Netflix has shut down its triple-A ‘Team Blue’ studio
The studio had the Overwatch executive producer and a God of War art director among its ranks
Netflix has shut down its triple-A studio, known as Team Blue within the company.
As reported by Stephen Totilo’s Game File newsletter, the southern California studio no longer exists.
Netflix had spent the past couple of years acquiring a number of veteran developers to join the studio, which was said to be working on an original, mutliplatform triple-A game.
The studio launched in October 2022, with Netflix putting former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny in charge.
Sonny was joined in April 2023 by Halo veteran Joseph Staten, who had worked as a writer and cinematic director on the first two Halo games and was serving as Halo Infinite‘s head of creative before stepping down to join the Netflix studio.
In May 2023 it then confirmed that it had hired Raf Grassetti, a former art director at Sony‘s Santa Monica Studio who had previously worked on the God of War series.
According to Totilo’s report, however, all three have now departed Netflix and their studio has been closed down.
Netflix has been trying to find a foothold in the video game market for some time now, and has been offering mobile games through its Netflix app for the past few years.
The company regularly features original video content based on games, such as Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and its recently released Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft.
It has struggled to find success the other way around, however, and continues to search for its first big hit game.
The closest it has come so far has been Poinpy, a mobile game published by Devolver Digital. Exclusive to Netflix, the game – which was created by former Nintendo developer Ojiro Fumoto – saw widespread critical acclaim with a Metacritic score of 87.
