Netflix Levels Up Its TV Experience With Free Party Games This Holiday Season Back in January, Netflix co-CEO Gregory Peters teased that the service was working on party and couch co-op games that could be streamed online. Now, that future is arriving. Peters has officially announced that several party game titles playable directly on your TV are coming this holiday season. The company is pitching this as a revolutionary step in gaming. We are creating a completely new way to play games, one that is as easy as streaming a show on a Friday night, Netflix stated in its announcement. The best part is that these new games will be free to play for Netflix subscribers. The initial lineup includes some familiar and popular party game concepts. One of the headliners is Lego Party, a title that normally retails for around forty dollars. The collection also includes Boggle Party, where players compete to find words in a jumbled letter grid against the clock, and Pictionary Game Night, which challenges you to guess what your friends are drawing. For retro gaming fans, Tetris Time Warp will let you and your friends play through different eras of the iconic block-stacking game, from the 1984 original to the classic Game Boy version. Rounding out the initial offerings is Party Crashers Fool Your Friends, a social deduction game where you must figure out which friend among you is the secret party crasher. To make the experience as seamless as possible, Netflix is utilizing a phone-as-a-controller system. Players can simply scan a QR code on their TV screen to turn their smartphone into a game controller. This push into TV gaming comes after a period of recalibration for Netflixs gaming ambitions. Earlier this year, the service canceled plans for six previously announced games and removed over twenty titles from its library, including the acclaimed game Hades. Following this, the company decided to focus its efforts on specific categories, namely party games, kids games, well-known IP like Grand Theft Auto, and games based on its own shows such as Stranger Things. Some users have reported seeing a Games tab on their TV interfaces for a while, but it previously only contained the same mobile games available on phones. These new interactive party games represent a significant upgrade. At launch, they will only be available on select TVs, such as those powered by Roku, and only in certain countries. However, Netflix has stated it plans to roll out games on TV more widely over time.
