Netflix is closing Oxenfree developer Night School Studio and Helsinki-based Moonloot, the company confirmed Thursday.
A Netflix representative told Game Developer that the company is also “eliminating some additional games roles” across the games team. Netflix declined to share details on how many people were laid off. Game File first reported the news of the two studios’ closures.
Night School Studio released horror game Unhinged in late June, just weeks before Thursday’s closure. Unhinged is played on a browser or television, and the player uses their personal smartphone as a controller. Zoë Kravitz (The Batman), Sadie Sink (Spider-Man: Brand New Day), and Troy Baker (Marvel Rivals) all voiced characters for the game. Moonloot did not have any announced projects, but was reportedly working on some sort of Animal Crossing-like game. Night School Studio released its award-winning Oxenfree in 2016 before Netflix published its sequel, Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals. Netflix acquired Night School Studio in 2021, shortly after Netflix officially launched its games business. It was the first studio to be acquired by the streaming platform. Moonloot was spun up internally at Netflix in 2022.
“Games continue to be an opportunity for us to expand the variety of entertainment we offer Netflix members, and we’ve built solid foundations in our key focus areas,” the Netflix representative said. “As we continue to prioritize these areas, we see an opportunity to be more focused in our execution, so we are making organizational changes to the business to match those priorities.”
Netflix is “excited,” the spokesperson said, “about the momentum” of cloud and kids games. The news release listed several “key focus areas,” like kids games, party games, narrative games, and mainstream games. (Unhinged, from now-closed Night School Studio, is listed as a narrative example.) Netflix recently released party and sports games Netflix Minigolf and FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition. FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition developer Refactor Games (which is an external studio) laid off 85% of its employees just weeks after the game was released.
Netflix has been shifting its games strategy to these sorts of casual or party games for people to play together on a television, rather than exclusively on their smartphones. (At launch in 2021, Netflix seemed more interested in mobile games.) Netflix has spent the last few years shutting down most of the studios it acquired: Team Blue, reportedly working on a first-person game, was shut down in 2024; Boss Fight Entertainment, which made Squid Game: Unleashed, was shuttered in October 2025; Cozy Grove developer Spry Fox split from Netflix in December. Co-founders Daniel Cook and David Edery bought back the company from Netflix. Netflix Mini Golf maker Next Games is the only studio left, aside from Netflix’s internal games team.
Its latest announcement is a partnership with Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games; an “extended look” trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 will debut on Netflix. It’s exclusive to Netflix for six hours. Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy (packaging up three Grand Theft Auto games) came to mobile via Netflix in 2023.
At least five studios across the video game industry laid off workers in just a couple weeks of August. That includes CD Projekt Red, That’s No Moon, Supermassive Games, Lightspeed, and Refactor Games.