Netflix shows off Sonic Prime and an impressive lineup of indie games

Image: Netflix

This week, Netflix unleashed a battery of announcements as a part of its Geeked Week. Contained within the flurry of reveals of The Sandman, The Umbrella Academy season 3, One Piece, and more was a handful of announcements about the platform’s slowly growing game and game-adjacent offerings.

Netflix showed off a brief teaser for Cuphead season 2 ahead of its August premiere, featuring more of Ms. Chalice (voiced by Grey DeLisle), who made her brief debut at the end of the first season. Also hitting Netflix in August is the third season of DOTA: Dragon’s Blood. Tekken, the fighting game that has a fondness for throwing kids off cliffs, is also getting its own anime, Tekken: Bloodline.

In advance of Sonic Origins later this June and Sonic Frontiers at some nebulous later date in 2022, Netflix debuted a brief clip of its newest hedgehog-based show, Sonic Prime.

One other game-based animated series in development is Castlevania: Nocturne, which will follow Richter Belmont.

In the games department, Netflix is single-handedly ushering in the return of licensed games with several titles based on its shows. There’s a Queen’s Gambit chess game, a Shadow and Bone RPG, a La Casa de Papel heist adventure, and a Too Hot to Handle game that seems like it’s one of those “choose your own adventure,” soap-opera-y games in which a pregnant lady has to choose between stabbing her cheating ex or forgiving him.

Last year, Riot’s rhythm platformer Hextech Mayhem made its mobile debut exclusively on Netflix, and now, the streaming service is adding several games from respected indie publisher Devolver Digital. Reigns: Three Kingdoms is a card game that lets players choose the fate of Three Kingdoms-era China by swiping left or right on cards that present unique situations, choices, and fateful encounters with historical figures. Spiritfarer, the “cozy game about death” that made everyone good-cry back in 2020, is also coming to Netflix, along with the delightful Raji: An Ancient Epic. Netflix announced that Poinpy, a vertical climber from the creator of Downwell and published by Devolver Digital, is available right now.

Desta: The Memories Between is a turn-based strategy game that takes place in dreams and memories, from the makers of Monument Valley.

Lucky Luna, from Alto’s Adventure and Skate City developer Snowman, is also getting added to the streaming service soon.

With these games, Netflix is slowly expanding its offerings beyond dinky mobile games — it plans to have 50 available by the end of the year — and could be a serious platform for indies that want to expand into the mobile market. It seems like it’s really taking being a gaming platform seriously.