Stranger Things Returns in 2028: Netflix Orders 1950s Prequel ‘Other Worlds’

Netflix picked the most fitting day possible to reopen the Upside Down. On Friday, November 6 — Stranger Things Day, the fictional date in 1983 when Will Byers vanished in the original series — the streamer announced a new live-action series, Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure, set to premiere in 2028. The prequel moves the franchise far from Hawkins, Indiana: the story begins on April 19, 1955, in the fictional town of Marion, Nevada, decades before the events of the original show and before the stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow. New heroes, new villains, new setting — the original cast is not expected to return.

The announcement teaser sets the tone: a bicycle stands abandoned outside a restricted area at night, a town or military base glimmers in the distance, thunder cracks and a mysterious opening appears in the sky — all set to The Chords’ doo-wop classic “Sh-Boom”, the same song that played in the season five episode “Sorcerer” when Max stepped inside Henry Creel’s memory. Behind the camera, the pedigree is strong: the series is co-created by Kate Trefry — the longtime Stranger Things writer who penned The First Shadow and has been with the show since season two — and original creators Matt and Ross Duffer, executive producing through their Upside Down Pictures banner. BAFTA and Golden Globe winner Joe Wright — director of Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and Darkest Hour — will direct the first three episodes, with production in New Mexico and casting yet to begin.

The 1950s setting is the real story. It will explore mythology introduced in The First Shadow and the final season, including the mysterious rock Henry discovers in a scientist’s briefcase in the Nevada caves — one loose thread the finale left dangling. The Duffers have been circling this idea since at least 2022, when they told Variety the spin-off concept was “very, very different” and that only Finn Wolfhard had guessed it. Shifting the action to the Cold War era, with its secret desert experiments and restricted military sites, gives the Upside Down an origin story rooted in the paranoia of the time — a very different engine from the original’s 1980s Amblin nostalgia.

For Netflix, the timing is strategic. The original debuted in 2016, ran for five seasons, won 13 Primetime Emmy Awards and racked up more than 1.2 billion views across its first four seasons — but it ended last December with a finale that divided critics, USA Today’s reviewer calling it “more of a whimper than a bang”. Other Worlds is the second television spin-off and third overall, after the animated Tales From ’85 and the stage play — the first to test whether the universe can live without its original stars. A 1950s setting solves the problem neatly: a wholly new ensemble, no de-ageing, no waiting on grown-up child stars. Fans curious about the original cast can find their ages and stories in our Did You Know collection.

What to watch next: casting announcements — the Duffers signed off with “Now, on to casting” — the start of production in New Mexico, and whether the show answers the Nevada rock mystery that ties it to Henry Creel. The bigger question is tonal: whether Joe Wright’s prestige-film eye gives the franchise a different texture, and whether audiences who loved Hawkins will follow the story to a desert town they have never seen. If the teaser is any guide — a bicycle, a fence, a tear in the sky — Netflix is betting they will. Watch the skies, as the Duffers put it.