Netflix Games lays off staff at Night School Studio, devs behind Oxenfree

Netflix has laid off more people from its gaming division and this time, it was from Night School Studio, the developers behind the Oxenfree series which received a lot of praise from fans. While the exact headcount isn’t known, this comes after the company last year announced shifting its focus towards AI game development.

The studio was acquired by Netflix back in 2021 as part of their early expansion into gaming and increasing their game library. The original game’s success led to a sequel which also received a lot of praise from fans for the story and game design.

These layoffs came last month in January as per a report from gamedeveloper, who were contacted by former Night School Studio employees. Netflix has yet to put out a statement on the matter or provide any reasoning behind this, although the company has been making some changes in its gaming division since last year.

Netflix focusing on Generative AI for game development

Back in November 2024, Netflix announced that the company would be focusing on the use of Generative AI for AAA game development. As ambitious as it sounds, this came at the cost of internal restructuring for the gaming division and before the announcement, the company shut down ‘Team Blue’ who was working on a AAA title for the company.

It’s also hard to tell what the company plans to do moving forward as better an entire AAA game development using AI is not going to be an easy task. Furthermore, if Netflix continues down this path, there may be more layoffs across other studios.

Also Read:Netflix to focus on Generative AI for video game development

Netflix still planning to release more games on mobile devices

While Netflix works towards its first AAA entry, the company is already planning to release multiple titles for mobile devices from popular franchises. There are currently more than 80 games in the pipeline. The previously released GTA trilogy was a huge addition and the most downloaded game and they company may be looking to replicate that success.