus on the CRM. And if you’re thinking about checking out The Ones Who Live, it offers some good background on the shady group ahead of Rick’s encounter with them; it’s just not very compelling on its own.5. Tales of the Walking DeadTales of the Walking Dead earned points for trying something different, as its anthology format allowed the show to experiment with different characters and genres without getting bogged down in longer arcs and lore. One highlight was the fascinating “Blair/Gina,” which used a time-loop structure to introduce two new people (Parker Posey and Jillian Bell) who disliked each other at first but grew closer as events repeated. It was a fun and funny installment far removed from the typically grim storytelling of The Walking Dead.The spinoff also added depth to characters we already knew, like the villainous Alpha (Samantha Morton). In the episode “Dee,” we saw how Alpha’s violent nature initially grew out of a desire to simply protect her daughter, bringing context to some of her terrible actions in the mothership show.Giving characters one episode to evolve had its drawbacks, though. Some of their development felt rushed and their decisions too convenient, and unlike the mainline series, we often weren’t attached enough to this new blood to care what happened to them. Overall, this made Tales of the Walking Dead feel like a passing amusement that faded into the background quite quickly as the larger storyline came back into focus.4. The Walking Dead: Dead CityMaggie and Negan’s long-running beef over the murder of Maggie’s husband, Glenn, continues in this lively Walking Dead spinoff, which takes the action to New York and shows how Negan’s mentorship and leadership style have corrupted things there, too.We’re thrown into a scenario where Maggie’s son Hershel has been taken by The Croat, one of Negan’s old Saviors, so Maggie reluctantly teams up with Negan to rescue him. Negan’s knowledge of The Croat proves useful as he and Maggie run into rival New York factions, and the city’s crumbling skyscraper setting makes everything feel more claustrophobic.The show paints a tragic portrait of two of The Walking Dead’s most beloved characters. Since the mainline series wrapped up, they’ve both tried to move on, with Negan starting a family but unable to properly care for them, and Maggie trying (and failing) to connect with Hershel while still consumed by vengeance. It’s also quite a visually impactful show, offering a daunting snapshot of Manhattan’s dense urban environment left to fall apart. New York is a dangerous city for Negan and Maggie to be roaming around in, and there are more threats around every corner than ever before, so the tension is always high.Though the first two seasons of this post-Walking Dead show didn’t reach the philosophical highs of Daryl Dixon or the excitement of bringing back Rick Grimes in The Ones Who Live, it’s still a watchable zombie romp that explores some fascinating themes of redemption and love in this post-apocalyptic world.3. The Walking Dead: The Ones Who LiveYears after he disappeared in the mothership show, Michonne finally locates Rick Grimes in this “one and done” spinoff that gives us a long-awaited conclusion to Rick’s storyline. It turns out that Rick has been trapped with the Civic Republic Military for a long time, and we get a really emotional reunion between him and his wife before she also realizes that escaping the CRM will prove tricky.Boasting higher production values than the main series and a more focused story, The Ones Who Live is a satisfying end to Rick and Michonne’s onscreen romance and offers a truly cinematic look behind the curtain at the long-feared CRM baddies. It’s lacking some of the intricate world-building that something like Daryl Dixon manages to pull off, yet it’s still a great watch for anyone who made it through The Walking Dead but really missed Rick after Andrew Lincoln was written out of the show.The Ones Who Live certainly isn’t a spinoff for newcomers, and the limited nature of the series makes it feel a little rushed at times, which is why it didn’t rank any higher on this list. Despite that, it’s a solid adventure in the Walking Dead universe for OG fans.2. Fear the Walking DeadDeveloped as a companion series to the mothership show, Fear the Walking Dead eventually ran for eight seasons alongside it. Though the first seasons were considered rocky, depicting the start of the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of a new group of survivors, the show got a significant boost after a post-season 3 soft reboot that added a Morgan Jones (Lennie James) casting crossover.Honestly, we quite liked the vibe of those first seasons. It was interesting to see how ordinary people reacted to the outbreak when it first began. We often heard stories about those events in other characters’ lives, told through their memories, but seeing them play out visually was a real treat. Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) also proved to be a fascinating lead character, initially depicted as a woman trying to save her family, yet evolving into someone more morally grey and complex.Fear the Walking Dead’s main problems mirrored those that can affect many long-running shows. As the series progressed, the start of the apocalypse slipped into the rearview mirror, and conflicts between rival groups overshadowed the initial struggles. While some episodes were action-packed and fantastic, others slowed the pace to focus on deeper character development instead of moving the story forward, while the show also threw the characters into some entirely unrealistic situations to make things exciting again. The Walking Dead had some of those by that point, but many felt that having two shows set in the same universe on the air with similar pacing and story problems was too much.Nevertheless, Fear the Walking Dead avoided becoming too repetitive by moving the action from Los Angeles to Mexico and Texas, giving our characters fresh challenges. The Abigail yacht escape and the conflicts on the Mexican ranch particularly stand out as great, memorable scenarios in the series’ tenure and definitely add to the spinoff’s rewatchability.1. The Walking Dead: Daryl DixonAt the time of writing, Daryl Dixon hasn’t finished its run, but it’s still the best Walking Dead spinoff by a long chalk. Any future series set in this universe is going to have to pull out a lot of stops to beat it! After years of stories set in the U.S., the show finally moves the zombie action to France and beyond, and these unfamiliar locations and new pockets of survivors (who Daryl often struggles to understand) make the Walking Dead world feel instantly bigger and more daunting. The show also flaunts visuals that match its ambition. In the first season alone, we’re treated to sweeping shots of the French countryside, medieval castles, old cathedrals, and ruined cities, and the show uses them to build genuinely great moods and tension – the kind that the mothership series was starting to really lack in its later seasons.Of course, the spinoff’s central character is a big draw. Norman Reedus has long been one of the franchise’s most popular actors, but this series gives his character room to grow in ways that weren’t always possible in a large ensemble, and Reedus opens up different sides of his character lost in European danger zones while still staying true to the person he’s always been. Later in the show, Carol shows up as well, and the pair’s enduring friendship proves to be never anything less than fantastic.Daryl Dixon also refreshes the horror elements that made The Walking Dead so fun and scary early on. Its faster, stronger, weirder walkers are truly unsettling, bringing a real sense of unpredictability back to the zombie universe. But ultimately, Daryl Dixon is the best of the spinoffs because it has delivered something fresh and (so far) utterly unique.The post Ranking Every Spinoff of The Walking Dead appeared first on Den of Geek.