Stranger Things ended last December, and the first Stranger Things Day since the finale was shaping up as a long goodbye. Instead, Netflix pointed the story somewhere new: a short announcement teaser that lands on a title card reading April 19, 1955, Marion, Nevada, and the confirmation that the live-action spinoff Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure is officially on the way.
The new series is a prequel, set before both Stranger Things and the stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, and it is built around the one mystery the original series never solved. As a boy, Henry Creel, the kid who grew up to become Vecna, vanished inside a Nevada cave and came back changed. The First Shadow and the final season both circled what he found in there: a mysterious glowing rock, something that came out of it, and a scientist who died in the dark with him. The creators left that cave unexplained on purpose, and Other Worlds is the series that finally goes back in.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Matt Duffer was careful to set the boundaries for what that answer means: “It’s going to answer that question, but it’s its own mythology. So it’s very, very different. It’s not a spinoff about the Mind Flayer. I don’t want to set up false expectations.”
The teaser itself is all mood. An abandoned bicycle leans by a barbed-wire fence in the dark, its radio playing “Sh-Boom” by the Chords while the lights of town glow far off and something starts to form in the sky above it. That song is a deep cut for longtime viewers: it played in Season 5 when Max stepped inside Henry Creel’s memory.
Kate Trefry, who joined the original series back in Season 2 and went on to write The First Shadow, co-created Other Worlds and serves as showrunner. Joe Wright directs the first three episodes and executive produces alongside Matt and Ross Duffer and Shawn Levy.
“We’ve been dreaming of Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure for many years now, and to see it become a reality is surreal and exhilarating,” the Duffers said in their statement. The next step is putting faces to the new story: “Now, on to casting.” Their sign-off was aimed straight at the fans who have kept this world alive: “watch the skies, nerds!”
The confirmation was the biggest moment of a packed Stranger Things Day, which also brought the final season blooper reel. All five seasons of Stranger Things are streaming now on Netflix, and Other Worlds opens the next chapter in 2028.