After a long near-three-year wait since season 3, Stranger Things has just dropped a massive, new season trailer featuring close to four minutes of exciting twists and the promise of more exciting action with a now grown-up cast.

Taking a stark departure from the old-school setting of Hawkins, Indiana, Stranger Things season 4 kicks off its first volume with a variety of different locations. First up is David Harbour’s Jim Hopper, who is detained in Russia and hoping to escape. Meanwhile, Winona Ryder’s Joyce takes the rest of the family in search of new beginnings and brings the promise of some new characters.

Joyce’s hopes to outrun the supernatural nightmares of her past seem futile however, as she soon starts receiving unknown packages from across the world. Meanwhile, Steve (Joe Keery), Robin (Maya Hawke), and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) begin to pick apart various suspicious areas of Hawkins.

Moving on From Season 3

In the trailer, we also witness our characters in the aftermath of the Battle of Starcourt tragedy from season 3.

Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) decides to set his sights on high-school basketball stardom, while Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) continue their geeky interests at the Hellfire Club – a serious Dungeons and Dragons game held within the school’s community. Max (Sadie Sink) tries to move on from her step-brother’s death, while Will (Noah Schnapp) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) try to fit in all the way over at California, the latter having lost her powers in the previous season.

When most shows introduce dramatic location changes, a host of new characters tend to fall into the mix, and Stranger Things Season 4 is no exception.

The new season draws in Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Priah Ferguson as Erica Sinclair, Lucas’ younger sister and Brett Gelman as Murray Bauman, along with several others. A major highlight is the yet-to-be-revealed character played by Robert Englund, the iconic horror legend famous for playing Freddy Kreuger in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

Another central new character is Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson, a charismatic 80s metalhead who runs the aforementioned Hellfire Club, and gets drawn into the series’ supernatural mysteries.

Naturally, putting together this ambitious new season was a massive undertaking for the showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer who highlighted their team’s work in a letter to fans, back in February:

A few months on, fans are 100 percent ready and willing to binge-watch Stranger Things all over again, with excited social media posts confirming their hype:

Vol. 1 of Stranger Things season 4 premieres on May 27th, 2022, and Vol. 2 will release on Netflix on July 1st, 2022.

(Featured Image Credits: Netflix)