New 'Walking Dead' Encounter App Brings Zombies to Life in Front of Your Eyes

As part of a marketing campaign for The Walking Dead's eighth season, AMC, along with Mountain Dew, are announcing their official release of an augmented reality app called The Walking Dead Encounter. The app was given a soft launch earlier this year at San Diego Comic-Con, where fans were allowed to use the app and explore its minimal functions. At the same time, fans who used the app were asked to send their images across social media to tease the full launch.

As far as features go, the app only starts off with two zombies you can play around with. You can either use them in a virtual reality simulation where a random zombie pops up in your surroundings, leaving you to shake the undead off; or, you can just use the app to your liking, taking multiple various images with it in your everyday life. It's fairly fun at the moment, but the game is intended to pick up steam when the eighth season of The Walking Dead premieres in October.

When the newest season does air, the app will introduce a new zombie with every passing episode. But if you're impatient and don't want to wait that long to fool around with more zombie fun, you can go out and buy various Mountain Dew products for promotional codes to unlock more zombies to explore the world with.

Will the new zombies be affiliated with Season 8 of The Walking Dead?

The details surrounding what kind of zombies will become available are unknown, but we can safely assume they'll somehow be linked with episodes of The Walking Dead. The series has become known for introducing various types of zombies, using incredible practical and special effects to make them really pop on screen. That said, we can probably count on this new promotion for The Walking Dead to introduce new types of zombies that'll appear in Season 8, rather than just using the old designs from past seasons. There is, however, one exception that most fans will agree with.

Back in Season 7, the show introduced us to a practically indestructible walker controlled by Jadis and her junkyard crew. The zombie was set on Rick Grimes, but he fortunately came out of the confrontation without too much damage. The reason that particular walker stood out more than others was because of its unique nature. There had been plenty of types before, but none like the spike covered creature seen then. With that being said, fans would most likely want to see a similar walker design on The Walking Dead Encounter app.

The biggest question is, what kind of zombies will we see in this app? Perhaps a metal covered zombie like the ones guarding Negan's gate at the Sanctuary will be added, or maybe something none of us are expecting will be introduced. As with the fates of each character from week to week, nothing is certain. We'll just have to wait for each episode of The Walking Dead to air to unlock more zombies for The Walking Dead Encounter.

The Walking Dead returned for Season 8 on October 22, 2017.

The Walking Dead Encounter app is available for purchase on IOS and Android devices.