Netflix Giving Games-On-Demand a Try, Doing Minecraft and Stranger Things Collaboration

UPDATE: Netflix responded, “We don’t have any plans to get into gaming. There’s a broad spectrum of entertainment available today. Games have become increasingly cinematic, but we view this as interactive narrative storytelling on our service.” We do hope they keep up the trend, tho.

ORIGINAL STORY: With Netflix taking over the world with its original programming and vast amount of TV shows and movies, you’d think that it would be content with the money it’s making. But now it’s ready to give games a try.

Per this report from TechRadar, Netflix has paired up with Telltale Games to bring simple game experiences to the streaming service. The first game that will be part of the deal is Minecraft: Story Mode.

“We can confirm Minecraft: Story Mode is a licensed 5-episode interactive narrative series coming to our service this fall. It’s an extension of our other interactive stories we have on our service like Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout, Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale and Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile,” the company told us in an email.

But what’s interesting here is a collaboration that could be emerging because of the deal. Apparently a new Stranger Things/Minecraft game should be happening soon. “The Stranger Things project is launching on the Telltale platform at a later date,” the company told us. It won’t be exclusive to Netflix, as previously reported.

Gameplay looks to be rather simple with this version. “The Netflix version of Minecraft: Story Mode will be delivered via video files and will accept commands via any remote equipped with directional and select buttons. This simplified command is a perfect pairing for Telltale’s slate of games, as they often only require the player to select from dialogue options or move the cursor to a specific location on the screen. (Though, from the sounds of it, many of the battle sequences will be cut from the final product,)” the article notes.

It could work similarly to the Amazon Fire platform, with people being able to choose their path and occasionally enter remote inputs through Netflix to keep things moving along.

As far as when the partnership will be announced, the article notes that it “could happen any day,” though an E3 debut may not be happening since we’re so late in the show anyway.

Other companies could be looking into such on-demand entertainment as well, such as HBO. But it looks like we’re waiting to see who’ll make the first move in this bold new direction.

We’ll see if Telltale has anything to say on the show floor! In the meantime, you can check out Minecraft: Story Mode for consoles, mobile devices and PC now.