A bloody series launch from Hellohikimori: The walking dead

French creative agency Hellohikimori has been up to its neck in zombies and gore during the run-up to the premiere of FOX’s new hit series, The Walking Dead. The website http://demos.hellohikimori.com/walking-dead and video game, by Hellohikimori (HKI), launches the new survival adventure show for French TV channel, Orange ‘Cine Choc’.

Hellohikimori was selected by Orange Cinema Series to drive all digital activity for The Walking Dead launch. The series enjoyed immediate success in the US, attracting an audience of 5.3 million in its first season. Season two premieres in October 2011. The Walking Dead TV show is based on the comic book series written by New York Times bestselling author, Robert Kirkman. He serves as executive producer on the project, which is written, directed and produced by three-time Academy Award-nominee Frank Darabont (The Green Mile) and Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator, Aliens, The Incredible Hulk).

Hellohikimori has created a website which matches the high production values of this epic zombie nightmare adventure.
All content is deliberately accessible via the homepage, making for an easy no-click-through experience. This enables the audience to fully immerse themselves in the gruesome, highly-charged atmosphere of the series, where usability, simple navigation and vertical composition allow for maximum grisly impact. The content of the website follows the intrigue of each upcoming episode, making it a real ‘fan-zone’ for the series and offering a constant link between what the audience sees on TV and online.

Centre stage of The Walking Dead website is the game, created in interactive 3D by Hellohikimori. At the heart of the action is police officer Rick Grimes who wakes from a coma in an abandoned hospital to find the world devastated by a zombie

epidemic of apocalyptic proportions. Gamers must find their way through a 500m2 hospital and avoid contamination from the zombies to survive.

David Ronhel, Founder and Creative Director of Hellohikimori, says:
“For The Walking Dead, we’ve pushed the game to the maximum of what technology offers.
It’s incredible in its detail, but more importantly, it’s frightening, strong, efficient, powerful and entertaining.
We also wanted to switch the usual order of websites. For this project we focused on the editorial aspect, which is visible right from the homepage. The content is immediately available from the scroll zone.”

In a rare step for a TV series, the first two episodes of The Walking Dead will be aired on Orange’s Walking Dead website for free, for a 48 hour period.