Zombie Stage Timeline: Where the AU Sits Next to Alien Stage

If you have been trying to slot Zombie Stage into the Alien Stage timeline and getting frustrated, the answer is that it does not slot in. It runs alongside. This guide draws the picture.

TL;DR

• Mainline Alien Stage is a finished arc — Round 1 → KARMA → Wiege epilogue.
• Zombie Stage is an AU (alternate universe), not a continuation.
• Both start from the same cast but diverge before Alien Stage’s Round 1.
• Watch mainline first, then Zombie Stage. Nothing spoils anything the other way.

Mainline Alien Stage

Mainline ALNST completed its main run over the course of 2022–2025. The full televised order:

Round 1 → Prologue → Round 2 → Round 3 → Round 5 → TOP 3 → MIZISUA → All-in → Round 6 → Final Round → Wiege → Karma

Twelve episodes, September 2022 to June 2025. A few notes on that sequence:

• Round 4 was never animated. It happened in-universe — Luka beat Durian in it — and Round 5 simply opens with Luka already established as a winner.
• The Final Round is Till versus Luka, sung to Blink Gone, in October 2024. That is the tournament’s endpoint.
• Wiege and Karma come after it. Karma is the twelfth and longest episode and was intended to close the series.
• Everything after that under the Alien Stage banner is either supplementary (sub-songs, comics, artbooks) or AU — Zombie Stage being the first.

So when a newcomer asks “does the story continue after Karma?” — a post by Kang on 5 April 2026 confirmed more episodes are coming in both the main universe and the alternate ones. Nothing further has been dated.

For the full list with dates and matchups, see the episode watch order.

Where Zombie Stage branches off

“Branch” is the word the fandom uses, but it is worth being precise: Zombie Stage does not split off from a shared past. It is a different world from the ground up, with the same people in it.

There are no aliens in it. There is no Anakt Garden, no tournament run by a ruling species. Per the official release copy, an unknown infectious disease engulfed the world; criminal organisations and corrupt police concealed the resulting zombies underground and built an entertainment industry out of them, performing for crowds of uninfected humans. The loser of a match is dismembered and the parts are sold.

Mizi and Sua’s history in that world is its own: high school, a failed duo audition, a second audition only Mizi passes, an idol career, an infection. None of it maps onto anything in the main series. What is deliberately preserved is the fixture — Mizi versus Sua in Round 1, Mizi wins, Sua pays for it.

So the honest diagram is not one line splitting into two. It is two separate lines that rhyme.

Visual timeline

Alien Stage (main series, 12 episodes, finished)
R1 ── Prologue ── R2 ── R3 ── R5 ── TOP3 ── MIZISUA
Sep 2022                                      │
│
All-in ── R6 ── Final Round ── Wiege ── Karma ┘
Jun 2025
Zombie Stage (alternate universe)
R1  Jun 2026   Mizi vs Sua — Candy Scar, Little Bunny
Ache  Jul 2026   comic, 19 pages
?    2026       second episode expected, undated

Two things worth noting:

1. Zombie Stage restarts the round count. Its Round 1 is a new Round 1, with its own two songs, its own staging and its own backstory — not the main series’ Round 1 with corpses in it.
2. Nothing past that first episode is announced. A second episode is expected during 2026. Any diagram you see with Zombie Stage Rounds 2 through 6 mapped out is somebody’s guess.

Watch order

The two orders that work, ranked:

1. Mainline → Zombie Stage. Recommended. Watch mainline in televised order (Round 1 → KARMA → Wiege), then start Zombie Stage from its Round 1. This is the order in which VIVINOS built the emotional payoff.
2. Zombie Stage → Mainline. Technically fine. Zombie Stage is designed to work cold. You will lose some weight — the “did they really do this to Sua again” reveal in particular — but nothing is unwatchable.

The order that does not work: interleaving. Watching mainline R1, then Zombie Stage R1, then mainline R2, etc. will hurt both stories because the AU keeps referencing beats mainline hasn’t hit yet.

Do the timelines ever cross?

Officially: no crossover exists, and none has been announced. Zombie Stage is the first alternate universe in the series; nothing suggests a merge.

What is actually on record about who exists where:

• Round 1 of Zombie Stage shows Mizi, Sua, Hyuna and Ivan, plus Mizi’s mother in flashback. Only Mizi and Sua have a shown role.
• Till, Luka and Isaac have not been shown in Zombie Stage at all. The AU entry for Till says outright that he has not appeared. Anything circulating about their roles there is fan invention.
• Hia (희아), Sua’s older sister, exists only in Zombie Stage. She has a profile and no appearance yet. There is no equivalent character in the main series.

If a genuine crossover is ever announced, this page gets updated with the source. Until then, treat anything that claims one as fan speculation.

FAQ

The FAQ block below answers the most-asked timeline questions in one place — hit any question to expand its answer.