Overwatch Veteran Starts New Netflix Game Studio Aiming To "Reinvent What Games Can Be"

Netflix is making moves in the video game space, recently announcing that it is starting another internal game studio headed up by games industry veteran Chacko Sonny of Overwatch and God of War fame. This will be Netflix's fifth internal game development studio.

Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt event this week (via VGC), Netflix gaming boss Mike Verdu confirmed that Sonny will lead a new "organic" studio for Netflix based in southern California. Prior to joining Blizzard, Sonny was a producer and studio head at Activision and later God of War developer Sony Santa Monica Studio. Sonny left Blizzard in 2021. There is no word yet on what Sonny's new studio is development, whether it be a new IP or a project based on one of Netflix's many IP, or something else entirely.

"He could have gone anywhere, he could have raised money, he could have done anything and he chose to come here. We are building a team around him and looking to him to reinvent what games can be," Verdu said.

He added: "You don't get people like that coming to your organization to build the next big thing in gaming unless there's a sense that we're in it for the long haul and the right reasons."

Netflix's new game development studio in southern California adds to the company's existing lineup of internal studios, joining the new team in Helsinki. Netflix also recently acquired Next Games, Night School Studio, and Boss Fight, making the new California studio Netflix's fifth internal game team.

"It's still early days, and we have much more work to do to deliver a great games experience on Netflix," Netflix Games boss Amir Rahimi said in September. "Creating a game can take years, so I’m proud to see how we’re steadily building the foundation of our games studios in our first year, and look forward to sharing what we produce in the coming years."

During the same TechCrunch event, Verdu said Netflix has 55 additional games in development right now across internal and external studios that are on top of the 35 titles already available to subscribers.

Netflix Games offerings are available from within the existing Netflix app. There are no ads or microtransactions on any titles.