The worlds of Stranger Things, Squid Game and Bridgerton will turn into minigolf courses from 28 July. On that day Netflix launches Netflix Minigolf, a game played on the TV, controlled by a phone, for up to four players on one screen. It is the company’s latest attempt to bring gaming into the living room.
What Netflix is putting into the TV app
Minigolf offers more than 60 levels set in the worlds of three of its most-watched series. The game takes its inspiration from pinball, and during the rounds players collect so-called Pranks, which they then launch at their opponents.
A phone connects to the game by scanning a QR code and serves as a controller directly from the TV app. Development is handled by the studio Next Games, which Netflix acquired in 2022.
The studio previously built a game based on Stranger Things and the title Netflix Puzzled. Minigolf now follows a wider range of party games on the TV app. Titles such as Boggle Party, Tetris Time Warp or LEGO Party run at no extra cost as part of the subscription and require no hardware or downloads.
A phone instead of a controller, and launch with one code
Alain Tascan, who has led the games division since July 2024 and previously worked at Epic Games, is building the new phase on one principle.
“A big switch in the strategy is really to make sure that we are eliminating any friction that somebody can encounter when they want to play,” Tascan said, according to an AP report. A game started with one code straight from the TV, with no console, download or second account, is exactly that.
The target is the time subscribers spend in the app. Familiar characters from Netflix’s own series work as a ticket in, and playing together on one screen gives a reason to switch the game on with more people.
Under Tascan, the gaming programme focuses on content from its own series, games for children, party titles and big names such as Grand Theft Auto. Minigolf connects the brands of its own series with a social format.
The gaming programme’s scorecard
Netflix’s gaming ambitions have accompanied it since November 2021, and the results so far are mixed. Co-CEO Greg Peters gave the internal gaming programme a B minus.
According to data from the analytics firm Appfigures, downloads of its games rose 17% year on year to 74.8 million for January to October 2025, but the company is also releasing fewer titles, 16 in 2025 compared with 35 a year earlier.
Scepticism remains. “It still seems pretty experimental. I don’t get the impression that they are on gamers’ list of their go-to sources of entertainment,” said Ross Benes, an analyst at EMARKETER, according to AP.
Tascan does not hide the higher bar. “What I hope is, by the end of the year, we’ll upgrade to an A, hopefully A+,” he added.
The same format at Amazon, Google and Roku
Other platforms are competing for TV time in the same way. Amazon has a GameNight feature for its Luna service, where players join with their phones via a QR code, and a Luna Couch mode allows playing together even without a Luna subscription.
Google offers YouTube Playables, quick, low-demand games that launch directly from the app. Roku has a section of simple titles controlled with the remote or a mobile app.
For European households, Netflix, Amazon and Google are all competing for the same evening hours in front of the TV, each through the viewer’s phone in hand.
Netflix’s own IP powers the gaming, which is meant to keep subscribers in the app for longer. According to Tascan, it is viewer engagement that should lift that grade from Peters.
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