The third and final Marvel animated show of 2025 will launch before the spookiest time of the year

A zombified Iron Man preparing to fire his laser weapon in What If... Zombies?! episode

Marvel Zombies is a four-part TV spin-off of one of What If…?’s best episodes (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)

Disney has finally revealed when Marvel Zombies will be released on Disney Plus.

In a 2025 Marvel animation preview posted on The Walt Disney Company website, the comic giant’s first TV-MA animated show’s launch date was confirmed to be Friday, October 3. That means the What If…? spin-off miniseries will arrive in time for the spookiest season of the year, aka Halloween.

Marvel Zombies‘ October launch date isn’t a great shock. Last November, Marvel revealed the official release dates and windows for its 2025 Disney Plus line-up, which includes the highly-anticipated arrival of Daredevil: Born Again. Among the latter’s sibling projects, Marvel Zombies was confirmed to be releasing on Disney Plus this October, so this latest announcement just narrows down its late 2025 release window.

For the uninitiated: Marvel Zombies is a follow-up to What If…? season 1 episode 5, titled ‘What If… Zombies!?’. That entry, which was inspired by Marvel’s ‘Zombies’ comic book series, took place in an alternate reality to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) – one where, surprise surprise, a zombie outbreak leads to an apocalyptic event that almost wipes out humanity. Marvel Zombies will pick up the story after that episode’s ending, which left Earth’s remaining superheroes, including Spider-Man, still searching for a cure. Ms Marvel, Shang-Chi, Yelena Belova, Red Guardian, Kate Bishop, and Ironheart are confirmed to be part of the show’s dwindling superhero roster.

Rising from the dead, but not on Halloween itself

A zombified Thanos holding up the Infinity Gauntlet in What If...? season 1 episode 5

“Fine, I’ll do it myself… again” (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)

Given its TV-MA rating, Marvel Zombies will, according to the comic titan’s head of TV and streaming Brad Winderbaum, be “more hardcore” than previous MCU projects. What better time to release the studio’s first potentially gore-filled series, then, than the scariest time of the year, i.e. Halloween?

The Marvel Phase 6 show will arrive ahead of 2025’s spooky season, but it won’t make its debut on that date, nor will the limited series’ final chapter arrive on October 31. Indeed, Zombies will be a four-part event, with its premiere set for the aforementioned date of October 3. If all four episodes are released on launch day, it’ll debut in full almost one month before Halloween arrives. Even if Zombies follows the traditional MCU TV series release schedule format – i.e. new episodes airing weekly – though, its finale is set to land on one of the world’s best streaming services on October 24.

Similarly spooky MCU projects, such as Werewolf by Night and Agatha All Along, haven’t debuted or ended on Halloween. The former mini-TV film arrived on October 7, while the latter WandaVision spin-off premiered on September 18 and ended on October 30, so Marvel has previous form for not launching its horror-esque productions on October 31. Still, I think it’s a little disappointing that Zombies won’t do so, especially as Halloween falls on a Friday this year. Streaming Zombies‘ finale would’ve made for a frightfully fun aperitif to a weekend of spooky season partying, in my view!