Netflix has reportedly shut down its internal studio, referred to as Blue, which was made up of AAA video game industry veterans. The team was never officially announced even one game.
According to a report from Game File, the streaming service giant closed the Southern California studio as of this month. While it was one of many internal Netflix studios working on new titles, Blue stood out thanks to a series of high-profile hires over the past couple years.
Netflix never officially announced what Blue was working on, but there were hints if you knew where to look. MobileGamer.biz spotted some job listings in November 2022 that mentioned Netflix was working on “a brand-new AAA PC game” and needed people with experience working on first-person or third-person shooters. This would have been a big departure for the company. While it had just started ramping up video game development at this point, it was mostly focused on mobile titles, and this signified that it was looking into a multi-platform strategy.
This was further bolstered by the industry veterans hired to lead the studio. Former executive producer on Overwatch Chacko Sonny left Blizzard in 2021 amid the fallout from an explosive lawsuit, and was tapped to lead Blue. Former God of War art director Rafael Grassetti was also hired in 2023, followed by Joseph Staten, who had worked on Halo games at Bungie and was hired by 343 Industries to get Halo Infinite over the finish line. Staten’s X (formerly Twitter) account says Blue was also working on an “original IP.”
While none of the executives have commented publicly on the shutdown, Grassetti did post an out-of-context popcorn gif. You can interpret that as you wish. Game File says all three executives are no longer with Netflix.
Netflix still has four internal studios currently working on titles. It acquired Oxenfree developer Night School Studio, mobile game developer Next Games, and Boss Fight Entertainment, and set up a studio in Helsinki in 2022. It also publishes third-party games on its platform, which is accessible to anybody with a Netflix subscription. Some games you can play include Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Spiritfarer, Into the Breach, and Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.