Is There a Sequel to Again an Interactive Game

Netflix'south interactive specials, ranked by how much your choices matter

From the trivia-based Cat Infiltrator to the Minecraft special that defines the field

By Updated Feb 24, 2022, 11:14am EST

[ Ed. annotation: This ranked list is beingness continually updated as Netflix adds more interactive specials.]

When Netflix added actual games to its list of offerings in 2021, it was the latest pace in a plan the streaming service has been working on since 2017, when it first started experimenting with interactive specials. The interactive content on the streaming service — hybrid film and game experiences based on pre-existing franchises — lets viewers participate in the stories they're watching. They're similar proto-games in a Choose Your Own Take a chance-style fashion.

The initial interactive titles were tailored for kids, but with the release of 2018'due south Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and 2019'south Y'all vs. Wild, the streamer's ambitions clearly started expanding. Most of Netflix'south interactive specials take place in the worlds of existing series, though Bandersnatch largely stands solitary, since Blackness Mirror is an anthology bear witness, and the You vs. Wild franchise is just Conduct Grylls hamming it up in nature. Each of these shows prompts viewers to choose how events unfold. But just how fun are these specials? How interactive? Do the choices we make even matter?

With the service's latest interactive, True cat Burglar, out now, nosotros've updated our look back at all the streaming site's interactive specials. Our ongoing rankings consider how much fun each interactive is, what kind of stories they're telling, and whether the viewer'due south choices actually take any effect on the story.

Honorable mention: Headspace: Unwind Your Mind

[Disclosure: Unwind Your Mind is a collaboration between Headspace and Vox Media Studios, a unit of Polygon's parent company Vocalisation Media.]

This shouldn't even really count every bit an interactive experience, but Netflix has labeled it as an Interactive, and so we're mentioning information technology. The only interactive part of this is picking which Headspace programme you want: meditation, relaxation, or sleep. You can customize from there, just it's only a glorified menu. Useful for what information technology'southward meant for, but non so much for a story experience.

17. Cat Burglar

a guard dog in a security office slowly falling asleep as a cat burglar plays a lullaby on a violin

The trivia-based game Cat Burglar is actually really fun. There are so many dissimilar combinations of scenes that can play out. Viewers play as a cat stealing a priceless painting from a museum and outwitting a guard domestic dog. At that place are vi different segments — entering the museum, distracting the guard, the prehistory exhibit, the ancient artifacts exhibit, the medieval exhibit, and the painting theft itself, and each segment has multiple alternate scenarios. For example, breaking into the museum could involve vaulting over the gate or digging a tunnel. Which option players get appears to be random, but either way, the success of each segment depends on how accurately and quickly players can answer a series of silly trivia questions.

Trouble is, it doesn't score well by the standards of this ranking. Your specific choices don't lead to customizable outcomes. Your success at the trivia sections determines whether the true cat infiltrator is successful at the given task. Each trivia section is a randomized category, like "Chess Moves" or "Best Birthday Gifts," and each i presents three rounds of ii answers to choice from ("Expert Knight or Bad Bishop," for instance, and "Surprise Subpoena or Surprise Party"). While non explicitly adult, the trivia questions are tailored for a slightly older audience than the Tom and Jerry-esque aesthetic implies — players will at least need to know what a amendment is.

If you fail, the cat loses one of three lives and restarts the segment with a different scenario. Information technology's a different, enjoyable spin on the Netflix interactive, only the storyline doesn't really alter based on your input, and yous don't have command over the options.

xvi. You vs. Wild

The original Bear Grylls interactive special is, honestly, really dull. Each episode drops Grylls into a new environment, where his adventures play out like an episode of his show Human vs. Wild, except technically, the viewer gets to choose his survival deportment. But most every option either ends in instant failure or prompts you to the "correct" path. The series never really feels interactive, and it plays out like a pop quiz in how well-versed audience members are with Grylls' personal survival preferences. (Yep, he wants to eat bugs — he always wants to eat bugs.)

The premise sounds wacky, and it could have been played for laughs. (A possible grandiose failure might include Grylls freezing into a cartoonish ice cube, for case.) But the producers take the idea very seriously, which means it's just a forgettable feel.

15. Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile

buddy and darnell about to do something wild

Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile follows a uncomplicated premise. Stunt-driver domestic dog Buddy and his pal Darnell from the stop-motion series Buddy Thunderstruck need to determine what wild thing they want to do, so they consult their purse of "peradventure" ideas and pick two. Viewers get to choose which one they try. There's no overarching narrative whatsoever. Actor choice is limited between ii ridiculous options — drink three espresso drinks or make a pizza with every possible topping, for example.

While each fun pick results in a different scene, the 1 immediately post-obit plays out exactly the aforementioned as if you'd picked the other option. When you choose between trying to get super powers and exploring a sewer, you get unlike scenes, but both of them toss Buddy and Darnell to the same doctor later on.

What gives The Maybe Pile a slight uptick, though, is that it'due south actually kinda funny, and at the very least more entertaining than You vs. Wild. It'southward very much the type of humor that will transport a x-year-old male child rolling on the flooring: Information technology's basically Jackass, but for kids. And hey, sometimes the perfect late-morning pick-me-up is seeing Buddy and Darnell swoop into a sewage pit, rejoicing about how they've found the Fountain of Youth, and so realizing what they've done.

14. Kimmy vs. The Reverend

Ellie Kemper looks at Daniel Radcliffe in the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt interactive special, as the viewer is asked to choose between

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt interactive special takes place later the events of the serial finale, with Kimmy ready to marry a handsome prince played past Daniel Radcliffe. But subsequently discovering a mysterious book in her backpack, she suspects that the reverend who kidnapped her and held her in an clandestine bunker for most of her life may accept another bunker full of women somewhere, so she sets off to free them.

Kimmy vs. The Reverend has its funny moments, and to its credit, the scenes and jokes leading upward to the selection selection are some of the most entertaining of all the interactive specials. The characters actually riff about the option selection, instead of but reiterating the options, or staring expectantly at the audience. But the choices themselves are disappointing. Pick the "wrong" one, and the story instantly ends in failure, which isn't fun. The quick fail is a tendency that carries on in some of the other titles, but it feels all the more jarring in Kimmy vs. the Reverend, because the characters telephone call you out on diverting from the sitcom's characterizations. This ane is also longer than about of Netflix's interactive shows, so getting a "Game Over" really grinds the experience to a halt.

On a more metatextual level, it just seems a fiddling odd that even though you're supposed to be helping Kimmy observe bureau and heal from her by, the game basically takes away any agency by forcing certain options on you. The only actual deviation in endings comes from a side plot with Kimmy'due south friends Titus and Jacqueline.

13. Captain Underpants: Epic Selection-o-Rama

harold and george making a choice about what movie to watch

Ballsy Pick-o-Rama features grade-school cartoonists George Beard and Harold Hutchins saving their love treehouse from being demolished by the decision-making Principal Krupp. This involves appealing to their neighbor, who may or may non exist a retired famous action moving picture star.

The Helm Underpants special has merely a few choices that really make whatever impact. Early on on, when making what seems like the starting time large selection, two of the options just play out hypothetical situations and force you to pick the third. Many of the options have a clear correct and wrong — with the wrong i just immediately segueing into the "correct" pick. Most of the choices are purely to play a dissimilar prune, like when Harold and George argue over which movie to watch. In general, there are just fewer choices between the long, rambling segments. Non a very fun play, unless you're very into Captain Underpants.

12. The Last Kids on Earth: Happy Apocalypse to You

four kids busting into an abandoned school

Some other interactive adventure based on a Netflix cartoon, The Terminal Kids on Earth: Happy Apocalypse to You follows the characters of Netflix's post-apocalyptic adventure series. Jack, the plucky leader of the title'due south last kids on earth, wants to throw a party for his shell June, so the 4 protagonists cross the monster-filled wasteland where they live, trying to discover necessary party components: block, balloons, and a nacho-cheese fountain.

