The Walking Dead pinball tournament strategy: drop targets first, then everything on top

The Walking Dead came out in 2014, from the same designer as Metallica, with rules by Lyman Sheats. It has 427 tracked tournament games in our data, 258 of them at Northstar Pinball Collective.

It has a reputation for being hard, and the two toys in the middle of the playfield earn it. One is a prison with a magnet in front that throws the ball. The other is a zombie in a well that fires the ball back at you. The players who score well on it spend less time at those two than you would think, and more time on the three drop targets on the left.

This guide covers the original game. The Walking Dead Remastered, revealed in late 2025, starts from the same rules and has its own rulesheet.

The short version

1. Plunge across the lit rollovers and steer the lit top lane with the flippers.
2. While the ball save is on, shoot the prison.
3. Shoot whatever shows a white crosshair. Those are walkers, and every kill counts.
4. Complete the drop targets on the left, again and again.
5. Start Prison or Well Walker Multiball while Blood Bath is already running.

The skill shot

The plunge crosses two star rollovers on its way to the top lanes. Crossing them while they are lit adds to the award. Then the ball falls into the top lanes, and you steer the lit lane under it with the flippers. If the ball takes an unlit lane, you get nothing.

The first one pays up to 550,000, and each one after that is worth more.

On machines where a full plunge rattles around in the pop bumpers, a very soft plunge that only trips the switch in the shooter lane makes the game launch the ball itself, which is steadier.

Walkers

At any time at least three shots are marked with white crosshairs. Each of those is a walker, and hitting it is a kill. Kills do four things:

• Each adds 50,000 to your end-of-ball bonus, and the count lasts the whole game.
• Every two light the inlane multiplier.
• Six kills from the red shots clear the prison yard, which is part of starting Prison Multiball.
• Five light Bicycle Girl.

Both ramps return the ball to an inlane, so walkers on the ramps are the safe ones.

Blood Bath Multiball

The three drop targets on the left hand out supplies: first aid, food and weapons. Collect all three kinds, complete the bank once more, and Blood Bath starts. It is a two-ball multiball.

What makes it the base of a tournament game is what happens next. The first two times you complete the drop targets during Blood Bath, the game adds a ball. Every completion restarts the ball save. A player who keeps knocking the drops down stays alive.

Be careful how you hit the bank. The first drop you hit locks in whichever supply is showing, and collecting one you already have sets Blood Bath back.

Completing the drop targets also lights the modes. One completion lights them the first time.

Prison and Well Walker

Prison Multiball has three balls. Hits on the prison doors spell PRISON, and the first few letters are given to you. Then the yard has to be cleared with six kills. Then a hit on the prison starts it. Jackpots alternate between a lit shot and the zombie head behind the doors.

Well Walker Multiball has two balls and takes about ten hits on the Well Walker the first time.

Prison and Well Walker cannot run together. Either one can run with Blood Bath. So the stack is Blood Bath first, with its ball saves, and then one of the other two started inside it.

Bring a mode with you as well. On a competition install, modes cannot be lit during a multiball, so the mode has to be running before the multiball starts.

Modes and multipliers

Modes run about 40 seconds, and each drop target completion adds 10. Pinball Primer's tournament notes favor Barn, Arena and CDC, played with 2X running.

2X playfield. The two stab targets on either side of the prison light the Tower. A clean shot up the narrow center lane, all the way to the Tower target, starts 2X for about 30 seconds.

The inlane multiplier. Once lit, rolling through the inlane doubles your next shot if you make it within five seconds. If you do not use it, it keeps growing, by 1x for every two kills, with no cap. Lane change moves it from one inlane to the other. Save it for something large, such as a super jackpot.

Where the ball drains

• The magnet in front of the prison throws the ball in directions you cannot predict, sometimes straight down the middle.
• The Well Walker sends the ball back fast, toward the outlanes or the center. A glancing hit from the right flipper is said to be safer than a square one.
• The pop bumpers can drain the ball on the way out, and both orbits pass through them.
• Woodbury, the lane on the far right, is a hard shot made off the tip of the left flipper.

The outlanes have adjustable posts and a lot of rubber around them, so a well-timed nudge saves more balls here than on most games. Expect to need it.

Hits on the prison and the Well Walker do not always register. If a hit you made cleanly did not count, that is the machine, and it happens to everyone.

Competition settings

On a competition install there are no extra balls. Being bitten, which kills the flippers, ends the ball. So does draining during Horde. Several of the ways to earn a Multi-Kill are turned off.

The Premium and LE models add a Fire button, bombs, a crossbow and two spinners. On a Pro the crossbow award is a timed follow-up shot.

What the tracked games say

Numbers are from late September 2026. The Walking Dead machine page has the live ones.

The upset rate is how often the lower-rated player in a pairing finishes ahead. The Walking Dead's 34.9% is close to the average of 35.5% and higher than any other modern Stern in this series. A game this fast takes balls from good players too. It is one of the better modern picks for an underdog, and a riskier one for a favorite than Game of Thrones or Foo Fighters. The full ranking is in upset rates by machine.

Among players with at least 20 games on it, Luke Nahorniak has the best record, finishing ahead of 74% of the opponents he has faced across 39 games. Marshall Hilgemann and Elvira Khanaveral are next, and Nathan Reardon and Andy Fleming follow. The scouting report shows how you compare with your own group.

Where to play it

• Northstar Pinball Collective in Savage, 258 tracked games. See the Northstar guide.
• Julie's Pinball in Farmington has one on the floor. Its first tracked tournament games on it came in late September 2026.

Before your next game

The Walking Dead playbook has player tips, videos and rulesheet links, and the scores tab shows the best games on record. For the full rules we leaned on the Pinball Primer guide and the Pinball Rulesheets wiki.

Metallica is the same designer's earlier game, and Ghostbusters is the other machine in this series where staying alive comes first. The whole series is in the machine strategy guides.