Netflix, the big daddy of streaming, wants to proliferate cloud gaming to every single TV with even a moderate internet connection. Its new game, Unhinged, uses a control scheme that anyone with a smartphone can play. The only thing Netflix is missing from its new gaming push is a Japanese businessman coming to your door spouting “Wii would like to play.”
The streaming giant invited me to play the entire game, launching on June 30, inside a dim Manhattan hotel room, apparently imagining it would heighten the fear factor. To join the title, you scan a QR code that shows up on your TV, and you’re good to go—no download or third-party Bluetooth controller required. Unhinged is a short taste of what most gamers recognize as a point-and-click horror game—little more than a choose-your-own-adventure with a definitive conclusion and essentially no branching paths. At the same time, it’s an evocative and surprisingly intense home invasion story that doesn’t overstay its welcome. The snippet of cloud gaming feels more engrossing because your phone is not just your controller for playing the game. It acts as a connection to the characters in the game world. Your POV character, apartment renter Ava (portrayed by Zoë Kravitz), takes calls from her friend Claire (Sadie Sink) as you try to avoid a serial killer (voiced by gaming veteran Troy Baker) trying to… well, kill you. After I was done—the entire session lasting barely 40 minutes—Sean Krankel, Netflix’s head of narrative games, turned to me and chatted my ear off about old tech. He compared the game’s controls to Nintendo Wii first-person shooter Red Steel from 2006. You may not recall, but in one of the game’s multiplayer modes, called Killer, players needed to hold their Wii Remote up to their ear to hear the name of their next contract they were supposed to hunt down.
