What it had to solve
Across four seasons fans had only glimpsed Hawkins' full geography. As the show neared its end, Boo Agency, Microsoft Flight Simulator and Netflix positioned the Stranger Things 5 expansion as a long-awaited homecoming for fans who see Hawkins as a second home.
The idea
Microsoft Flight Simulator got a digital twin of Hawkins, sold through an in-universe travel agency that was secretly a smuggling operation run by Murray Bauman.
How it works
Hawkins Heli-Tours launched as a named in-game mode with branded livery and five 'Murray's Missions' reconnaissance flight challenges. A hero film by The Lynch Brothers blended live-action set builds, in-game capture and a real UH-1 helicopter in grainy 4:3; mayday-style supers led to an Indiana phone number whose Murray voicemail revealed a code for a password-protected CompuServe-style microsite and a merch sweepstakes. In New York, the Microsoft Experience Centre became a Hawkins Heli-Tours agency with a playable 4D helicopter simulator, and the Microsoft Cube in Times Square turned into a house-sized CRT broadcasting to 350,000 daily passers-by.
What it did
The Microsoft Experience Centre experience opened through the holiday period after a December 8 VIP premiere; Bing offered Hawkins postcard wallpapers and a 'RikTok' account invited fans to duet the town's first-ever jingle.
Background
Hawkins, Indiana doesn't appear on any maps. As Stranger Things neared its end, Microsoft Flight Simulator teamed with Boo Agency to launch its Stranger Things 5 expansion: a digital twin of the town, created in close partnership with Netflix, turning Hawkins into an immersive world fans could finally explore in full.
Built on the insight that fans see Hawkins as a second home, Boo positioned the expansion as a homecoming — launching an in-universe travel agency that was more than it seemed. In collaboration with the Duffer Brothers and the MS Flight Simulator team led by Jorg Neumann, the agency became an elaborate front for a smuggling operation masterminded by fan favourite Murray Bauman, voiced by Brett Gellman. The expansion introduced Hawkins Heli-Tours as a named in-game mode, complete with branded livery and five 'Murray's Missions' reconnaissance flight challenges.
The hero film, shot in one day and directed by The Lynch Brothers, blended live-action set builds, in-game capture and a real UH-1 helicopter, steeped in vintage 4:3 texture with an original 1980s-tourism jingle written in-house and produced with Netflix Music Labs. Mayday-style supers sent viewers to call a local Indiana number, where a Murray voicemail revealed the code to a password-protected, CompuServe-style microsite and a global merch sweepstakes.
On the ground, Microsoft's Experience Centre in New York became a Hawkins Heli-Tours travel agency with a playable 4D helicopter simulator, retro tourism decor and in-universe Easter eggs, while the Microsoft Cube in Times Square became a house-sized CRT monitor, turning a three-screen DOOH unit into a full 3D activation broadcasting cryptic Heli-Tours content to the 350,000 daily passers-by below.
Why it lands
The product crossover is the concept: a flight simulator is literally the one platform where an unmapped town can finally exist, so the media IS the idea.
Every touchpoint stays in-universe — travel agency, voicemail, CompuServe microsite — so discovery feels like playing the show, not watching an ad for it.
The scavenger-hunt chain (phone number to voicemail to code to sweepstakes) gave fans something to solve and share together.
Physical echoes — a 4D simulator in the Experience Centre, a house-sized CRT in Times Square — made a digital expansion occupy real streets.
What you can take
Fandom campaigns work as world-building, not advertising: let fans in through the fiction — a travel agency, a voicemail, a code — and every channel becomes part of the story.
Since then
The Microsoft Experience Centre's Hawkins Heli-Tours agency opened its doors on December 8 with a VIP premiere and stayed open through the holiday period. Bing offered downloadable wallpapers turning in-game locations into desktop postcards, and a dedicated 'RikTok' account invited fans to duet the jingle in their own voices, remixing Hawkins' first-ever anthem.
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