Netflix announce Stranger Things prequel series for 2028 with new teaser that hints at major mystery

Netflix have revealed that a brand new Stranger Things prequel series is in the works, and the show will even predate the Stranger Things stage-play which tells the story of how Vecna came to be.

Announced today, 6 November, known as Stranger Things day due to it being the date Will went missing in season one, the brand new TV series is called Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure.

Matt and Ross Duffer announced the show via Netflix’s Tudum, saying: “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.

"It’s Stranger Things, but also thrillingly fresh, with a new setting, new heroes and villains, and new … actually, we’re not allowed to say any more. Now, on to casting. In the meantime — watch the skies, nerds!”

Kate Trefry, the writer for the prequel play The First Shadow penned the series, and will be showrunner for the series with the Duffer Brothers acting as executive producers.

Also returning as an Executive Producer is Shaun Levy, who said of the series: "With Other Worlds, the Duffer Brothers and Kate Trefry craft a new ensemble and adventure that is imbued with the DNA of our flagship series while exploring a new era, setting, and all-new characters, themes, and mythology — the seeds of which may have been planted in Hawkins, but now venture into other worlds of spectacle, action, and emotion."

The series will release in 2028.

What do we know about the prequel series?

The Duffer Brothers had previously hinted that one of the unanswered mysteries of the final season would be the focus of the prequel series, a fact that most fans figured out pointed towards the origin of the mysterious stone which turned Henry Creel into Vecna.

We get some of the backstory to this in The First Shadow, revealing that experiments tear open a rift to another dimension, Dimension X, via a wormhole they come to know as the Upside Down.

The stone turns Henry into Vecna in the final season of Stranger Things in a flashback, but where did it come from? If I were a betting man I'd say we're going to find out (Netflix)

Matt Duffer later confirmed that the stone which turned him into Vecna would be the focus of the prequel series, telling Variety: "I do want to explain, just because people’s expectations go in certain directions: The spinoff is going to delve into that and explain that, and you’re going to understand it.

“But it’s a completely different mythology. So it’s not a deep exploration of the Mind Flayer or anything like that.

“It’s very fresh and very new, but yes, it will answer some of the loose threads that are remaining."

More to come.