Netflix may still be the first name you think of when you consider streaming a movie or TV show, but over the last several years, the streaming service has made in-roads toward gaming as well. In fact, your Netflix subscription actually gets you access to quite a few great games, with the one little caveat that you’ll have to play them on your phone or tablet.
While those might not be many people’s preferred gaming platforms, that doesn’t mean there aren’t great options for how to spend your time on Netflix before you find your next favorite show. To help you out, we put together a list of some of the best games on the platform, and we’ve split them into categories to help you know which ones are right for you:
Portability
Netflix games are only available to play on phones or tablets, which isn’t always the platform games were designed for. When picking the best games on Netflix, how they transfer over to a smaller screen or a touchscreen is vital.
Variety
Not everyone is drawn to the same kinds of games. We could fill this list with just puzzle games, or narrative-driven games, but the goal is for everyone to be able to find something they’d enjoy. So our list features titles from different genres and moods.
Fun
Yeah, everything else is important, but if the game isn’t fun, what’s the point? Each of these games come highly recommended by a staff member at Polygon.
This category is for more traditional mobile games, generally ones that have been released on app stores already. In other words, if you’re looking to supplement your other phone games with your Netflix subscription, this is the perfect category for you.
A slight remix on the classic Snake formula, Snake.io throws you into a random lobby with dozens of other players each competing to become the largest snake and eat everyone else. It’s a great time and can be surprisingly compelling, especially if you’re good enough to rule over all the tinier snakes in your lobby.
A tower-defense classic, Bloons Tower Defense 6 offers a ridiculous number of upgrades to earn and levels to play through, all in the name of stopping the nefarious balloons from reaching their destination.
A spinoff of the excellent roguelike Shovel Knight, Pocket Dungeon is a roguelike puzzle game where you have to help Shovel Knight dig his way through a variety of levels, made up of enemies and dirt, with each being equally dangerous.
These are solid games that don’t exactly feel like mobile games, but do work pretty well on the platform. They’re mostly (but not all) narrative games and make great experiences that rival some of Netflix’s best shows.
Spiritfarer is a beautiful game that has you ferrying people into the afterlife. It’s a gentle, gorgeous game where most of the gameplay is about stacking things on your boat as carefully as you can, but the touching characters are the real star of the show.
Kentucky Route Zero is a wonderful adventure game that’s more or less about the strangest road trip you’ll ever take. The game mostly follows a truck driver trying to make a delivery, but the real draw is stopping by the side of the road every now and then to have conversations with some of the most unique and fascinating characters ever created for a game.
Created by the developers of the tremendous roguelike F.T.L., Into the Breach is a fantastic turn-based strategy game about managing your army of mechs and sending them on missions. The one word of warning here is that this game is easily the most challenging of any on this list.
Make no mistake, this is a category full of good, sometimes great games… but they’re also games that we can’t give a full-throated recommendation for (mostly) because if you’re playing them through Netflix, it means you’re playing them on a mobile device, and these were games designed for other platforms. Thankfully, you can also download games whenever you want with your subscription, so you might as well give the titles on this list a shot and see if the somewhat compromised controls bother you. Or if you’ve got a controller that works with bluetooth, connect it to your phone and have a blast with these.
Netflix gives you access to Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, all good games on consoles and in their own rights, but the touchscreen controls are a big ask from these already buggy remakes. But with GTA 6 right around the corner, it’s at least a great time to jump back into the series.
A great puzzle-platformer with some fantastic gameplay and narrative twists, Braid works well enough on a phone to still make it worth experiencing.
A tough game in the best of conditions, the touchscreen controls are a little too much to ask of this 2D roguelike Metroidvania gem. That being said, if the controls work well for you, it’s one of the best games Netflix has to offer.
One of the best roguelikes of the decade, Hades’ excellent characters and art design, mixed with its inventive weapons and precise combat made it an instant classic when it came out in 2021 and it hasn’t diminished with age.
This one controls just fine, but where the tough-to-swallow bit comes in is that it’s still Football Manager. You probably already know if you’ll like this one just from the title. If you’re uncertain, maybe try managing your own football team and guiding them to a Champions League title or World Cup glory.
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