Netflix Games has taken a wildly different approach to gaming than Amazon has with its Luna gaming service (which allows players to stream Luna live on Twitch).
Both streamers have invested significantly in cloud gaming, but Netflix’s approach is drastically different. In a lot of ways, though, it’s very Netflixie of Netflix.
Where Amazon Luna has invested in its user interface, Twitch integration into the cloud streaming service, and a traditional gaming experience (Luna users play games on Amazon with their user login on a Fire Stick 4K Max with a virtual controller or physical remote), Netflix has decided to farm out their gaming offerings, so to say.
You can get started with Netflix Games fast
To get started with Netflix Games, all that is needed is your Netflix login and a mobile device (Android and iOS are supported).
To find available Netflix Games, open the Netflix app and search for “games.” You’ll be directed to a search results page with a list of available Netflix Games.
The big reveal? Netflix Games are mobile games with Netflix branding. Yes, regular games you can download from the App Store, but they are free for Netflix subscribers.
And while this approach may not be revolutionary regarding how gamers play or interact with the virtual world, Netflix Games packs a heavy value-added punch.
You might be surprised at how many you already play (stop spending money).
Our top 3 Netflix Games
As of this writing, Netflix Games offers subscribers access to 46 mobile games. As you’d expect, some are better than others, but several check all the right boxes for mobile gaming lovers.
Here are our top 3 Netflix Games to close out 2022.
Head’s Up
If you’ve spent time waiting in line at theme parks or looking for ways to spice up long trips across the country, chances are you’ve played your share of Head’s Up.
The classic charades game is simple to play and quickly incorporates everyone in the line (or car…or dining room, lol). To start, you can open up the app, pick a category or genre, hold the phone up to your head and do your best to interpret your partner’s rambling attempts to convey the answer. You can swing the phone up to pass and down to confirm you got the correct answer. Simple.
What is often frustrating about Head’s Up is the cost to keep playing. Gamers are given a set of cards (decks) for free – usually something like Star Wars trivia or books. But as most Head’s Up players know, the cards in those free decks start popping up again fairly quickly in rotation, and the game loses its luster when everyone’s already had to guess that card. That’s where Head’s Up pays its bills. If you want to keep playing, you’ll need to start paying.
An excellent game, but it runs out of steam fast without cash.
The Netflix Games edition of Head’s Up offers dozens of free categories exclusively for Netflix members. All but guaranteeing you’ll have plenty of time-killing laughter this Christmas when you’re in line or hanging out with a ton of family members you never see anymore. Netflix has even included Instant Replay in the subscriber edition of Head’s Up, which makes for some great laughs after each player’s turn is over.
Asphalt Xtreme
If you’re a fan and nostalgic for the days when it seemed impossible that a property like Fast and the Furious could make an exciting racing game for the iPhone 3, Asphalt Xtreme is the pick for you. There’s nothing more engaging than pulling the smartphone out while everyone’s napping after Christmas dinner and knocking out a few competitive laps on a course in South America with a tricked-out off-road whip.
Mobile racing games have mostly stayed the same since their heyday on mobile (when they were the best games made for smart devices), and so has the Asphalt brand. Standard garage, achievement and reward-based play, mods; the usual.
But Asphalt Xtreme is free if you’re a Netflix subscriber. And at the end of the day, whether racing games are as novel as they once were on mobile, they’re still really fun to play.
This Is A True Story
One of Netflix’s original titles, This Is A True Story, maybe the most unique and Netflix-ish of all. In This Is A True Story, we follow Buntu; an African woman challenged to collect clean water for her family daily. The story was written based on narratives of hundreds of African women who, like over 700 million people on Earth today, cannot access fresh, clean water to take care of their families.
The beautifully sketched landscapes and engaging narrative will keep you coming back for more as you help Buntu secure clean drinking water in the face of obstacles like poachers, weather, and more.
What do you think about Netflix’s gaming service? Here is a list of all free titles available to Netflix subscribers.
List of Netflix games on mobile and rating:
- Arcanium Rise of Akhan: 3.5
- Asphalt Xtreme: 4.7
- Before Your Eyes: 4.5
- Bowling Ballers: 4.8
- Card Blast: 2.0
- Cats & Soup: 3.5
- Country Friends: 4.6
- Desta: The Memories Between: 3.9
- Dominoes Cafe: 4.6
- Dragon Up: 4.2
- Dungeon Dwarves: 4.5
- Exploding Kittens – The Game: 3.3
- Flutter Butterflies: 4.8
- Hello Kitty and Friends: 4.1
- Head’s Up: 4.0
- Hextech Mayhem: A League of Legends: 3.2
- Immortality: 3.6
- In the Breach: 4.0
- Into the Dead 2: Unleashed: 3.9
- Knittens: 3.8
- Krispee Street: 4.8
- Lucky Luna: 4.8
- Mahjong Solitaire: 4.8
- Moonlighter: 4.7
- Nailed It! Baking Bash: 3.4
- Oxenfree: 4.5
- Poinpy: 4.8
- Reigns: Three Kingdoms: 4.3
- Relic Hunters: Rebels: 4.1
- Rival Pirates: 2.7
- Scriptic: Crime Stories: 3.2
- Shatter Remastered: 4.0
- Shooting Hoops: 4.5
- Skies of Chaos: 4.1
- Solitaire: 4.1
- Spiritfarer: 3.1
- Spongebob: Get Cooking: 3.6
- Stranger Things 3: The Game: 3.9
- Stranger Things: 1984: 3.9
- Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales: 4.2
- Teeter (Up): 4.6
- This is a True Story: 4.7
- Too Hot to Handle: Love is a Game: 4.8
- Townsmen – A Kingdom Rebuilt: 3.5
- Wild Things: Animal Adventures: 4.5
- Wonderputt Forever: 3.2
Enjoy!