There is a question I get asked more than any other at Tower To Tower. It comes in by phone, by email, and in almost every conversation I have with someone seriously looking at their first pinball machine. The question is always some version of the same thing: is the Walking Dead Remastered actually worth the money?

After selling more of these than any other machine we stock, the answer is yes. But the fuller answer — the one that helps you decide which model to buy and whether this is the right machine for your particular situation — takes a bit more than one word. That is what this review is for.

Why the Walking Dead Remastered matters in the UK pinball market

The UK pinball market is smaller than the US market but it is serious. The people buying pinball machines here know what they want. They have usually played the machine before, they have researched it, and they are comparing it against two or three alternatives before committing. The Walking Dead Remastered consistently wins those comparisons, and not by a small margin.

The original Walking Dead pinball from Stern came out in 2014 and was widely regarded as one of the deepest rule sets the company had ever produced. The problem was that it aged physically. Cabinet art faded, hardware wore, and the technology started to show its years against newer machines. The Remastered addresses all of that. Stern took the rule set that players loved and put it inside a completely rebuilt physical package with updated lighting, new cabinet art, updated code, and hardware that reflects the current standard rather than where things were a decade ago.

The result is a machine that has the proven gameplay foundation of a classic but feels completely current. That is a combination that is genuinely difficult to achieve and Stern pulled it off.

What Stern changed in the Remastered edition

The word “remastered” gets used loosely in the games industry. Here it means something specific. Stern did not just re-release the original. They rebuilt the cabinet art entirely, updated the display to a full high-definition screen on the Premium and LE models, revised the lighting throughout the playfield, updated the software code with years of post-release improvements baked in, and rebuilt the hardware for reliability. The core gameplay — the rule set, the modes, the multiball sequences, the overall flow of the game — is unchanged because it did not need changing.

Think of it as the difference between watching a film on a worn VHS tape and watching a properly restored 4K transfer. The film itself has not changed. The experience of watching it has improved significantly.

Gameplay: what makes the Walking Dead rule set so good

Pinball machines live or die by their rule sets. The physical layout matters, the toys and mechs matter, the sound and lighting matter — but a shallow rule set makes all of that irrelevant within a few sessions. You stop finding new things to do and the machine starts gathering dust.

The Walking Dead avoids this completely. The game is built around the television series and the structure mirrors how the show works: you fight your way through locations, face specific walkers and human threats, survive encounters, and progress through a story that has real consequence. Each location on the show becomes a mode on the playfield. Each character has a role. The multiball sequences are tied to specific story beats rather than being generic.

What this means in practice is that a new player will take weeks to fully understand the machine. An experienced player will take months to master it. The skill ceiling is genuinely high and reaching each new level feels earned. That is what keeps a pinball machine getting played for years rather than months.

The physical layout supports the rule set well. The ramps feed into each other cleanly, the shots are clear enough that beginners can learn them but demanding enough that missing them has consequences, and the walker mech — the physical toy that represents the zombie threat — is satisfying to interact with in a way that purely digital effects are not.

Build quality: what you are actually paying for

People who have not owned a Stern machine before sometimes question whether the price is justified compared to cheaper alternatives. Spending an afternoon with a Walking Dead Remastered answers that question without the need for further explanation.

The cabinet is solid. The playfield glass sits flush and secure. The buttons have the right resistance and feedback. The plunger has proper weight and spring. Every surface that you touch repeatedly — and you will touch these surfaces thousands of times over the life of the machine — feels like it was built to last rather than built to a price point. Cheaper machines feel cheaper because they are cheaper. This one does not.

The lighting on the Remastered is worth specific attention. The full LED playfield is not just decoration. The lighting is coded to react to what is happening in the game, which means it becomes part of the gameplay rather than background ambience. In a dark room this machine is genuinely spectacular to watch even when you are not the one playing.

Pro vs Premium vs Limited Edition: the honest comparison

There are four models available at Tower To Tower. Here is a straight comparison of what each one offers and what you give up by choosing the lower tiers.

The gap between the Pro and the Premium is more significant than the price difference suggests. The soldier zombie mech on the Premium adds a physical interaction that the Pro does not have, and the HD display makes a meaningful difference to how the game feels during play. If you are stretching budget to reach the Pro, the Pro is still an excellent machine. But if you can reach the Premium without strain, the Premium is the better machine for day-to-day play.

The Limited Edition is a different kind of purchase. The mirrored backglass is genuinely beautiful — it turns the back of the machine into something close to a piece of signed artwork — and the numbered certificate means you own a specific unit from a specific limited run. That has collector value in a way the other models do not. If you are thinking about this machine as a long-term asset as well as a games room centrepiece, the LE is worth the premium.

Which model should you actually buy

This is the question and the answer depends on one thing more than anything else: what is the machine for?

If the machine is primarily for playing — for yourself, for friends, for family — and you want the best gameplay experience per pound spent, buy the Premium at £4,750. The soldier zombie mech and HD display move it from very good to genuinely excellent, and the price difference from the Pro is manageable.

If budget is a real constraint and you are deciding between the Pro and waiting longer to afford the Premium, buy the Pro. Do not wait. The Pro is a complete, outstanding machine. The upgrades on the Premium are meaningful but the core game is identical and the core game is what you will be playing every time you sit down in front of it.

If you are buying this machine partly as an investment, partly as a statement piece, and you want something that will still be talked about in ten years, buy the Limited Edition. The mirrored backglass alone makes the room feel different when the machine is switched on. Add the exclusivity and the numbered certificate and this is the kind of purchase people rarely regret.

Value, resale and the case for buying now

Pinball machines depreciate differently from almost every other consumer purchase. A television bought for £2,000 today will be worth a few hundred pounds in five years. A quality pinball machine bought for £4,000 today will, in most cases, still be worth £3,000 to £4,000 in five years if it has been maintained properly. The Limited Edition, with its numbered production run, has historically held value even better than that.

This matters for two reasons. First, it changes the maths of the purchase. The real cost of owning a Walking Dead Remastered for five years is the difference between what you pay today and what you sell it for at the end. That number is often surprisingly small when you compare it to the hours of entertainment the machine provides. Second, it means that buying now, while stock is available, is the correct decision. Machines like the LE do not come back once they are gone.