The first five video games are now available on supported TV devices in select countries, with Dead Man's Party: A Knives Out Game joining the lineup soon.
Netflix' TV video games can now be played through the Netflix app in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Finland, Germany, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. More countries will follow, the company said.
You also need a compatible TV device. See the table at the bottom. Apple TV (tvOS), PlayStation and Xbox are not supported. You control the games with the Netflix Game Controller app on a mobile device. Physical game controllers are not supported yet.
A Knives Out Game
The first five games available on TV devices through the Netflix app are all described as party games. They appear under a new 'Games' tab in the Netflix TV app, if your TV device and region are supported.
The five games are:
- LEGO® Party! – Square off against your friends in the ultimate LEGO party game. Compete in hilarious minigames and hunt for gold through themed Challenge Zones.
- Boggle Party – Race against the clock to find words (the longer, the better) in a jumbled-up letter grid. Play solo or make it a party with up to eight players.
- Pictionary: Game Night – Draw 'til you drop — or one of your friends guesses what you're sketching — in this hilarious and fast-paced spin on Mattel's classic group game.
- Tetris Time Warp – Time-travel with friends to different eras of Tetris, from the 1984 original to the classic Gameboy version. Can you warp your way to a top score?
- Party Crashers: Fool Your Friends – One person at this party secretly has no idea what everyone else is talking about. Figure out whose clues are fishy to unmask the crasher.
Soon, Netflix will add
Dead Man's Party: A Knives Out Game, which is described as a classic murder mystery game featuring Benoit Blanc:
-
"World-famous detective Benoit Blanc is in the house to solve another murder. This time? It's at your house and everyone's a suspect in this social party game where you and your crew star in your own Knives Out mystery. It's up to you to deduce what happened and convince everyone you're not the killer. Or, if you are, you've got to keep Blanc off your tail and make sure you influence the vote so you don't get outed," said Netflix.
Dead Man's Party: A Knives Out Game is coming soon. Photo: NetflixGaming strategy coming together
It is still early days for Netflix and gaming. Netflix has already changed course, closed game studios and removed many mobile games, but the company maintains that it has big ambitions in gaming.
These first TV games are part of that effort, and between the classic
Grand Theft Auto titles and Netflix bringing
Red Dead Redemption to mobile (Android, iPhone, iPad) for the first time, pieces are slowly falling into place.
Netflix did not comment on whether these more ambitious games might come to TV devices, but it we are told that the company has long-term plans for TV gaming, too. First, it has to build the ecosystem, and key pieces are still missing including support for physical game controllers. Then it has
to fight platform holders.
Supported TV devices for Netflix gaming
| - Amazon Fire TV devices and smart TVs
- Chromecast with Google TV
- LG smart TVs
- Roku devices and TVs (supported models)
- Samsung smart TVs
- Sony smart TVs
- Nvidia SHIELD TV devices
- TCL smart TVs
- Vizio smart TVs
- Xfinity 4k devices
- Xumo devices and smart TVs |
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