Netflix may have been facing criticism for their crackdown on password-sharing recently, but the streaming platform likely hopes a new pair of games will soothe the blow somewhat.
Their latest partnership is with indie publisher Rogue Games, who will be bringing two of their new titles, Neon & Dust and Highwater to the platform. The first is “a twin-stick roguelite shooter” whilst the second is described as an “atmospheric adventure/strategy hybrid.”
Dust & Neon will also be launching on Netflix on February 16th with no confirmed date (as yet) for Highwater's arrival.
CEO of Rogue Games Matt Casamassina wrote on their decision to go multiplatform and their philosophy to the release “These are completely different games, both robust, both unlike anything else out there, but they do share one trait in common, which is that you’ll be able to play them on the platform of your choice. That means PC. Console. And yes, mobile too.”
“If you’re a hater—if you automatically discount mobile games—all I can tell you is, give ours a try. In another life, I was a journalist who wrote about games and I remember being every bit as sceptical as some of you might be now. Then I spent a decade running games editorial for Apple’s App Store and my appreciation of the mobile scene grew.”
Continued advantages of Netflix games
Rogue Games partnership will also be of interest to other developers as it shows that you don’t necessarily need to be exclusive to Netflix to benefit from a partnership with them. In contrast to other lucrative deals with storefronts, like Epic Games on PC, which may cut off a portion of your potential audience, Rogue seems to be having their cake and eating it with this partnership.
The decision to go multiplatform is also symbolic of what some in the office call the “multiscreen singularity” or the idea that interoperability and playing across multiple platforms will be the way of the future. Certainly, the fact that Casamassina brings up the work they put into making their mobile versions as complete as other platforms is telling.
“You’re not going to get some farted-out, dumbed-down shell of our PC and console efforts if you choose to play the Netflix versions. They’re all feature complete. We’ve meticulously thought about touchscreen controls”
Another recent multiplatform title released by Netflix was Desta: The Memories Between, which made the leap from mobile onto PC and Switch with the “Dream Team Edition” earlier this year. Further cementing the idea of cross-platform for mobile being an increasingly viable avenue for developers.
