The first season of Stranger Things was released back in 2018, and it quickly became something of a phenomenon. You could barely move without encountering some kind of Stranger Things merchandise, book, or even a musi??cal that’s still bei??ng performed now. 

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly nine years since we were first introduced to Mike, Dustin, Will, Lucas, Eleven, and the rest of the now iconic characters that are the center of the Stranger Things universe. But it has, and we haven’t yet had the final fifth season, so has Net??flix dropped the ball and left it too long?? 

Now hear me out, I’m not saying that the final season is going to flop, and I’m also not saying this out of a dislike of the show. I’ve got merchandise and books dotted around the house, I’ve binged every season on release day, and I even went to the Stranger Things Expe??rience while visiting Las V??egas in 2023. 

But thanks to COVID paused production of season four and delayed release, and the WGA Writers Strikes in 2023 that effectively did the same thing to season five, by the time the final season comes out, there will have been two seasons in six years. With a year confirmed canonically between each seaso??n, this causes an iss?ue for the characters and their actors. 

When the first season came out, the main cast was all approxim?ately the same age as the characters they portrayed. Take Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike. During filming for season one, he was 12 years old and playing an equally 12-year-old character. While filming season five, he’s 21 years old and playing a 16-year-old. 

Maybe we need a better example. It happens all the time in Hollywood, with older actors playing characters much younger than themselves. Hell, in Bridgerton, Penelope is played by an ??actress a whopping 20 years older than the character. But it gets more questionable when you take characters like Steve or Erica. 

Where Stranger Things left ?off in season four, with the Upside Down seeping into Hawkins, Steve was 19 and Erica was 11. Even taking into account the now confirmed one-year jump between seasons four and five, Joe K??eery (who plays Steve) will be 32 playing a 20-year-old, while Priah Ferguson (who plays Erica) will be 19 and playing a 12-year-old. 

??The actors have aged by three years for each of the last two one-year time jumps, leaving them wildly ahead in terms of age compared to their characters in the show. What makes this so noticeable is the fact that we aren’t being introduced to them at this stage, we were introduced to their much younger faces and are now expected to believe that they have somehow come out of the other side of puberty while still in the midst of their teen years. 

Perhaps I’m looking too much into the details, but with a show that reportedly has a budget of around $30 million per episode, the details deserve to be looked into. 

Any show that has been ongoing for almost a decade will have built up an absolutely rabid community of die-hard fans, and despite what I’ve already said, I count myself among those fans when it comes to Stranger Things. We’ve all been waiting for the conclusion of the gang's story since season four ended on such a cliffhanger back in 2022, and even if we’ve grown tired of the wait, we’ll still sit down on release day and cement Stranger Things as the most watched show on Netflix for a time??. 

On the plus side, we do have a window for when to expect Stranger Things season five, if you can call it that. On November 6, as part of �em>Stranger Things Day� Netflix released a teaser trailer wh??ich provided all eight episode names, which also confirme??d that season five will be coming at some point in 2025:

Previous seasons have been released at any point between May and October, so there’s really no telling when season five will finally be available to watch on Netflix. Whenever Netflix posts about Stranger Things on Twitter or other social media, there is an ever-growing number of ?people venting their frustration at the delay. While it’s not the fault of the show's writers or producers, it is getting tiresome. 

There’s going to need to be some serious story-telling in season five to explain why this group of troubled sixteen-year-olds have five o’clock shadows, or why Jonathan suddenly looks more like Will’s fa?ther than his brother. Or perhaps we’ll just be expected to overlook these small details, and appreciate the fact that we finally get to see how it? ends. 

I guess you could put the character’s rapid aging down to the stress they’ve been through over the last five years of their lives, and explain it away that way. I’m sure any of us would have more than our fair share of wrinkles if we’d encountered the horrors that these guys have seen. If that’s the lore I have to tell myself in order to?? get throug?h the final season and see how everything ends, then that’s precisely what I’ll do. 

Regardless, I’ll still be watching with everyone else when Stranger Things season five comes to Netflix in 2025, probably completely forgetting my current concerns. Stranger Things is like that, I suppose. Disbelief and immersion breaking details go out of the window when you’re embedded in the story of teenagers des??tined to save the world fr??om the demon spawn of the Upside Down.

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The best canceled games that failed to reach the finish line

The gaming industry is brutal. You need the right budget, a talented team, and a realistic working schedule to finish a project. These "best canceled video games" failed at least one of thos??e three aspects.

Sometimes??, fans get a metaphorical punch to the face when ?a game they're looking forward to gets shut down. Let's look at 10 games that had potential (or were exciting to hear about, at least!).

