Netflix is expanding its gaming lineup this holiday season with a new collection of party games designed to be played directly on your television. Each game lets everyone in the room join in using their smartphones as controllers, connecting through a simple QR code displayed on-screen.
The launch will include five titles, four of which come from well-known franchises.
Among them is Lego Party, a family-friendly title that originally debuted on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch last month for around £40. It offers 60 mini-games that can be enjoyed by up to four players. There’s also Boggle Party, a fast-paced word challenge where up to eight players compete to form the longest words from a scrambled letter grid.
Fans of Jackbox-style drawing games will likely enjoy Pictionary: Game Night, which adapts the classic sketch-and-guess concept for Netflix. Players draw on their phones while others try to identify the image before time runs out.
Another familiar addition is Tetris Time Wrap, where players “time-travel” through different versions of the legendary puzzle game — from its 1984 debut to the Game Boy classic. The title was first seen in last year’s Tetris Forever compilation, but this marks its first standalone release.
Netflix is also introducing an original game, Party Crashers: Fool Your Friends, which appears to be a social deception game in the style of Among Us or Sounds Fishy. The company describes it as: “One person secretly has no idea what’s going on — spot the odd one out before time’s up.”
These party titles are scheduled to launch later this year as a free addition to Netflix’s existing gaming catalog, though the company hasn’t confirmed whether they’ll be available across all subscription tiers.
The games are expected to run on Netflix-compatible smart TVs and devices, including models from LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL, Vizio, and Xumo, as well as streaming devices like Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Roku, Nvidia Shield, and Xfinity.
The announcement follows a similar move from Amazon, which recently unveiled its own range of party-style games for Prime Video users. The new GameNight collection for the Luna platform will feature easy-to-play titles such as Angry Birds, Clue, Exploding Kittens, Ticket to Ride, and even a Snoop Dogg-themed game.
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