The 7 Best Post-Apocalyptic Podcasts
Ash Tales
What is post-apocalyptic fiction? → The 7 Best Post-Apocalyptic Podcasts
In 1938, Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds demonstrated just how vividly audio could conjure catastrophe. Podcasts have inherited that power: they can surround you with a zombie siege, drop you into a fractured future or let you eavesdrop on the people imagining the end of the world.
This list mixes serialised audio drama, self-contained fiction and pop-culture discussion. Beneath each entry, you’ll find one representative episode to play without leaving the page. Two older shows have lost their original audio files, so their cards preserve the cover or archive record and point you to the surviving catalogue instead.
1. We’re Alive
The benchmark for zombie audio drama, We’re Alive began in 2009 and has since grown into a much larger story world. The original series follows Army reservist Michael Cross as a routine day in Los Angeles becomes a fight through a rapidly spreading outbreak.
Full-cast performances, cinematic sound design and a patient, chapter-by-chapter mystery make it one of the easiest recommendations on this list. Start at the very beginning: the first episode wastes no time getting Michael out of the barracks and into the collapse.
2. Ash Tales
Ash Tales: Stories of the Apocalypse takes the anthology route. Its 22 episodes, released between 2017 and 2020, each tell a self-contained story about a different end of the world: nuclear war, climate catastrophe, plague, zombies and stranger futures besides.
The concise, single-narrator format puts the writing first, and every featured story is also available in the Ash Tales story archive. For a first listen, try The Poppies’ Secret, an intimate story about love, memory and the dangerous comforts of the old world.
3. The Cleansed
Written and produced by Frederick Greenhalgh, The Cleansed is a three-season audio drama set in a future reshaped by environmental collapse and oil scarcity. A scattered group of survivors is caught between the factions that have replaced the old United States.
The show pairs a large cast with location-recorded soundscapes, giving its rural battles, uneasy settlements and long journeys real physical texture. Its prologue, The Breaking, establishes the collapse before the main story begins.
4. Z.E.D.D. Radio
Z.E.D.D. Radio — short for Zombie Enthusiast Deficiency Disorder — is the outlier here: a fast-moving talk show about apocalyptic pop culture rather than a fiction podcast. Its conversations range across The Walking Dead, Left 4 Dead, zombie news and the wider survival-horror genre.
The show ended in 2016 after 36 episodes. Its listing survives on podcast platforms, but the original TalkShoe episode files no longer play, so this one is best treated as a piece of zombie-podcast history.
5. From the Wastes
Hosted by Evan — better known online as The Last Librarian — From the Wastes is an interview show about the people making contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction. The archive covers novelists, filmmakers and other creators, with plenty of discussion about craft, publishing and the genre’s enduring appeal.
The 13-episode run concluded in 2020. The conversation with Commune author Joshua Gayou is a strong sample: broad enough for readers, but detailed enough for writers interested in how a post-apocalyptic series comes together.
6. Post Apocalyptic Media
The Post Apocalyptic Media podcast is the conversational companion to the long-running genre site. Instead of fiction, it offers reactions, reviews and speculation about apocalyptic television, films and games — from The Walking Dead universe to newer streaming adaptations.
Its archive runs to more than 100 episodes and concluded in 2023. Episode 111 is a useful snapshot of the format, moving between The Walking Dead: Dead City, Twisted Metal and Netflix’s Zombieverse.
7. Aftermath
Aftermath is a full-cast drama set in post-apocalyptic Scotland. A missile attack releases a green chemical fog across the UK; people caught in it become violently unstable, leaving a small group of unaffected survivors to navigate the chaos that follows.
The production released 17 instalments across two seasons between 2012 and 2015. The original JellyCast files are now offline and the feed no longer contains cover art, but the surviving catalogue records the complete run — including the finale, Omega.
If you want more stories after the headphones come off, continue with the best post-apocalyptic books or browse the complete Ash Tales podcast archive.