AMC has released a new promo for the upcoming 9th season of its highly popular series The Walking Dead, and this one includes Rick showcasing a new, Lucille-like weapon. While season 8 saw the end of the All Out War storyline and Negan officially captured by Rick and company, it also featured the shocking death of Carl Grimes and what would be the departure of star Chandler Riggs. Arguably one of the most important characters in the comic (and still alive in that verse as of this writing), his death opened up all kinds of possibilities for The Walking Dead moving forward.

Sure enough, star Andrew Lincoln – who has played Rick Grimes since the very first episode – announced mere months later his own intention to leave The Walking Dead by mid-season 9. In the meantime, however, Rick has still been a central aspect to AMC’s marketing campaign for the upcoming season. This trend continues with AMC’s most recent promo.

Related: The Walking Dead Season 9 Premiere Will Be Extra Long

Through The Walking Dead’s Twitter page, AMC has released a new 15 second promo featuring a solo Rick wielding a spiked weapon that somewhat resembles antagonist Negan’s nail-covered baseball bat, nicknamed Lucille. The tweet itself also has the caption, “He’s ready for what’s coming. Are you?” followed by a release date for season 9. For a look at the promo, see below:

While the weapon is undoubtedly Lucille-inspired, there are definitely more than a few key differences to give Rick’s take on the weapon its own spin. It’s also unclear from the rather brief promo just how much the weapon will be featured or if it’s even Rick’s intention for it to be his own version of the infamous Lucille. New showrunner for The Walking Dead Angela Kang has previously revealed that Rick will gloat and taunt the now-imprisoned Negan, so this could easily be part of Rick’s strategy for that.

Either way, season 9 will breach new territory for the series, with Rick’s departure marking a big shift away from the comics, where most of the stories centered and continue to center around his character. This isn’t helped by the fact that Lauren Cohan, who plays another central character in Maggie, will also be departing the series. It’ll be interesting to see how the series handles these massive deviations from the source material even beyond season 9, and whether or not fans stick around for it considering how many viewers The Walking Dead lost in season 8.

More: The Walking Dead: 10 Casting Decisions That Hurt The Show (And 10 That Saved It)

Source: AMC