is a reporter who covers the business, culture, and communities of video games, with a focus on marginalized gamers and the quirky, horny culture of video game communities.
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Netflix’s next stab at gaming is here. Starting today you’ll be able to play a number of multiplayer party games on your TV using your phone as a controller. To start, Netflix is offering Boggle Party, Party Crasher: Fool Your Friends, Lego Party, Pictionary: Game Night, and Tetris Time Warp. A social deduction game based on the Knives Out series, Dead Man’s Party: A Knives Out Game, is also part of this new slate but will launch at a later time.
The streaming platform’s approach to gaming has been unfocused, with the company bouncing between being a boutique development studio while also being a platform for premium and exclusive mobile gaming experiences. Offering party games on your TV seems like a better fit — one that could allow Netflix to finally find its gaming footing.
TV-supported party games have been a long time coming. Netflix announced that it was working on cloud streaming technology for games back in 2022 before beta testing began in 2023. Now it’s here, rolling out with multiplayer games that the company hopes will become a new version of family board game night. And while it sounds a bit cheesy, it makes sense.
One of Netflix’s new multiplayer titles is a video game-ified version of Pictionary. Image: Netflix
The big video game publishers have acknowledged that their competitors are not only each other but other attention-hoggers like TikTok and Instagram. Netflix, it seems, has cued in on this too. And a great way to keep people on your app — which is the whole reason Netflix began this gaming initiative — is to give people something to gather around and do.
Netflix has also shown a bit of savvy in the kind of games it’s offering. This year has seen an explosion of popularity in co-op games that have less urgency and more casual cooperation elements to them than a traditional multiplayer game; think Peak, not Fortnite. The games Netflix is offering are poised to take advantage of that rising trend. Boggle Party and Pictionary: Game Night are video game-ified versions of popular board games, while Tetris Time Warp and Lego Party are just good old-fashioned video games based on widely known properties made easily accessible, no console required.
Netflix’s gaming initiative has had a few fits and starts and was primarily focused on mobile gaming. Starting in 2021 it began acquiring video game studios, including Oxenfree developer Night School and Spry Fox, makers of the Cozy Grove game series. It also spun up its own studio — staffed with game development veterans who worked on Overwatch, Halo, and God of War — with designs of making its own AAA console game. Alongside that, Netflix was the exclusive mobile home for a number of critically acclaimed games, including Monument Valley, Poinpy, and Hades. With these offerings, Netflix seemed to signal that it wanted its gaming initiative to appeal to more than the casual set.
Netflix was the only place to play Hades on mobile, but it was later removed from the service. Image: Netflix
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