Netflix Closes Unhinged Maker Night School Studio
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- Netflix is closing Night School Studio, the maker of horror game "Unhinged" backed by David Fincher and Zach Cregger, less than two months after the title released.
- Moonloot, a Helsinki-based studio founded in 2022, is also being shut down; Netflix had acquired Night School Studio in 2021.
- The closures continue Netflix's whittling down of its internal game business, following Spry Fox (sold back to its founders last December), Boss Fight (shutdown last October after releasing a "Squid Game" mobile title), and AAA-focused Team Blue (shuttered in 2024).
- What remains of Netflix gaming is Next Games (Helsinki) and a team working with external developers, under games president Alain Tascan, who joined at the end of 2024.
- Under Tascan, Netflix's gaming strategy is organized around four pillars: kids ("Netflix Playground"), party ("Netflix Minigolf"), narrative ("Unhinged"), and mainstream ("FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition").
- Netflix is expanding into TV-played games using a phone as a controller — "Unhinged" and "FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition" are cited examples — and sources tell Variety the most internal excitement centers on cloud games and kids games.
Why it matters: The shutdown of Night School Studio less than two months after "Unhinged" launched means Netflix has now closed or divested at least four game studios since 2024 (Spry Fox, Boss Fight, Team Blue, plus Night School and Moonloot). The surviving structure — one acquired Helsinki studio plus an external-developor team operating under a four-pillar strategy — narrows Netflix's original gaming ambitions to a tighter set of TV-controller and licensed-IP bets.
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