Stranger Things Officially Returns With Controversial New Release This Summer - MCE Notices | California State Portal

Stranger Things, while once a cultural titan unrivaled by almost anything else on television, has become immensely controversial since the airing of its heavily critiqued final season. Of course, Netflix’s ’80s throwback sci-fi series is still extremely popular in spite of its critics, which is why a glut of new spin-off material is on the way.

Alongside the animated Stranger Things Tales of ’85 series, fans this Summer will have the chance to return to Hawkins in the official Stranger Things arcade game. Unfortunately, based on the initial reactions of those who’ve already played it, the game seems to be even more of a letdown than the main series’ fandom-shattering finale.

Stranger Things Arcade is the Latest Disappointment From Netflix

Image via Raw Thrills

With Stranger Things being set in the 1980s, and even having prominently featured an arcade during Season 2, an arcade game makes sense as a form of spin-off material for the series, even if the arcade scene is largely dead in most countries. Sadly, despite clear effort from developer Raw Thrills being on display, Stranger Things Arcade won’t be evoking anyone’s nostalgia, either for the ’80s or Stranger Things itself.

Having begun popping up in various Dave & Busters locations, Stranger Things Arcade is, in the words of Raw Thrills, “an electrifying family-friendly masterpiece for 1-4 players inspired by the Netflix series.” While some may hear that and assume players will get to form their own version of The Party, and play as Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Will, Eleven, and/or Max, in reality, they’ll just be battling Demogorgons, Demobats, Demodogs and Vecna by throwing balls at them.

Stranger Things Arcade uses the developer’s proprietary Thrill-Scan ball sensing system, which is meant to improve the accuracy in their ball throwing games. However, this mechanic hasn’t been responded to well at all, with the bulk of players finding it far too juvenile.

“Thought I was going to be able to shoot some Demogorgons, but instead I threw balls at them,” one Reddit user said.

“”It’s so silly,” another comment begins. “You just throw little foam balls at circles. We made the mistake of grabbing 5+ at a time and throwing them all at once. Once the game starts, it blocks you from getting any of the balls back. So what you get at the start is all you’ll get all game.”

“Ball thrower?.” another commenter joined in. “I Guess they ran out of ideas. Usually this company makes preety good arcade machines. Like the Terminator, Walking Dead and Alien ones. I Guess you can just make that many good arcade machines before you get a flop like this. Sad that the flop was a ST one.”

Of course, not everyone hates the game, and it has managed to find fans. Even outside its clear target audience of children, some have managed to have an entertaining experience with it.

“Stranger Things is a solid game, and it is fair,” another Reddit post began. “It’s not insanely hard, but it is not an easy game. Good workout too. There is the issue of balls getting stuck at times, but it’s not a big issue most of the time. It also feels different from other games, giving it a uniqueness and replay-ability. The jackpot score is progressive, so it can’t be farmed indefinitely, which is fair and understandable. I give it somewhere around an A- for the time being.”

Stranger Things is available to stream on Netflix.