Netflix's latest game is Unhinged, a short horror story from the makers of Oxenfree

Unhinged is Netflix's bloody stab at dual-screen gaming

Netflix subscribers are getting a new game on June 30, and it’s the streaming service’s most experimental stab at gaming yet. Unhinged is the latest project from Night School Studio, the Netflix-owned team behind Oxenfree. It’s a 30-minute, phone-controlled horror game that plays like Resident Evil 7 adapted for the Wii U.

As strange as that sounds, it’s certainly Netflix’s most fascinating gaming move yet. Ahead of its launch next week, I played through Unhinged and learned how the project came together. It may not be the next great horror game, but it does offer an intriguing path forward for Netflix, which is still finding its place in the gaming landscape.

Unhinged is a TV episode-length game that subscribers cloud through the Netflix app, and control with the Netflix Game Controller app. It has console-level visuals (it was built in the Unity engine), and features a star-studded cast including Zoë Kravitz, Sadie Sink, and Troy Baker. It’s a total departure from Night School’s Oxenfree series in terms of scope and style, drawing on the first-person terror of Capcom’s recent Resident Evil games. (It shares some gnarly body horror with those games, too.)

The story and writing aren’t terribly exciting. Set in an apartment complex during a hurricane, Unhinged is about a woman trying to escape the evacuated building while being stalked by a murderer. It’s a trope-filled serial killer story that mostly gives Troy Baker space to ham it up, as he does. It's compact enough to play in one slow-burn sitting, packs a few good scares, and features some stomach-churning moments that actually made me wince.

What stands out, though, is its unique control scheme. Rather than giving you a mock gamepad, the Netflix Controller app turns your phone into, well, a phone. You can answer calls that play through your phone, check a few incoming text messages, and toggle a flashlight that can be pointed at the screen like a Wiimote. There’s one big button on the touchscreen too, which is how you navigate via point-and-tap controls.

It’s the kind of second-screen dream that died with the Wii U. Night School has some fun toying around with a diegetic controller, dirtying it up during a particularly bloody sequence, and getting some good scare out of having it loudly ring in your hand during a stealthy moment. Is it an incredible horror game? Not really, considering how little time it has to work with. But it is a great proof of concept for Netflix’s mobile controller. In our conversation, Night School sounded eager to experiment with those possibilities more going forward, rather than going straight back to making traditional controller games.

Netflix itself appears to be all-in on that idea, too. Earlier this month, it released FIFA World Cup, a casual soccer game where players control the action on their phone through taps and swipe gestures rather than simulated gamepad buttons. Between that and Unhinged, it finally feels like Netflix’s at times directionless gaming ambitions might be converging to a niche the company can own. There’s potential for Netflix to break into a casual market once served by the Wii, fueled by intuitive and inventive controls.

Projects like Unhinged feel like less risky investments, too. Night School developed the game in 18 months. That’s still a good chunk of time to spend on a 30-minute game, but it’s short by modern game standards. If Netflix can consistently produce scoped-down prestige projects like Unhinged that your average subscriber can binge in a single sitting, it may finally have a strategy that better aligns with how its subscribers actually use the service. Getting that idea off the ground will largely rest on Netflix’s marketing apparatus to make sure subscribers know those games exist — something the service has also struggled to nail since getting into games.

You can check out Unhinged for yourself when it launches on June 30, and why not? It’s quick, polished, and gross. An outrageous curiosity that only demands a small bit of your time might be Netflix’s best chance at breaking through in an impossibly crowded gaming landscape.