Netflix is closing Night School Studio, the Los Angeles developer best known for Oxenfree. The company also plans to close Moonloot, a smaller studio based in Helsinki, as part of another reorganization inside Netflix Games.
The news is especially rough for players who followed Night School before Netflix entered gaming. Oxenfree built its tension through radio signals, overlapping conversations, and choices that felt natural instead of waiting politely for the player. It was a small game with a voice of its own, and the studio kept that identity through Afterparty and Oxenfree II: Lost Signals.
Night School Was Netflix's First Studio Purchase
Netflix bought Night School in 2021, making it the first game studio acquired during the company's early push into the industry. Night School later released Oxenfree II under Netflix and worked on smaller projects tied to the service, including Black Mirror: Thronglets and the recent horror experiment Unhinged.
The timing makes the closure more frustrating. Unhinged arrived only weeks ago, and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters had spoken positively about its early performance. A new release did not give the studio much time to build momentum before the decision came down.
Netflix Is Narrowing Its Gaming Plans
Netflix says it still sees games as an opportunity, but its priorities are becoming tighter. The company is concentrating on party games, games for children, story-driven projects, and titles with a broad hook that can make sense to people who opened Netflix to watch something.
Moonloot shows the other side of the same decision. The Helsinki team was formed in 2022 and had not released its first game. Netflix is therefore closing one studio with a known catalog and preparing to close another before its debut project could reach players.
That approach has already produced visible growth in cloud play. Netflix said its cloud gaming audience had grown sharply, but studio closures show that audience growth does not protect every internal team.
