Netflix has a pretty extensive library of mobile games to download on your phone or to play on your TV. It's kind of strange, but the marriage works when considering that their hit titles like Squid Game, Sex Education, and Money Heist all have great mobile games to check out. If you're just finding out about this, you're a little too late, as Netflix is announcing the closure of its mobile gaming studio Boss Fight Entertainment - the developer of Squid Game Unleashed, Netflix Stories, and more.
Boss Fight Entertainment's closure affects around 130 jobs, including CEO David Rippy, who says that despite the "rough news", he's "very grateful for the time we had at Netflix." The news comes only a year after the streaming service announced it was backing out of development of an AAA game, which forced it to lay off around twenty employees and close its Team Blue studio.
Avid fans of Netflix Stories might have noticed this was coming, as the announcement that Stories would be discontinuing hit us earlier in the year. However, for those among you who are partial to a visual novel like me, it's not the end. Netflix Stories is staying up on the platform's catalogue, alongside Squid Game Unleashed, but neither game will receive any new content again.
This is a bummer for Squid Game Unleashed, which just had a major update, and it means, while the size of the library of visual novels on Netflix is decent, we'll never see Netflix Stories: Ginny & Georgia or other promised titles either. The television streamer's new plans for its gaming services involve more of a TV-focused experience, with ambitions to expand its library of family and party games.
I can only assume the streamer is chasing the success of the Jackbox series, a game that still sells well even after being on its eleventh edition. Netflix Games additionally wants to be more kid-oriented and appeal to things popular with the masses - we hope this doesn't mean more gamer-oriented games like Hades disappear from the platform.
Netflix also stated an interest in narrative games, which has me curious about what they think Stories wasn't doing well with in the visual novel genre. Instead of Stories, we're seeing Netflix choose to license third-party games like 'Episode', a visual novel game that has long since been around in the murky pay-to-win waters. At least Netflix's episodes won't require gems to choose to date your crush, I guess.
It does make me wonder if this is the streaming platform's strategy. Will it eventually close its other game studios, Night School Studio, which produced Oxenfree II, and Spry Fox, which is known for Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit? Only time will tell, but one thing's for sure - this is a tough time in the mobile gaming industry. For now, I'll just wistfully wave goodbye to my hopes of a Heartstopper mobile game and to my ambition for yet another Netflix Stories: Love is Blind game.
If you're looking for a way to fill the visual novel hole that Stories has left behind, we have a list of the best visual novel games out there, and you can check out the best movie games for more fun related to your favorite films and TV shows.