10. BioShock on Vita

[caption id="attachment_372601" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via 2K Games[/caption]

When series director Ken Levine announced BioShock on Vita on? the PlayStation E3 2011 stage,  I was intrigued.

How could you place the intensity of Rapture into a portable game? According to Levine himself on Twitter, it was supposed to be a "Final Fantasy Tactics style thing set in pre-fall Rapture." The unique genre mixed in with BioShock's groundbreaking storytelling and setting would have been amazing. Hopefully, one day, 2K revitalizes the idea because I'm intrigued. It's one of the best canceled games based on its conc?ept.

9. Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned

//youtu.be/hUvCI7XXOJM

How hasn't an open-world Pirates of the Caribbean game been released yet?! It would be a slam dunk, and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag proved that it can work.

Armada of the Damned was actually going to give us this dream game before it was canceled. The combat looked clunky, but exploring the seas on a ship like the Black Pearl or the Interceptor would have been sensational for fans of the property. We did get a Pirates of the Caribbean expansion in Sea of Thieves, but it would be cool if a developer like Rare or Ub?isoft went the extra mile with this Disney property.

8. Scalebound

//youtu.be/U_MZ-MmyIbU

The Xbox One was a rough era for Microsoft. Like Fable Legends (which could also be on this list), Scalebound was canceled. This particular game was something special. It offered an action-RPG experience that included dragon-focused combat from Nier Automata developer Platinum Games. Scalebound looked spectacular but struggled with its frame rate, potentially leading to the game's cancellation. It would be cool if the project gets rebooted by Microsoft because its subscripti??on service Xbox Game Pass is lacki??ng new triple-A titles.

This is one of the best examples?? of a canceled video game that should return on stronger hardw??are.

7. Telltale's Stranger Things

//youtu.be/s-2nNksMBpg?t=1471

Telltale gets too much flak. Its games feature impactful narratives and memorable decision-making. Telltale's Stranger Things adaptation was going to be a step up from ?the traditional formula and get the studio to the next level.

It was developed in the Unity engine, upgrading the graphics and fixing the stiff animations in prior games. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to develop Telltale's Stranger Things before the studio closed down (before reopening again). The staff thought at the time, "We are going to do what people want to see and hopefully [the game] will be groundbreaking and different enough for the studio that reignites interest," according to Executive Assistant Paul Mastroianni in a Noclip documentary.

6. Silent Hills

[caption id="attachment_372562" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot via Game?Zone's YouTube Cha?nnel[/caption]

P.T. is genuinely spooky. While playing it, I never knew what to expect around every corner, and its gameplay approach was intriguing. Once you finished the engaging demo, a trailer revealing Silent Hills played, showing future Death Stranding star Norman Reedus walking into the mysterious town. Silent Hills was highly anticipated due to its intense demo but was sadly shut down by Konami in 2015.

You can't even download P.T. anymore, and it's infuriating. Hopefully, the Silent Hill 2 remake brings new life to the horror series.

5. Star Wars 1313

[caption id="attachment_372563" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Star Wars' YouTube Chan?nel[/caption]

Playing as a bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe sounds exciting to me, so I was thrilled to see the announcement trailer for Star Wars 1313. Little did I know that Disney would cancel the LucasArts project after it purchased the studio behind the sci-fi franchise. It's one of the biggest disappointments as it mixed the shooting platformer gameplay of the Uncharted series with the Hollywood blockbuster universe of Star Wars. The visuals that were shown off are also impressive for 2013, with detailed character models and environm???ental design.

It's a shame this was dro?pped amid the Disney buyout. Maybe the right studio could bring it back; I'm looking at you, Respawn! Bring back one of the coolest-looking canceled video games ever.

4. Visceral Games' Star Wars title

[caption id="attachment_372572" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Scr??eenshot v??ia EA Star Wars' YouTube Channel[/caption]

Unfortunately, another Uncharted-like Star Wars game was canceled. What makes it worse is Amy Hennig, the creative director of the original Uncharted trilogy, was behind the production of the Visceral Games title before the studio closed down.

The early in-game footage looked impressive and seemed to be set in Tatooine with a huge Star Destroyer in the background. While we did get the excellent Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, it would have been amazing to get another interactive Star Wars story from the galaxy, far far away.

3. Agent

//youtu.be/I4nxFUmSaOU

The lauded developer of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption series, Rockstar Games, was working on a PlayStation exclusive called Agent. Not much was shared about it, but Sony was happy to announce the project during E3 2009. Then PlayStation boss Jack Tretton said it would have taken "a player across the shadowy world of espionage and assassins in the darkest hours of the late 1970s." The project sounded promising, but we heard very little since its mysterious announc??ement.

