A decade after scripting some of the darkest ones in the franchise, writer Seth Hoffman reveals why he returned to helm The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3. It was bleak, a bleak, bleak time,” Hoffman told ComicBook. There’s a reason, a justification for having some real hope, and that’s what I really wanted to explore with this season of Dead City.” Dead City trades that formula for something harder-won. Hoffman replaced Eli Jorné as showrunner for The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3, which premiered on AMC+ in July 2026, with episode 3 currently availaible to stream.