The Walking Dead

What started as Robert Kirkman's black-and-white comic became one of the most successful multimedia properties of the 2010s, and it spread across three distinct fronts. The AMC television universe built an empire out of the original series, then kept expanding with Fear the Walking Dead, World Beyond, and a wave of character-focused spin-offs (Daryl Dixon, Dead City, The Ones Who Live).

Equally important, and arguably more beloved by critics, is Telltale's game series, which used the zombie apocalypse as a backdrop for wrenching choice-driven drama centered on Clementine. That run did more to legitimize narrative adventure games than almost anything else of its era. There are also VR survival entries (Saints & Sinners) and the original comics that anchor the whole thing. The undead are really just the setting here; the franchise has always been about what people do to each other when the rules collapse.

The The Walking Dead franchise spans 8 series, 8 books, 13 games, 1 films in the CrossBinge catalog.