Stranger Things Mobile Game, Coming to Android and iOS in 2020, Sounds Like Pokemon Go

Netflix had its first-ever keynote at gaming industry's biggest event, E3, on Wednesday, and it took the time to announce a new free-to-play Stranger Things mobile game, which will be a “location-based RPG / puzzler”. If that sounds a bit like Pokemon Go, you'd be right. With the Stranger Things mobile game, players will be able to explore The Upside Down — the alternate dimension that exists in parallel to the human world on the Netflix show — wherever they live and “work with fellow fans to fight back its emerging evils.” Netflix is working with Finnish developer Next Games on the Stranger Things game, which will be out in 2020 on Android and iOS.

“Our core focus will be to deliver on Stranger Things' rich and intense themes like friendship and supernatural adventure, and translate these into snack-sized entertainment on your mobile device,” Next Games CEO Teemu Huuhtanen said in a prepared statement. In its announcement, Next Games added the Stranger Things mobile game — which shall be “in the style of an 80's Saturday morning cartoon” — will use Google Maps integration to allow the series' fans to play around the world, which further doubles down on the Pokemon Go similarities.

Next Games has history in making location-based, licensed games. It has previously done so with The Walking Dead: Our World, an augmented reality (AR) game in which fans can fight zombies “on the streets, in the park, [or] on your sofa.” But it's considerably less known than Pokemon Go developer Niantic, which exploded onto the scene thanks to that very title, and has a similar upcoming location-based AR title in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

The new Stranger Things mobile game is separate from Stranger Things 3: The Game, the beat ‘em up title that is out the same day as Stranger Things season 3: July 4.