Hawkins has returned in animated form on the map. Netflix has released a first look at Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, the new animated spin-off that takes fans between seasons and gleefully embraces its franchise’s pulpy sci-fi origins with bold, stylized visuals and even bigger, weirder monsters.
The preview features a featurette and footage from early in the series of the core crew — Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max and Hopper — confronting a new threat that’s part spider, part Demogorgon and all bad news.
In animation, scale and spectacle are cheap, and the creative team is making that clear: This isn’t a side quest; this is not a return to the Upside Down’s shadow so much as a full-throttle revival.
Responsibility for the series remains in familiar hands. Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators and executive producers behind the live-action franchise, oversee the project through Upside Down Pictures with showrunner Eric Robles — who has a strong track record for kinetic, character-based work on Glitch Techs — piloting the animated vision. The Duffers have said that animation lifts guardrails, allowing Robles and his team to dial up both the supernatural and the heartfelt.
A New Adventure in Hawkins Sets the Animated Stage
Placing the story within what has come before allows the show to explore fallout from the Mind Flayer without messing with canon. It’s a rich vein in the Stranger Things chronology: the kids are still kids, Hawkins hasn’t yet fully entered the mall era, and friendships are at this precarious formative stage that the franchise has always depicted so truthfully. Animation dials up those dynamics in expression — from subtler facial cues to more sweeping environmental shifts, and action beats that would have movie-sized budgets in live action.
Early frames suggest a visual language that pays homage to the show’s ’80s DNA while pushing into the coloring of darker fantasy: misty forests with painterly gradients, flickering neon nostalgia that feels earned in feel rather than tone-deaf homage, creature designs riffing on real biology from the Upside Down. Cue nail-biting bike chases and telekinetic face-offs — and the scrappy can-do spirit that transformed a D&D party into Hawkins’ first line of defense.
New Voice Cast Steps Into Iconic Stranger Things Roles
The new cast includes Brooklyn Davey Norstedt as Eleven, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Max, Luca Diaz as Mike, EJ Williams as Lucas, Braxton Quinney as Dustin, Ben Plessala as Will, and Brett Gipson as Hopper. The ensemble is rounded out by Odessa A’zion, Janeane Garofalo and Lou Diamond Phillips.
It’s a blend of rising talent and seasoned voices chosen to gel with the characters’ ages and energy. Hoang-Rappaport brings quick-witted warmth burnished on a family adventure series, Williams delivers comedic timing and heart from a beloved sitcom reboot, and A’zion’s recent genre chops give edge to the supporting bench. The test will be tonal: Fans know these characters in their bones, and the casting indicates a favoring authenticity over mimicry.
Why Netflix Is Making This Move Into Animated Spin-offs
Stranger Things remains one of the few truly global tentpoles Netflix has. According to Netflix’s own Top 10 lists, Season 4 was watched for about 1.8 billion hours in its first 28 days; Nielsen’s long-term tallies have designated it the most-streamed series in recent memory in the United States. Increasing the universe through animation provides Netflix with a way to satisfy demand between live-action installments while also future-proofing the franchise with formats that scale briskly.
It also marks a sign of faith in adult and YA animation on the platform. Recent hits like Arcane, Castlevania: Nocturne, Blue Eye Samurai and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off proved that audiences will follow prestige storytelling beyond live action, when the craft and worldbuilding are there. Tales From ’85 aligns with that trajectory: a recognizable IP, an exciting new medium, and a creative team free to take swings.
What the First Look Shows About Tales From ’85
Two images speak volumes. One positions the party in classic formation — bicycles, flashlights and jitters — a sign of the character-first ethos. The other centers on a lumbering, tendril-limbed monstrosity that traps the kids in a web of organic cables, a visual evolution of Upside Down fauna that suggests new rules — and new weaknesses for Eleven to exploit. The featurette leans more toward the pacing of a thriller than that of a Saturday-morning cartoon.
Fans should be on the lookout for how the series connects known plot points: scars from earlier run-ins, the mechanics of Eleven’s powers, and breadcrumbs leading to the next live-action chapter. Anticipate sly needle-drop energy, the texture of arcade-era graphics and Easter eggs that reward rewatches without gatekeeping inside jokes.
Bottom Line: A Bold Animated Chapter for Hawkins
“Stranger Things: Tales From ’85” is not just a brand extension — it’s a calculated push toward a medium that can expand and stretch Hawkins in ways that live action cannot. With a new voice cast that sounds confident, a showrunner fluent in spinning high-speed genre yarn and early footage that nails the balance of heart and horror, the first look suggests a spin-off that is both fresh and distinctly Stranger Things.