It has been abandoned since, and the URL of the original website is defunct. Perhaps with the power of the PS5, Rockstar's ambition to make an espionage game may return, but right now, all signs point to GTA 6 being its next project. Regardless, Agent is one of the best canceled video games, due to?? its promising concept and ?the studio behind it.

2. Final Fantasy Versus XIII

//youtu.be/YiIx9VJWSl8

Final Fantasy XV is just okay, but Final Fantasy Versus XIII looked amazing. While the 15th entry has the same protagonists, it did not follow the story or Kingdom Hearts??-like battle system in the ??above trailer. Its combat system let you switch between characters, take out mini-bosses roaming around the world, and had blockbuster-like action within key gameplay moments.

It looked exciting and not as restrictive as Final Fantasy XV, a game that took director Tetsuya Nomura's characters and placed them in a different direction. However, the ending of Kingdom Hearts III Remind and Yozora bears an eerie resemblance to Versus XIII's camera angles in the tr?ailers and its inte?rpretation of Noctis.

1. Banjo-Threeie

//youtu.be/QLWLdO9GLWM

This one is so strange on multiple levels.

We hoped for a polished Banjo-Kazooie sequel on Xbox systems, and it was finally teased at E3 2006. The first trailer shows Jiggies, the Honeycombs, and all kinds of collectibles you'd expect. However, what we actually got was Nuts & Bolts, a mediocre vehicle construction game. What made this even worse is how the introduction of Nuts & Bolts made fun of the fanbase. You control a version of the?? duo chasing after a straight line of golden collectibles. "Gamers today don't want all this," one of the characters says. "They just want to shoot things." It was a real jab at the fans of the original two N64 classics.

The annoying thing is that Xbox still hasn't provided us a Banjo-Threeie or even a remake of the first two after Crash and Spyro had their comebacks. They have shown their popularity through their delightful inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Come on, Xbox, hire a talented ??studio, and give the fans ?what they want.

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And I say give it to him

David Harbour is one of my favorite actors right now. He was one of my favorite characters in Stranger Things, and after seeing him in his new Christmas-y comedy action flick Violent Night this past weekend, he cemented his place as one of my favorite actors working today, period. He can do it all -- drama, comedy, and most importantly, the surrogate father trope that been so hot in games the past console generation. Based on his serious nerd cred alone, I'm surprised Harbour's only games credit will be an upcoming horror game along with Jodie Comer, star of the spy thriller series Killing Eve.

There's a chance that all might change, however, because in an interview with Video Games FN, David Harbour shared another game series he dreams of working on: God of War. “I really like what those guys in the God of War universe are doing with my buddy Richard Schiff as Odin," he said. "They sort of mess around with that genre too, and they're always surprising in terms of these gods and they wind up becoming--Thor is a big old jerk and Odin being this kind of older intellectual. I'd be interested in possibly doing some of that.�/p>

Well Mr. Harbour, we would also be interested in you doing some of that. After a series of action-packed roles, he's proved he'd be a perfect fit in both stature and demeanor. Now I'm not advocating for any form on nepotism, but if Richard Schiff is already a friend on the inside, he might be able to get Harbour an audition, at the very least, for any new roles that might arise in the next God of War game.

Seeing as God of War Ragnarok just came out a few weeks ago, we don't have so much as an announcement that another GoW game is in the works, but I'd bet my money plans have already been lined up for some time now. Now if they can only get Dav?id Harbour involved, I might finally be persuaded to give the series a second try...

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Dive into the Upside Down

Netflix Games, in association with developer Tender Claws, has announced that it will be adapting its hugely popular horror series, Stranger Things, for the VR platform. According to the publisher Stranger Things VR will launch in the winter of 2023 for all "major VR platforms"?.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQnFM5X5XQM

Perhaps surprisingly, players will actually take up the role of Vecna �the antagonist of the show's fourth season �as they attempt to wreak havoc and vengeance on both the town of Hawkins and, in particular, its powerful psychic savior, Eleven. Stranger Things VR will see Vecna, (and by pr??oxy, the player) invade multiple worlds, conjure up terrifying and vivid nightmares, and engage in reality-shattering psy??chological warfare.

In many ways, Stranger Things is custom designed for virtual reality, given its "no rules" approach to the simple act of physical existence. While VR, for many, remains little more than a somewhat interactable rollercoaster ride/ghost trai?n, it is a medium that perfectly suits franchises that focus on the strange, the bizarre, and the warped. And,?? as such, fans of The Upside Down and its occupants would likely have a real thrill ride exploring its mind-bending the??mes and aesthetic in fully immersive 3D action.

