Stranger Things season two announced with mysterious teaser video

New characters and more episodes in this “blockbuster sequel.”

Netflix officially confirmed today (August 31) what most suspected following the phenomenal recent success of analog synth-soundtracked drama Stranger Things – a second season of the show, due to air next year.

A teaser was posted to Netflix’s official US Twitter account today that ends with the words “In the fall of 1984…”. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, show creators the Duffer Brothers said that they considered the idea of jumping ahead in time to a different decade, but that “there’s still more story here [in the 1980s], there’s still things that are unresolved.” Lead characters Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Joyce (Winona Ryder), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) should be making a return to your screens but Ross Duffer revealed that Eleven’s comeback is still “up in the air.”

The teaser sees the theme tune and title sequence interspersed with titles like “Madmax”, “the boy who came back to life”, “the pumpkin patch”, “the palace”, “the storm”, “the pollywog”, “the secret cabin”, “the brain” and “the lost brother.” These correspond to the nine forthcoming episodes – one more instalment than the first season.

Four new characters will be introduced, with Matt Duffer explaining that “there’s going to be a lot of new and interesting dynamics that we didn’t see in season one.”

The second series will also venture outside of Hawkins, the small Indiana town in which the show is based, with the opening scene not taking place in Hawkins. The Duffers also told EW that they want to delve deeper into the show’s alternate dimension, Upside Down, which left viewers with a lot of unanswered questions of the end of season 1. “We obviously have this gate to another dimension, which is still very much open in the town of Hawkins. And a lot of questions there in terms of, if the Monster is dead, was it a singular monster? What else could be out there? We really don’t go in there much until they go in to find Will at the end. So we’ve opened up this doorway, and to us it’s exciting to talk about, like, what we’ve opened up this doorway, and to us it’s exciting to talk about, like, what else is behind there? There’s a lot more mystery there to be solved,” says Ross Duffer.

Matt explained that this second second is conceived as a blockbuster sequel, which largely tries to capture “a little bit of the magic” imbued in James Cameron’s work. “I think one of the reasons his sequels are as successful as they are is he makes them feel very different without losing what we loved about the original,” states Matt.

Watch the teaser below and be sure to check out our Stranger Things-inspired playlist of doomy synth gold.