Stranger Things is poised to whisk viewers off on a whimsical journey to the realm of Hawkins.Netflix announced on Thursday that a brand-new animated series, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, is slated to premiere on the streaming platform in the year 2026. "Welcome back to the frosty winter of 1985 in Hawkins, where the original characters must confront fresh monsters and unravel a paranormal mystery that's terrorizing their town," Netflix teased with anticipation.
Eric Robles will serve as showrunner and executive producer for the animated show, produced by Flying Bark Productions. The Stranger Things creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, alongside Hilary Leavitt via Upside Down Pictures; Shawn Levy via 21 Laps; and Dan Cohen will also executive produce.
The voice cast includes Brooklyn Davey Norstedt as Eleven, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Max, Luca Diaz as Mike, Ej (Elisha) Williams as Lucas, Braxton Quinney as Dustin, Ben Plessala as Will, and Brett Gipson as Hopper. Additional voice talents include Odessa A’zion, Janeane Garofalo, and Lou Diamond Phillips.
"The idea was to evoke a nostalgic feeling of an '80s cartoon," Matt Duffer shared in the announcement. "What we've been able to capture is the enchantment of Hawkins in a fresh and captivating way," Robles added about the series, which teases a narrative that spans between seasons 2 and 3.
The series announcement coincided with Stranger Things Day, fondly remembered by fans as the day Will Byers went missing in Hawkins, Indiana (on Nov. 6, 1983). The final season of Stranger Things is set to be released in three parts on Netflix, each dropping around a holiday weekend: Volume 1 on Nov. 26 (consisting of four episodes), Volume 2 on Christmas (three episodes), and The Finale on New Year’s Eve. Each installment will be available at 5 p.m. PT.
Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Priah Ferguson, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Maya Hawke, Joe Keery, David Harbour, Winona Ryder, and Brett Gelman will star in the final season. Despite the original series coming to an end, the creators have previously teased upcoming projects in the Stranger Things universe.
"There are more Stranger Things stories to tell and in the works," Matt said. "It's a bit premature to discuss them now, but we're deeply involved in every one – it's very important to us that anything with the Stranger Things name on it is of the highest quality and not repetitive – that it has a reason to exist and always blazes its own path. And also, it needs to be… awesome. Or we need to think it's awesome. And there are many awesome things in the pipeline that we believe in."
