The map
Universes & multiverses
Half the fun is realising how much connects. Here are the shared universes behind your favourites — 9 of them, spanning 37 franchises — each a tap away from the exact order to watch, read or play it.
Marvel
5The biggest crossover in entertainment
Decades of films, shows and games that all (eventually) connect. The MCU is the spine, but the X-Men, Spider-Man and Venom corners all orbit it — and No Way Home proved they can collide.
DC Multiverse
5Two universes, one reboot
The old DCEU, the Arrowverse TV shows, every live-action Batman continuity, and now James Gunn's brand-new DCU. Genuinely a multiverse — here's how the pieces fit and which order to take them in.
Star Wars
3A galaxy far, far away
The Skywalker saga films, the live-action Disney+ era, and the Jedi games all share one timeline. Watch the movies, slot in the shows, and play Cal Kestis's story in between.
The Maasverse
3Sarah J. Maas's connected worlds
ACOTAR, Throne of Glass and Crescent City were always rumored to share a cosmos — and Crescent City book 3 confirmed it with a full-on crossover. The reading order matters more than you'd think.
The Cosmere
3Brandon Sanderson's shared cosmos
Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive and more all unfold on different worlds of one connected universe, with a hidden character threading them together. Here's where to start and how it links up.
Kaiju & Titans
theme 4Giant monsters, two continents
Toho's Japanese Godzilla, Hollywood's MonsterVerse, the Jaegers of Pacific Rim, and the anime Kaiju No. 8 — four takes on the giant-monster genre, each with its own order to follow.
Horror Universes
theme 8The franchises that keep you up
From the shared Conjuring Universe to the tangled timelines of Insidious, Halloween and Saw — the biggest horror franchises, each with a release order and a (sometimes very different) chronological one.
Remedy Connected Universe
4The hidden universe of Control & Alan Wake
Remedy quietly built a shared universe across its games. The janitor Ahti turns up in both Control and Alan Wake 2, Alan Wake himself appears in Control's AWE expansion, and Max Payne's ghost lingers on in Alex Casey. Spot the threads.
Runeterra (League of Legends)
2Arcane's world, across show and games
Arcane is the front door, but Riot's Runeterra runs much deeper. The single-player Riot Forge games — Ekko's CONVERGENCE in Zaun, the Ruined King RPG, Song of Nunu and more — plus the live games all share the world the show introduced. Here's how the pieces connect.
More shared universes
Self-contained worlds with their own internal order: