Netflix is taking Stranger Things back to Hawkins in winter 1985 with an animated series that sits between two seasons of the hit show, not before it and not after it. Stranger Things: Tales From '85 is a midquel, and it brings back Eleven, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Will, Steve and Hopper for a new story that lives inside the original timeline.
The placement matters because the series is set between season 2, which unfolds in the fall of 1984, and season 3, which is set in the summer of 1985. One reading could also place it between season 3 and season 4, which takes place in March 1986, but the framing points to a pre-Robin era of Stranger Things, before Robin joins the mix. That gives the new show a narrow and unusual slot in the franchise calendar, and it makes winter 1985 the real stage for whatever comes next.
The weight of the project is not just its setting. It is being described as the first Stranger Things supplemental story to sit on Netflix right next to the original show, rather than living only in books, comics or the stage production that has already expanded the universe. The original series is over, which makes this animated run a fresh entry in a canon that still has room to move without pretending to be something it is not. Eric Robles said the show has “the thrill of being young, being a kid, and going on these thrilling adventures. But then there's this essence of real danger,” a line that fits a story trying to stay playful while keeping the danger close.
The cast also signals that this is not a side project built on throwaway names. Nikki Baxter is voiced by Odessa A'zion, Anna Baxter by Janeane Garofalo, Daniel Fischer by Lou Diamond Phillips and Cosmo by Robert Englund, alongside the returning core characters from the main series. The animated story will also reference events from Stranger Things itself, which keeps it anchored to the larger narrative even as it carves out its own winter chapter.
That is the tension inside Tales From '85: it has to feel new while staying inside a world viewers already know. By setting it in the gap between seasons and calling it a midquel, the project avoids the clean labels of prequel and sequel and instead bets on a familiar Hawkins that can still surprise. For fans, the question is no longer where this fits. It fits in the cold stretch of 1985, and that is exactly where the next Stranger Things story begins.