Netflix Finally Fixes It's Biggest Problem With 'Stranger Things' Season 4

The newest official trailer for the fourth season of Stranger Things has dropped, giving fans a glimpse of Eleven, Steve Harrington, and the rest of the gang. But the biggest reveal for the highly anticipated return to Hawkins was not actually featured in the trailer at all, as it was officially confirmed that Netflix is abandoning its binging strategy and instead will be releasing the new season in two batches.

For the first three seasons of Stranger Things, Netflix would release every episode on the same day, which, at the time, seemed like the future of television in the streaming era. This would allow die-hard fans to watch the entire season in just a day or two, potentially avoiding spoilers and not having to tortuously wait to figure out what would happen next, which felt like a bygone relic of the cable era of TV.

But in the last couple of years, there has been a return to the weekly release —all the shows on Paramount+, HBO Max, Hulu, Amazon, and Apple — have found success by building interest as the season goes along. For its fourth season, it looks like Stranger Things is taking a hybrid approach to its release slate, as the nine-episode season will be broken up into two volumes. The first volume will debut on May 27, while the second volume will be available on July 1. So now, you don’t have to binge the entire thing to stay up-to-date. This season will be broken up over a few months.

Previously, it was announced that Stranger Things will reach its end after the fifth season, meaning that this upcoming season will almost certainly set the entire show up for its impending conclusion. The third season ended with the Joyce family (along with Eleven) leaving Hawkins, while Hopper ended up in a Soviet prison after sacrificing himself to help defeat the Mind Flayer.

Volume 1 of the fourth season of Stranger Things will be available on Netflix on May 27, 2022.