Streaming giant Netflix is offering top talent a salary of up to $500k as it continues to build its games division.
An all-star team led by former Overwatch boss Chacko Sonny is making a multiplayer, multiplatform triple-A game at its ‘Blue’ studio in LA. It is also expanding its more narrative-focused studio, also in LA, which appears to have been formed in order to make games based on Netflix TV shows and films.
At the time of writing, Netflix’s triple-A ‘Blue’ studio is looking to fill six senior roles open across several disciplines, which all offer a salary of up to $500k. The core of the studio is very high profile already; former Overwatch game lead Chacko Sonny has hired former creative lead at Bungie and 343 Industries Joseph Staten and God of War: Ragnarok art director Rafael Grassetti, among others.
Each Studio Blue opening refers to a “brand-new AAA multi-platform game” that is being built in Unreal Engine. It’s a live service game designed so that “players want to repeatedly come back”, but also one “without any competing design constraints due to monetization”, the job ads say. The game’s world is intended to be “worthy of a Netflix film/TV series”, too.
There are six open roles at its other LA-based games studio, which appears to be focused on making more narrative-focused games based on Netflix IP. Over in Helsinki, Netflix-owned Next Games also has multiple openings, and there are several more across fellow Netflix-owned studios Night School, Boss Fight and Spry Fox.
Over the weekend, the streaming giant announced a flurry of new games as part of its ‘Geeked Week’ campaign, with Oxenfree II and Shadow and Bone: Enter the Fold released in the Netflix app on Saturday.
Indie hit Hades was perhaps the highest-profile of the bunch, though it doesn’t have a firm date yet and will be iOS only. Fellow indie darlings Braid, Death’s Door and Katana Zero are also coming soon, and Netflix has also commissioned a couple of titles based on existing TV and movie content, including Money Heist, Chicken Run: Eggstraction and The Dragon Prince: Xadia.
The new games join a busy forthcoming slate that also includes Super Evil Megacorp’s Rebel Moon game, and something new from Ustwo Games – likely Monument Valley 3.