There are a few branching choices in Happy Apocalypse to You, only the ultimate ending still pretty much boils down to Instant Failure or Success. Some of the choices practice affect specific endgame conditions, but not plenty to drastically change the story or its outcome. But for the most part, the choices are at least entertaining and frequent plenty to feel engaging, even if some of the options just corporeality to cute interludes. Make a "wrong" choice here, and yous might get an extra fluffy scene, and then revert dorsum to the 2 other choices.

eleven. Spirit Riding Complimentary: Ride Along Adventure

Based on Spirit Riding Complimentary, an blithe serial loosely inspired by the 2002 DreamWorks movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Ride Along Adventure follows a plucky grouping of young teenagers and their horses. This show technically takes place in the Wild Due west, but you lot wouldn't exist able to tell from the very modern-looking clothes and attitudes. Three out of four of the equus caballus girls distract the fourth's horse for the 24-hour interval and so the girl can fix a surprise party for her steed. Only what starts off equally a unproblematic riding adventure turns into danger, every bit the equus caballus gets kidnapped and the girls must rescue it.

Spirit Riding Free: Ride Along ultimately falls into the aforementioned pitfalls as a few of these lower-ranked specials. If the viewer picks "incorrect" choice, the story only pivots seamlessly to the "right" one. For the most role, no thing what y'all cull, it plays out the same storyline. A few early choices do touch the endgame scenarios, however, which does give this 1 a leg upward on the entries that generally don't factor in earlier atmospheric condition.

ten. Animals on the Loose: A Yous vs. Wild Flick

Credit must be given where credit is due — the 2d Bear Grylls interactive run a risk is leagues better than the kickoff. There is now a loose overarching narrative: the electrical argue at a nature preserve has mysteriously shut down, and Bear must fix it and corral some escaped animals. He has a few separate missions to embark on, and the club you lot option them in affects the resulting choices. In that location is a branching path here!

At that place are a few instant-endgame choices, but they don't end the entire experience, simply the individual mission. The choices are also much more entertaining than the ones in the kickoff You Vs. Wild interactive experience. One sees Acquit contesting a boa constrictor in the water, while some other gives him a choice of luring a lion with meat or offering himself equally allurement. Some of the choices don't matter (no matter which grub you lot eat, for instance, nothing seems to change), just there is enough variability to make for a fun time.

The only downside is the long swaths of time where in that location is no selection whatsoever, where Bear kinda just does his wilderness thing. You may miss an upcoming pick if yous zone out when he muses almost coastlines, or hikes around, grunting.

9. Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal

The Carmen Sandiego interactive gamble is currently 1 of the just Carmen Sandiego games readily available to play. Later Carmen's friends Ivy and Zack are kidnapped past the evil organization VILE, the game unfolds with diverse heists Carmen must undertake to gratify VILE.

While definitely one of the most aesthetically pleasing Netflix interactive adventures — the animated series itself has some stunning moments — it jarringly forces viewers down i path at the beginning. The viewer is prompted to rescue Zack and Ivy, or steal for VILE. The former results in an instant endgame. Lots of other choices unfold in frustratingly similar ways: pick a grade of activity, and y'all're seamlessly pushed into the option you didn't select. There are a few choices with consequences which affect whether the endings are successful. Only toward the end of the story, at that place'southward merely i clear branch. Carmen will all the same take on near of the missions, and only the order is shuffled around.

8. You vs. Wild: Out Common cold

bear grylls standing triumphantly on a mountainside

This time effectually, Bear Grylls' artistic team understood the consignment! Each iteration of the You vs. Wild interactive franchise has vastly improved on the terminal, and the tertiary one is an actual survival adventure, with the viewer'southward choices actually making canonical sense. In this interactive special, Grylls wakes up after a plane crash, and he's forgotten who he is — and all of his survival skills. He has vague hunches about what he'due south supposed to do, but he asks the viewer to contribute at each step.

The initial fix of choices — seeking nutrient, water, or shelter — practice skew into the usual territory, where if you pick the wrong option, the story immediately segues into the right ane, or into endgame. But once Grylls gets his bones survival necessities, he must embark on a rescue mission. Here, the big branching pick happens: Should you expedition over the mountains, or go through some spooky tunnels? And that choice isn't the merely major i in the story. Each path offers other, smaller choices — does Behave press through his altitude sickness, or await it out? Does he mark his path with tiles or knots?

