Several polaroid pictures have been shared on social media, showing the principal cast of Stranger Things backstage. This arrives along with a video teaser featuring a dice roll in an intense game of Dungeons & Dragons that warns, 'It's not the Demogorgon'. Currently filming season 4, the images show Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas, Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin, Sadie Sink, who is returning as season 3 newcomer Max, and Joe Keery, who will once again play fan-favorite character Steve Harrington. Much like the show itself, the polaroid's feel like a nostalgic throwback, with the stars shown relaxing between takes.

While the images don't give much away about the series itself, Matarazzo is shown wearing a t-shirt with a logo for 'The Hellfire Club' emblazoned across the front. This just so happens to be the title to the first episode of the upcoming series, suggesting that Dustin is a 'member' of the titular club from the X-Men comics. It also teases that a sinister turn may await one of our heroes.

Production of the fourth season of Stranger Things began in February 2020, with the season expected to be released during the 2020-21 television season. However, production of the series was halted in March due to current circumstances, leaving it with no current release date. Thankfully, with filming having now started up again, the series will hopefully premiere sometime next year.

Producer Shawn Levy recently provided an update on the upcoming series, believing that the massive delay to the fourth season will actually be beneficial to the show. While fans remain disappointed at the much longer wait, Levy has now assured us that the extra time has not been wasted, calling the fourth season "better than ever."

"I'll just say the pandemic definitely massively delayed shooting and therefore the launch of our current Season 4, date still TBD," he continued. "But it impacted very positively by allowing the Duffer brothers, for the first time ever, to write the entire season before we shoot it and to have time to rewrite in a way that they rarely had before so the quality of these screenplays are exceptional, maybe better than ever."

While not much has yet been revealed about the direction of the next season of Stranger Things, we do know is that it will further explore the mythology, as well as bring back David Harbour's character, Jim Hopper. Having survived his ordeal in the season 3 finale, Hopper is now being imprisoned in Russia, where he is sure to face dangers both human... and other. Meanwhile, back in the states, a new horror is beginning to surface, something long buried, something that connects everything, and will no doubt once again thrust the small town of Hawkins back into turmoil.

Harbour himself has previously revealed a few intriguing details regarding the story, teasing that the upcoming series would feature a "big reveal" about Jim Hopper, with the actor saying, "I'm so excited about revealing this aspect of the character. It's one of the things that I've known since the first frame of the first shot, and we haven't expressed it yet. And finally, we're gonna express it in a big way. It's my favorite thing about him that you guys don't know about him yet, but it has to do with these backstories of New York, Vietnam, and dad."

If everything continues to go to plan, we should be sitting down to watch season 4 of Netflix's Stranger Things sometime next year. These images come to us from strangerthingstv.