Stranger Things season five trailer promises mayhem, emotions and big epic battles

The end is nigh. Like, actually.

Among the most searched queries on Google related to Stranger Things is when the next season is out. It’s close, buddies, so very, very close.

With less than a month to go before the return of Stranger Things on November 27, the hype is ramping up. It’s been three and a half years since the most recent chapter dropped, and the fans have been impatiently clamouring.

A teaser clip was released in July, but today, on Halloween no less, the full, proper trailer landed, to give those devotees a clearer taste of what’s to come in the battle for Hawkins (and the world).

Those plucky no-longer-kids have quite the mission cut out for them if they’re going to save their home, their friends and all of humanity from the clutches of supernatural hordes led by Big Bad Vecna.

Scored to Queen’s Who Wants to Live Forever (Vecna! Vecna does!), the two and a half minute video suggests the coming war will be as epic in scope as it was in the cost. The production budget for this visual effects-heavy season was not cheap.

The previous season ended with Vecna breaching the veil between Hawkins and the Upside Down, and the gang looking up at the foreboding, darkening sky knowing that the challenges ahead will be great.

Odds are, people will die, no longer protected by the plot armour of needing to service more story. At the very least, background characters without names will bite it.

Co-creator Ross Duffer promised there will be no slow build-up to the action, they’re ready to go.

“What’s unique about this season is that it starts a little bit in chaos because our heroes ultimately lost at the end of season four,” he said in a statement. “We usually set up their normal life and how they’re going about school, and then we introduce the supernatural element.

“But in this case, this season is sprinting from the start.”

Over the years, the show has amassed a large ensemble cast including Millie Bobby Brown, Winona Ryder, Maya Hawke, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, Noah Schnapp and Priah Ferguson, and they are joined this season by Linda Hamilton, an excellent alignment for the show’s 1980s setting and inspirations.

The season will be released in three instalments, with the first four episodes on November 27, the next three on December 26 and the finale on January 1.

Unlike Netflix’s usual practice of dropping new titles at midnight California time, Stranger Things will come out at 5pm their time, which translates to midday in AEDT. We stupidly have five different time zones in Australia over summer (seriously, just get on board with daylight savings, it’s awesome), so please do your own conversions.

While the finale will be simultaneously screening in cinemas in the US and Canada as part of a deal with the AMC chain, there are no plans to replicate that in Australia.