Stranger Things VR will launch wi??nter 2023 on all major VR platforms,

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Licensed games need to make a comeback

We've seen countless game-to-TV or film adaptations announced over the past few months, and while it's exciting to see some really great properties getting even more love, part of me wishes we could see more pre-existing properties be turned into licensed games. Take one of the most beloved game franchises of all time: The Witcher. Those were books before they were games, and CD Projekt Red's take on the adventures of Geralt brought a fresh take to the se?ries, just like the Netflix series that came after it.

What got me thinking about all of this in the first place is that I finally got around to watching Season 4 of Stranger Things, and I was reminded of the Telltale series adaptation of the show that never saw the light of day.

It's such a shame because Stranger Things feels perfect for a Telltale-style narrative adventure game, and although we may have gotten a beat 'em up inspired by the third season, it didn't scratch that itch for me �not when Stranger Things is such a character-focused show. Who knows, maybe with Netflix starting up its own gaming services, maybe it'll? find a way to salvage a Telltale-like game version of the series after all.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7LDL6Ge4ZM

So other than Stranger Things, I have so many ideas of p??re-existing IPs t??hat would make great games.

I'm honestly shocked we haven't gotten a regency-era Jane Austen/Bridgerton??-inspired dating sim yet given the staying popularity of the romance genre, but that needs to happen immediately.

I've also been reading through the Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo, and the setting of Ketterdam would make for an awesome open-world adventure with stealth, climbing, fighting, and sleight-of-hand mechanics. The odds of something like this happening and slim to none, but I'd love to see something totally off the wall like a narrative rhythm game adaptation of Phantom of the Opera.

Licensed games seem to be making a comeback with titles like Square Enix's Guardians of the Galaxy and Warner Bros.' Multiversus, so here's hoping we can continue that trend into the future. Hollywood has gotten a taste of the potential that games ??have to make some great shows and movies, now imagine the fun we c??ould have if the games industry returned the favor.

We wan?t to know down in the comments, what pre-existing IP do you wish someone would turn into a video game?

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Mobile publisher falls in with Netflix Games

The fledgling Netflix Games family has entered into an agreement to welcome a new member, Next Games. The Finland-based in??die studio is set to be acquired by the media streaming giant in the second quarter of this year, after Netflix purchased all of its issued and outstanding shares for a reported â‚?5 million ($72 million USD).

Founded in 2013, Next Games is perhaps best known for its array of licensed mobile releases, including titles such as The Walking Dead: Our World and The Walking Dead: No Man's Land. Next Games has also worked in close proximity with Netflix, having produced Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales, an interactive adaptation of the popular and critically acc?laimed Netflix sci-fi/horror series.

"Next Games has a seasoned management team, strong track record with mobile games based on entertainment franchises, and solid operational capabilities," said Netflix Games Vice President Michael Verdu. "We are excited for Next Games to join N??etflix as a core studio in a strategic region and key talent market, expanding our internal game studio capabilities. While we're just getting started in games, I am confident that together with Next Game??s we will be able to build a portfolio of world-class games that will delight our members around the world."

Netflix first announced its intention to enter the video game industry in July of 2021, when the streaming service revealed a "multi-year" plan that will see the company invest in the development and publishing of small and mid-tier releases, most likely for the mobile market. Netflix is not ??expected to kick the door down with a slew of AAA PS5 and Xbox Series X releases, and is happy to merely dip its toe into the water �finding a foothold in what is already a highly competitive and crowded market.

Netflix buys Next Games for â‚?/span>65 million [Financial Times]

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It arrives with five games, coming to iOS in the future too

N??etflix is launching its library of video games tomorrow, Nov. 2. The service will go live with five games, coming to Android right away and later on for iOS users.

The collection will be available for Netflix subscribers for no additional fees, and there will be no in-app purchases for these games either. Netflix members will also be able to play games on multiple mobile devices on the same account, though there will be a device limit according to Netflix's blog.

The five games coming to Netflix Games on day one are:

• Stranger Things: 1984
• Stranger Things 3
• Shooting Hoops
• Card Blast
• Teeter Up

Some games will require an internet connection, though others will be available to play offline. More game??????????????????????????s are expected to arrive on the service in the future as well.

Netflix has been steadily moving into the gaming space for a while now, though previously it's been mostly in tie-in video game adaptations for its series like Kate: Collateral Damage. The company recently made a big acquisition in Oxenfree II: Lost Signals developer Night School Studio though.

We do have some track record to go by, in terms of how well this subscription service may pan out. Apple Arcade has managed to nab some pretty big timed exclusives over the years, and may have paved the way a bit for a subscription service like this. Netflix's launch lineup is a little slim by comparison, though I suppose this is a good time to check out the Stranger Things 3 game if you haven't yet.

Netflix Games goes live tomorrow, Nov. 2, for Android users. N?o date has been set ye??t for its iOS debut.

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