Netflix has announced that it will be creating an internal game development studio in Helsinki, Finland. The studio will be led by Marko Lastikka, Zynga's vice president, as its director.
“This is another step in our vision to build a world-class games studio that will bring a variety of delightful and deeply engaging original games — with no ads and no in-app purchases — to our hundreds of millions of members around the world,” Netflix says in a statement on its website.
Netflix explains that Helsinki has some of the best game development talent in the world, and this will be the first studio that it builds from the ground up. The company also has another studio, Next Games, established in Helsinki as well.
“It’s still early days, and we have much more work to do to deliver a great games experience on Netflix,” the company continues. “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.”
Netflix will now have four game development studios in total, including Night School Studio and Boss Fight Entertainment. Night School Studio’s Oxenfree has a Netflix edition on the platform available to play for subscribers now. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals was also delayed to 2023 in order to add more localizations.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey