Netflix’s ‘Queen’s Gambit’ Mobile Game Will Play Chess on the Ceiling

Netflix shall be rolling out a chess recreation based mostly on The Queen’s Gambit, the restricted sequence that prompted Google searches for “chess” to spike to a 14-year excessive when it was launched. It’s going to even put Beth Harmon’s drug-induced upside chessboards up on the ceiling. 

It is one among a handful of cellular video games coming to Netflix based mostly on a few of its fashionable current reveals, together with Spanish heist thriller La Casa de Papel, also referred to as Cash Heist; fantasy sequence Shadow & Bone; actuality present Too Sizzling to Deal with; and recreation present Nailed It. (And no, Squid Recreation: The Recreation is not one among them.)

It marks the primary time since Netflix kicked off a devoted mission so as to add video games that the corporate is leveraging its personal tales and characters already fashionable with its subscribers to anchor new recreation titles. 

The Queen’s Gambit Chess recreation and Nailed It!: Baking Bash shall be launched someday earlier than the tip of 2022, whereas the remaining did not have timing particulars. By the tip of the 12 months, Netflix mentioned it plans to greater than double its variety of out there video games to about 50. The transfer is a part of Netflix’s effort to spend money on video video games as a part of its commonplace subscriptions, within the hope they’re going to entice new subscribers and provides current ones extra causes to maintain their membership. 

The information was introduced throughout a presentation Friday wrapping up Netflix’s Geeked Week, an internet fan occasion. 

Final 12 months, Netflix confirmed that might increase into gaming, beginning with ad-free video games for cellular units like telephones and tablets at no added price to subscribers. Thus far, Netflix has 22 informal, cellular video games out there, a few of which had been beforehand launched. Netflix has sketched out broad ambitions for gaming, indicating that it in the end envisions pursuing console video games for Xbox and PlayStation, too. 

Gaming widens Netflix, the world’s largest subscription video service, from its bedrock enterprise of TV reveals and films. As Netflix has grown, it has repeatedly known as out gaming phenoms like Fortnite as a few of its hardest competitors due to the large quantity of leisure hours they command worldwide. Gaming can be Netflix’s most significant transfer into a brand new type of leisure because it began streaming in 2007 and because it launched its first unique present in 2012. 

The gaming initiative took on new significance after Netflix reported its first drop in subscribers in a decade earlier this 12 months, and the corporate has warned that memberships are anticipated to say no much more. 

Netflix is not alone on this gaming growth. Amazon, which operates Prime Video, has invested in Luna, its cloud gaming service, and in addition has its personal gaming studio. Google, mum or dad of YouTube, has put cash into its personal Stadia game-streaming service. And Apple, which makes its personal movies and TV reveals for Apple TV Plus, additionally widened into Apple Arcade. 

However Netflix could be distinctive by making video games a part of its one and solely subscription. Others supply their gaming companies as standalone merchandise, usually additionally in a bundle with a bunch of different memberships.

Netflix’s video games are playable and downloadable by way of hyperlinks in Netflix’s cellular app, however they should be put in individually from Netflix’s app in your system. You may obtain the video games straight from the Apple and Google app shops, usually at 10 a.m. PT on the day of their launch; Netflix additionally normally posts hyperlinks to the video games’ app retailer itemizing beginning at 2 p.m. PT. Within the Netflix app, Android cellular and iPhone customers ought to see a devoted video games row when you scroll down your private home tab, with Android moreover having a devoted video games tab. Pill customers also needs to see a devoted video games row or discover video games within the classes dropdown menu.