Netflix’s investments in the gaming industry started a few years ago, with the debut of a growing catalog of mobile games, but that was clearly just a stepstone for a larger plan.
Netflix acquired Night School Studio (Oxenfree), Next Games, and Boss Fight Entertainment before opening two studios, one in Helsinki and another in Southern California. The opening of the Californian studio came bundled with the confirmation from vice president of gaming Mike Verdu that Netflix was seriously looking into creating a cloud gaming platform of its own.
About a month later, in November 2022, multiple job listings for the aforementioned Los Angeles studio mentioned that Netflix wanted to create a third-person triple-A action roleplaying game for PC. The pieces started falling in place last month when former Halo franchise head Joe Staten joined Netflix to work on this AAA project, and today, another veteran was officially hired by Netflix.
Raf Grassetti, the former Art Director on God of War who recently left Sony Santa Monica, just announced to have joined Joseph Staten, Jerry Edsall (Gears 4 and Gears 5), and Chacko Sonny (who worked in the industry for over 30 years with credits in franchises like God of War, Call of Duty, Warcraft, Starcraft, The Order: 1886 and more) to work on the game.
It’s still very early days, but Netflix seems very serious about entering the triple-A gaming market after the recruitment of such experienced game developers and designers. Of course, given the size of the company, its entrance into the industry could be game-changing. On the other hand, we’ve already seen other giants failing, chiefly Google with its Stadia streaming platform, which was shut down in early 2023.
If it wants to have any chance at succeeding, Netflix must follow Microsoft’s example instead of Google’s, playing a very long game rather than seeking immediate rewards and stopping right away if those don’t materialize quickly enough.
Meanwhile, the company has successfully adapted several game IPs for its streaming platform, such as KONAMi’s Castlevania, BioWare/EA’s Dragon Age, CAPCOM’s Resident Evil and Dragon’s Dogma, with plenty more on the way like Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed, The Division and Splinter Cell, 2K’s BioShock, The Coalition’s Gears of War, Guerrilla’s Horizon Zero Dawn, SEGA’s Sonic, and Embracer Group’s Tomb Raider.