Each of these questions affects the endgame weather, and determines which extra steps you must choose to get him to safety. Grylls' acting is incredibly wooden at times, but overall, this interactive is a massive comeback over the start Yous vs. Wild experience, and information technology's an engaging play itself.

7. Puss in Volume: Trapped in an Epic Tale

puss in boots choses between pirates and evil queens

Based on the Puss in Boots animated Netflix series (which spun off from the Shrek movie franchise), Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale tosses the swashbuckling feline hero into a magical volume where a derisive narrator intends to keep him trapped then he can play out the events of diverse fairy tales. Viewers are prompted to pick which stories to play out (a Sinbad-mode pirate tale or a Snow White homage, for case) and and then command smaller choices within the story.

Puss in Books, overall, offers some branching and different endings. You can option which fairytales to play out, and you can intermission out of the book in a few different ways. Merely the all-time part of the Puss in Boots interactive special is the tone. It repeatedly breaks the fourth wall with more gusto than Blackness Mirror: Bandersnatch's sly references. Puss begs the viewer to make sure choices, while the narrator delights in torturing him, and getting the audience to participate equally well. In one branch, Puss realizes how to proceeds command of the narrative, prompting some genuinely hilarious moments every bit he wildly forces quondam opponents to sing and trip the light fantastic toe.

6. Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout

Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout follows the Flex Fighters, three high-schoolhouse students with superpowered suits, correct after their loftier-tech billionaire mentor turned on them and framed them as criminals. After a mass breakout of villains, the Flex Fighters must relieve the city and finish the real villain.

Coming into this game without heavy knowledge of the bear witness puts viewers at a disadvantage, initially, but afterwards just a few clicks, the story makes more sense. Much like with the Carmen Sandiego game, The Breakout tends to reply to "wrong" choices by pivoting you dorsum to the "correct" one. But different the Carmen Sandiego or Kimmy Schmidt special, fewer of those wrong choices stop in insta-failure. While some of the choices are inconsequential, at that place are plenty to offer singled-out branches with specific consequences. Choosing to follow lumbering villain Multi-Farious ways taking downwards a loftier-tech skyscraper, while getting Multi-Farious to follow the Flex Fighters ways a different boxing confronting an electric-powered bad guy. There are actually unlike means things can unfold — with only a few frustrating game-overs.

5. Johnny Examination's Ultimate Meatloaf Quest

johnny test and his dog stand in front of two portals. one is red. one is gold. which one will they choose?

Playing through the Johnny Test interactive adventure, I got five completely different endings before I hit a echo. That's peculiarly notable, because that a lot of the previous titles but offering alternative paths to pretty uniform endings.

Johnny Test's Ultimate Meatloaf Quest is a spinoff of the popular Cartoon Network prove Johnny Test, where a hyperactive boy named Johnny plays test subject for his genius older sisters' various scientific discipline experiments. In the Netflix Interactive, viewers have control of Johnny every bit he navigates through different realities in order to find one that has a perfect meatloaf, and then he and his genius sisters aren't doomed to eat their dad's horrible meatloaf for dinner.

The first real pick (likewise the tutorial to show off the mechanics) takes a page from The Matrix, by prompting Johnny and his dog Dukey to enter either a bluish portal or a ruby ane. Those are basically the two different story branches — i lands you in a world where dogs proceed people as pets, and the other in a reality full of monsters. Players may eventually have the option to bank check out the other path, depending on their subsequently choices. Information technology'south all pretty goofy, just with a title similar Ultimate Meatloaf Quest, that fits pretty well.

The guild you choose the portals in affects the ultimate catastrophe, and and then practise smaller choices inside the branches. Ultimate Meatloaf Quest has one of the nigh complex determination trees in Netflix Interactives and then far, plus a cutesy, entertaining little fourth-wall-breaking chemical element, as Johnny'southward sisters realize that someone out there is manipulating his decisions. There aren't any early on endgames, either!

four. Boss Baby: Get That Baby!

boss baby and his brother making a choice

Who would've idea that the Boss Baby interactive special would crack the top 5? Merely every one of these specials could larn a thing or 2 from Boss Baby: Become That Babe. Information technology'southward not that the special has more than branching paths than some of the others — it'southward that it'due south that the presentation itself makes some early on endgames actually enjoyable.

