Back in 2019, Netflix and Next Games announced that it was working on a location-based game for the Stranger Things franchise…
The game was supposed to release in 2020, so what happened?
I first covered the upcoming Stranger Things augmented reality game in a YouTube Video – discussing the potential gameplay.
Being a fan of Next Games’ previous augmented reality game – The Walking Dead: Our World, I was hopeful.
In the past few weeks, we’ve had a huge burst of information coming out about the new Stranger Things game.
First of all, the title of the game is Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales, and its already soft launched in Poland and the Phillipines.
The game itself has shifted away from the initial vision however.
Instead of being a location-based augmented reality game, it’s now a story-driven puzzle-game.
It looks like Next Games has dropped the augmented reality aspect entirely.
This could potentially be because of the ongoing pandemic, which has even had a huge impact on other augmented reality games on the market.
For example, Pokemon GO has tried to deal with this by adding in remote raids, and activities you can do at home.
Even though we might not be exploring the Upside Down in real life anymore, Puzzle Tales still looks promising.
The game will let you explore different locations from the Stranger Things universe, like the Starcourt Mall with Eleven and the rest of the gang!
From the different gameplay videos I’ve seen, it also still seems like the game goes hard on the Puzzle and RPG aspects.
Next Games kept to their word when it comes to the art style too. It really does look like an 80s Saturday morning cartoon!
Hopefully the game’s full release turns out well. I love the Stranger Things universe, and I’m welcome to any new mediums that explore it.
Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales is now slated to release in 2021, and the app is now on the Google Play Store.