Netflix is closing two more of its game studios, including Night School Studio, the team behind Oxenfree.
Netflix hasn’t published a detailed public statement explaining the decision, and the number of employees losing their jobs hasn’t been confirmed.
Night School Studio was founded in 2014 by Sean Krankel and Adam Hines, and broke through with Oxenfree in 2016: a supernatural teen mystery built around walkie-talkie radio frequencies and overlapping, natural dialogue.
The studio followed it with Afterparty in 2019, a story about two dead friends trying to out-drink Satan to escape Hell. Reception was more mixed, but the studio’s identity was set: dialogue-heavy, cinematic, character-driven games.
Netflix bought Night School in September 2021. It was the streamer’s first publicly announced game studio acquisition, and a clear signal that Netflix wanted to own development teams, not just license games.
Night School kept working. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals launched in July 2023 on consoles, PC, and Netflix’s mobile service. More recently the team was linked to Unhinged, a short Black Mirror-flavored party title played on TV with your phone as the controller. Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters has publicly pointed to that game and a FIFA-branded party title as early wins for its TV-based gaming push.
From four studios to a very short list
This isn’t the first cut. Netflix shut down its Southern California internal team, informally known as Team Blue, in 2024, before it ever shipped a game. That group had hired big-name veterans and was widely seen as Netflix’s attempt at a large-budget original title.
Since then, the company has narrowed its focus: mobile games included with a subscription and no ads or microtransactions, licensed third-party titles like Into the Breach, Terra Nil, and the Grand Theft Auto trilogy, plus cloud and TV party games controlled with a phone.
Plenty is still unclear. Netflix hasn’t said what happens to unannounced projects, whether Oxenfree, Oxenfree II, and Afterparty stay on sale, who holds the IP going forward, or whether any staff move to other teams inside the company.
