It’s been a few months since Netflix outlined what is effectively a reboot of its games strategy at GDC 2025.
So let’s check in on how Netflix game downloads are doing, shall we?
We pulled the data from Appmagic to see both total lifetime Netflix game downloads and also installs from the last 30 days to see what’s trending right now.
Appmagic estimates total lifetime Netflix game downloads stand at over 342.5m since it started adding games to the service in August 2021.
The top game by some distance is still Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which arrived on the service in December 2023 and has racked up an estimated 48.3m installs to date.
The huge marketing push around Squid Game in December 2024 plus the game tie-in’s free availability whether you’re a Netflix subscriber or not appeared to have worked; Squid Game Unleashed now has over 20m downloads just six months after release.
Downloads are slowing a little for surprise hit Storyteller, while the rest of the top ten games here continue to rack up solid numbers. Bloons, Football Manager, SpongeBob and Too Hot To Handle feel pretty evergreen at this point, though Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is not – it was removed from Netflix games in December 2024 as the streaming giant continues to trim its portfolio.
Netflix game downloads (lifetime): 11-20:
11. Netflix Stories (7.9m)
12. Scriptic (6.7m)
13. Sonic Mania Plus (6.2m)
14. Stranger Things: 1984 (6.1m)
15. Too Hot To Handle 3 (5.8m)
16. Sonic Prime Dash (5.7m)
17. Classic Solitaire (5.2m)
18. Too Hot to Handle 2 (4.4m)
19. Into the Dead 2: Unleashed (4.35m)
20. GTA III (4.3m)
There are two Sonic games in the 11-20 bracket, and several other games that lean on familiar IP, with dating/romance games well represented through Netflix Stories and two more Too Hot To Handle titles. Like Vice City, GTA III was removed from the service in December 2024, so expect that to continue to drop in these charts over time.
Next, let’s have a look at what’s trending now through Appmagic’s estimates of the top performing games in the last 30 days.
The arrival of Street Fighter IV and World of Peppa Pig show Netflix’s more recent, more deliberate use of known IP and kids titles. And the crossover here with the lifetime charts shows that major new releases have slowed down somewhat.
In fact, Appmagic suggests that Netflix has only released nine titles worldwide so far this year, having launched 14 new titles in the same period in 2024. Netflix added 35 games to the service in total during 2024, and unless there’s a furry of launches at the back end of this year, it seems likely to continue to maintain this ‘fewer, bigger, better’ approach under new boss Alain Tascan.
Other high profile titles have had a mixed reception. Monument Valley 3 has racked up 2.4m downloads since launch in November 2024 – way under what one might expect from a series that’s so well-regarded.
And for a title associated with a megabucks Russo Brothers film, The Electric State: Kid Cosmo’s downloads are extremely poor, with just 70k installs since it arrived on the service in February, according to Appmagic’s data.
Conversely, Black Mirror: Thronglets arguably benefitted from much neater integration into the source material – the game was a prominent part of the new series’ ‘Plaything’ episode, and has gathered over 2m downloads since launch in April. Singles Inferno, another dating/romance game that’s also a TV show, has also done pretty well, with ~560k downloads since launch in March.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s the indie fare that really seems to be struggling. Steel Paws, a game helmed by Virtua Fighter and Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki, has only just scraped past 100k downloads since launching in January. Arranger, a well-regarded puzzler, has around the same number of installs having launched in July 2024; Indie classic Braid has just over 200k installs after over a year on the service.
Still, some original, indie-style IP has fared better. Cozy Grove, an Animal Crossing-like game from Netflix-owned Spry Fox, has just over 735k downloads after a year on the service – better than other indie strugglers, but perhaps still not quite enough given the heavy lift of creating an entirely new game and IP.
Netflix is also trimming its game catalogue of titles that didn’t resonate well. Indie game Poinpy – made by the indie creator behind cult banger Downwell – is leaving the service soon, having racked up just over 400k downloads since launch in June 2022. League of Legends spin off Hextech Mayhem is also no longer available after 1m installs.
We’re still yet to see the new leadership’s vision for Netflix games fully play out. Netflix bosses Jeet Shroff and Alain Tascan promised a new era of party, kids and big-name games at GDC earlier this year.
And Tascan later told us the streaming giant has the ‘grit’ to be in games for the long term, unlike other tech and entertainment giants that entered and then swiftly departed the space.
Expect Netflix games to showcase tighter integrations with its TV and film content, along the lines of that Black Mirror game, in the next few months and years – and more to come as it adds couch-based party games like those that were once the core of the Wii’s success in the late 2000s.
