The Walking Dead producers completely renege on claims they've toned down violence: 'We'll never pull it back'

Reports suggested a fan backlash had seen adjustments made to future episodes

You may have read last week that The Walking Dead producers made the decision to tone down the violence in future episodes due to fan backlash following the traumatic season 7 opener. Well, it seems that's not the case after all.

Executive producer Gale Ann Hurd suggested that the reaction saw 'adjustments' made to future episodes, stating: “We were able to look at the feedback on the level of violence. We did tone it down for episodes we were still filming for later on in the season.“

Showrunner Scott Gimple and producer-director-effects guru Greg Nicotero have cleared up the comments.

The former told Entertainment Weekly: “The violence in the premiere was for a specific narrative purpose and I would never say that that's the baseline amount of violence that we would show on the show.

“If we're ever going to see something that pronounced, there needs to be a specific narrative purpose for it.”

Nicotero added that he doubts the show will “ever pull itself back” and that, given the opportunity, they'd still kill off Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn (Steven Yeun) in the same brutal fashion as they did.

The past few seasons has seen the series' world expand with the introduction of new factions the Hilltop Colony and the Kingdom; it seems these strands are going to be tied together in the concluding season seven episodes which begin airing next month.

The Walking Dead returns in the US on 12 February and will air the following evening in the UK, 9 pm on FOX.

You can find our definitive ranking of all eight episodes thus far here, as well as a preview of all the shows to look out for in 2017 here.