Stranger Things' New Show Pays Off A Tease From 7 Years Ago

Published Nov 14, 2026, 9:00 AM EST

Adrienne Tyler is a movies & TV features writer, with a focus on horror. She has written for Netflix, FanSided, & more. She was a regular guest on the Netfreaks podcast and was a YouTuber at some point. Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once.

The world of Stranger Things will continue to expand with a new show, which will pay off a tease from seven years ago. Through its original productions, Netflix has brought some of the best TV shows of all time across different genres, but it has mostly stood out in the world of fantasy. Some of the best Netflix fantasy TV shows are Arcane, The Witcher, and Wednesday, as well as Stranger Things, one of the platform’s most successful shows to date.

Throughout five seasons, Stranger Things took the audience on a trip to the past, exploring the 1980s but with a twist, as a series of secret experiments opened portals to an obscure and dangerous dimension. Stranger Things ended in 2025 after five seasons, and while its final season, and especially the series finale, were quite divisive, Stranger Things still stands as one of the best fantasy TV shows of all time, spawning a franchise that continues to grow.

In addition to the graphic novels, a stage play, and other media, Stranger Things is now expanding with spinoff shows, beginning with the animated series Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85, set between seasons 2 and 3 of the main show. For its next spinoff, officially titled Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure, Stranger Things is taking viewers outside Hawkins and into Marion, Nevada, thus paying off its biggest season 3 tease.

Stranger Things Confirmed Experiments Outside Hawkins In Season 3

A live-action Stranger Things spinoff has been teased for years, but it wasn’t confirmed until November 2026. As mentioned above, Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure will be set in Marion, Nevada, and will go further back in time to the 1950s, thus being a prequel to the main show and the stage play The First Shadow. Other Worlds, then, already confirmed that Hawkins wasn't the only place where shady experiments happened, but that was confirmed seven years ago.

Stranger Things season 3 revolved around the opening of Starcourt Mall and the reveal of a Russian base underneath the mall. There, a new portal to the Upside Down was opened, more experiments on the other dimension were being conducted, and Hopper (David Harbour) was taken prisoner after his supposed death at the end of season 3. Season 4 continued this storyline with Hopper’s rescue, but Stranger Things didn’t fully go into the Russian experiments.

Due to the other events in seasons 4 and 5, most notably the reveal of Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) and his transformation into Vecna, the reveal of other experiments taking place outside Hawkins was left aside and even forgotten. What’s a truly new reveal, however, is that the experiments go all the way back to, at least, the 1950s, and it's to be seen how they will connect to MKUltra and everything that followed.

Other Worlds Can Continue What Stranger Things Started In Season 3

Plot details about Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure weren’t revealed, so all that is known about it for now is its time setting and location. Now, in August 2025, Finn Wolfhard spoke about a planned spinoff, describing it like Twin Peaks and a “sort of anthology and different tones” set in “different places and all tied together through this mythology.” It’s unclear if Wolfhard was talking about what would become Other Worlds or a different project, but the description fits.

If Other Worlds is an anthology show with each season taking place in a different town and covering the experiments done there, it will expand the mythology of the main show and continue what Stranger Things started in season 3 with the introduction of the Russian base. However, even if Other Worlds isn’t an anthology series, it will still continue what season 3 established and what the main show left aside.

The most interesting part of Other Worlds so far is how it will connect to the mythology built by Stranger Things, the experiments they will do, the monsters and dimensions it will introduce and explore, and how these influenced the experiments at Hawkins Lab. So far, Other Worlds looks quite promising, and hopefully, it will be a success.

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