The entire setup of the Dominate Baby interactive special is that it is a training simulation, designed to see which section at Baby Corp makes the most sense for the thespian. That means even early endgames feel like successes. Three villains in the Dominate Babe universe are besides out for revenge, and you must guide the Boss Baby and his older brother to foil their schemes. No affair which villain's scheme you option, the characters showtime out in a hay bale maze. Winning or losing the maze means that the next sequence of events unfolds differently. There are articulate choices with ramifications. There are as well some puzzles to solve, some of which are pretty hard for what I assume is the young, target demographic!

Overall, Go that Infant! one of the more than engaging interactive specials, with endings that never felt similar premature pitfalls and some surprisingly funny riffs near corporate culture.

iii. Escape the Undertaker

Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston in Escape The Undertaker

Not merely are at that place multiple dissimilar endgames in Netflix'south crossover projection with World Wrestling Entertainment, those endgames are actually afflicted by viewer choices. This makes Escape the Undertaker 1 of the well-nigh robust Netflix interactives yet. For one thing, user decisions don't lead to dead ends — instead, they offer dissimilar points of view for how the story pans out. Escape the Undertaker is less about making "correct" choices, and more about exploration. The story follows iii wrestlers who trek to a spooky mansion to steal the powerful Urn from wrestler Mark William Calaway, aka The Undertaker. (In WWE lore, it's what gives him his powers.) Early on, users are prompted to pick one of the three wrestlers to follow over the others, which allows for unlike explorations of the mansion and the creepy artifacts Undertaker stores within.

The paths themselves aren't wildly different, and the story withal progresses in a pretty linear way, save for the verbal society of exploration in a few areas. Only nonetheless, the diverging branches brand this one of the all-time interactives thus far. It's also just absurd fun! The interim is stilted and cheesy, merely when you lot're trying to steal a soul-sucking urn from a retired Halloween-themed wrestler, at that place is no such affair as subtlety. It's ridiculous, and information technology'southward honestly but fun to see the different branches, because the early emphasis is on discovery, not passing or failing.

2. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

stefan, colin, and mohan look at a computer

The standalone, Emmy-winning episode of Blackness Mirror follows a young game designer assail creating an interactive game. Meta, correct? Unlike Puss in Books' approach to joyously interrogating the 4th wall, Bandersnatch does it darkly, fueled by paranoia and drugs, and commenting more on the illusion of free volition than the actual nature of the medium. But nosotros wouldn't expect anything less from Blackness Mirror.

Many choices in Bandersnatch are inconsequential, just in that location are enough big ones to sharply pin the narrative. There are also multiple different significant endings, which is rare for a Netflix interactive experience. Bandersnatch doesn't have a "practiced" catastrophe — all of them are terrible for the protagonist to some caste, which makes information technology a grim experience. But it's a more intricate one than some of the other specials.

1. Minecraft: Story Way

jesse, the main character of minecraft: story mode

Minecraft: Story Mode is the only ane of Netflix's cull-your-own-adventure stories so far that actually plays like a game and not an interactive video. Perhaps that'southward not a surprise, given that it'south a partnership betwixt Netflix and Telltale Games, and it'due south based on a game. Does that make information technology inherently better? Information technology certain makes information technology feel more interactive, similar you're really participating in the story. You aren't just guiding characters to a selection — you are in the Minecraft universe.

From the become-get, Story Mode viewers are prompted to pick between two versions of the main character, which gives the story a more game-like feel. The choices come ofttimes, and while non all of them drastically branch off into divide narratives, they customize the actual experience of the gameplay. Your character tin be squeamish to rivals, a bit of a jerk, or somewhere in between. Sometimes there are puzzle sequences to solve. Not every choice significantly affects the story, merely they all feel similar they're expanding the experience. It's closer to being a visual novel than any of the other titles.

Besides, Minecraft: Story Manner is more than robust and long, running at five nearly hourlong episodes with multiple parts. (Most of these other titles, especially the ones for kids, clock in at just over half an hour.) It's a meaty game to dig into, especially for Minecraft fans, and definitely the Netflix interactive feel that really feels the almost interactive.

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Source: https://www.polygon.com/22286070/netflix-interactive-shows-movies-ranked